In the skies, the skylarks rise
Above the sounds of war.
Since that day, I knew they’d stay with me for ever more.
Paul McCartney reveals with his latest album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, that he has had a lifetime interest in birds. In fact, it is not commonly known that the former Beatle could be described as a “twitcher”.
While on his frequent tours, including those to Australia, he takes his binoculars with him and goes birding while killing time before appearing on stage during the evening.
The title of the new album refers to one of his schoolboy birding haunts, Dungeon Lane, which leads down to the shore of the Mersey River near Paul’s childhood home in Liverpool. The marshland and shoreline there is still rich in birds, particularly shorebirds which probe the mud at low tide for a meal of marine invertebrates.
Along with the unashamed nostalgia presented in the album is a wistful track, Days We Left Behind, which evokes memories of his visits to what is now a nature reserve with another Beatle, George Harrison, and other schoolboy friends.
Days We Left Behind is a rather sad song, evoking the Second World War during which Liverpool suffered bombardment in the Nazi’s Blitzkrieg campaign of aerial bombing.
Born in 1942, just three years into the war, Paul might not have vivid memories of the actual conflict but certainly the aftermath, during which Liverpool was still counting the loss of life and destruction, would have left scars, as it did with all those born in the 1940s and 1950s. But it was a time for bonding and healing, and it appears the music of birds eased these troubled times.
I was one of the Swinging Generation of the 1960s, but never got to see the Beatles as a group. I had to wait until 2017 to see Paul in concert, in Melbourne.
I knew Paul had an interest in birds and was particularly keen to hear his 1968 song Blackbird, believing erroneously it was inspired by the British bird of the same name, which incidentally has a beautiful song.
Introducing the number on the night, the ex-Beatle set me right. The tune was in fact inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States, with the line “you were only waiting for the moment to arrive” being symbolic of the Afro-American struggle.
There are four other examples of Paul weaving birdwatching into the fabric of his music – Bluebird, Jenny Wren, Single Pigeon and Long-tailed Winter Bird.
I’m making a trip to Britain, and as part of the holiday I’m joining my son, who now lives in London, on the Magical Mystery Tour around the Beatle sites in Liverpool. Although not part of the official Beatle-fan tour, I may well make a detour down Dungeon Lane to hear the skylarks, linnets and goldfinches still in song.