Paul McCartney in nostalgic mood on new album
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A reflective Paul McCartney, currently embroiled in a bitter divorce battle, retreats to a simpler time of childhood games and early Beatles gigs on his new album, "Memory Almost Full."
The album, his first since 2005's Grammy-nominated "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," is due for worldwide release in the week beginning June 4; he turns 65 on June 18.
"In places it's a very personal record, and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone," McCartney said in a statement. "The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can't really sum it up in one sentence."
McCartney pondered the past in such Beatles tunes as "Penny Lane" and "Eleanor Rigby," and returns to similar territory in such new songs as "That Was Me," in which he recalls "playing conkers at the bus stop" and "Merseybeatin' with the band."
But tunes such as "My Ever Present Past" and "Vintage Clothes" warn against spending too much time looking back.
Fans looking for commentary on McCartney's highly publicized and increasingly nasty divorce from Heather Mills might find a conciliatory line in the song "Gratitude," in which he sings, "I should stop loving you, think what you put me through, but I don't want to lock my heart away."
A spokesman said he did not know if this lyric was directed at Mills, who separated from McCartney last year and has been portrayed in Britain's tabloid newspapers as gold-digger seeking to cash in on the beloved former Beatle's fortune.
In his statement, McCartney noted, "I know people are going to look at some of the songs and interpret them in different ways, but this has always been the case."
"Memory Almost Full" marks his first release for coffee retailer Starbucks Corp.'s nascent Hear Music label, following a career spent mostly at EMI Group Plc.
Reuters/Nielsen
