Sir Paul McCartney to release lockdown album as third part of solo trilogy

Sir Paul McCartney will release the third part of his trilogy of self-titled solo albums later this year after working on new music in lockdown.

McCartney III, which will be released on December 11, will follow on from 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II.

The album, written, performed and produced by the Beatle, will coincide with the 50th anniversary of his first self-titled solo endeavour, which featured Maybe I’m Amazed, Every Night and The Lovely Linda.

Sir Paul has said he had not planned to release an album in 2020 but during lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, he started fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating more new ones to create the stripped-back, self-produced solo work.

The album, recorded earlier this year in Sussex, is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, before overdubbing his bass playing and drumming.

The process began when he returned to an unreleased track from the early 1990s, When Winter Comes, which was co-produced by George Martin.

He crafted a new passage for the song, giving rise to album opener Long Tailed Winter Bird, while When Winter Comes, featuring new intro Winter Bird, is the album’s finale.

Sir Paul said: “I was living lockdown life on my farm with my family and I would go to my studio every day.

“I had to do a little bit of work on some film music and that turned into the opening track and then when it was done I thought ‘what will I do next?’.

“I had some stuff I’d worked on over the years but sometimes time would run out and it would be left half-finished so I started thinking about what I had.

“Each day I’d start recording with the instrument I wrote the song on and then gradually layer it all up, it was a lot of fun.

“It was about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job. So, I just did stuff I fancied doing. I had no idea this would end up as an album.”

The photographs for McCartney and McCartney II were taken by Sir Paul’s late wife Linda, while the photos for III were shot by their daughter, the photographer Mary McCartney, with additional photography by his nephew Sonny McCartney, as well as photos Sir Paul took on his phone.

McCartney III will be released on December 11 on Capitol Records.