III

Paul McCartney has spoken about his new album "McCartney III", calling it “quite liberating” to work on. The record is the 3rd in a trilogy of solo albums from the Beatles star, following 1970’s "McCartney" and 1980’s "McCartney II".

The musician began work on the album in lockdown at his studio in Sussex and is set to share it with his fans on December 11th, 2020. In a Q&A on his official website, he discussed how he came to begin putting together the album.

“Well, I’m always writing”, he said. “It’s like my hobby. I had a couple of things that were new, that I’d just done, and during lockdown you were asked to stay at home, or go to work only if it couldn’t be done from home. The thing that I couldn’t get done from home was making a record, unless I was going to do the bedroom thing, which I haven’t really got set up".

“This meant I was able to go into the studio. I had to finish an intro and outro for a short animated film and I got into it. Then I thought, ‘Well, you know what? I’m enjoying this’, so then I looked at the latest song I’d written and did that”.

He continued to explain that he began finishing on songs that he had half worked on or never worked on but written a year or so ago. “I enjoyed going back to them because it wasn’t for anything”, he said.

“It felt homemade, you know. For example, if you’re making a painting that’s going to go on the front of the Town Hall, it’s very significant, but if you’re making a painting just for your own little bedroom, you don’t worry so much, and that can be very liberating. It was quite liberating doing these songs”.

McCartney announced the album following a series of visual teaser clues. A press release explained that, while he hadn’t initially planned to release an album this year, in the isolation of ‘Rockdown’ he soon found himself fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating even more new ones.