Paul McCartney unveils two new singles 'I Don't Know' and 'Come On To Me': Listen
Paul McCartney has just released a double A-side single with two new songs, 'I Don’t Know,' and 'Come On To Me'. The songs arrive just after the announcement of McCartney's seventeenth studio album, set to come out this fall.
The album is called 'Egypt Station' (also the title of one of McCartney’s paintings) and is scheduled for a September 7 release via Capitol Records. All but one track of the 14-track effort is reportedly produced by Greg Kurstin, with OneRepublic‘s Ryan Tedder making a cameo for one track.
Talking about the album, McCartney said in a press statement: “I liked the words ‘Egypt Station.’ It reminded me of the ‘album’ albums we used to make. 'Egypt Station' starts off at the station on the first song and then each song is like a different station. So it gave us some idea to base all the songs around that. I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from.”
'I Don’t Know' is described by “a plaintive, soul-soothing ballad as only Paul can deliver,” according to a press release. In stark contrast, the other single, 'Come On To Me', is “a raucous stomper that fans that first spark of chemistry into a rocking blaze.”
In addition to 'I Don’t Know' and 'Come On To Me,' which McCartney also debuted live earlier this month in a surprise performance at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Pub, the album will feature opening and closing instrumentals 'Station I' and 'Station II.'
More previews might follow, but all we can go by till then is a few snippets of description rolled out through a press release. Per the release, a song called 'Happy With You' is “an acoustic meditation on present-day contentedness,” whereas another track 'People Want Peace' has been described as “a timeless anthem that would fit on virtually any album of any McCartney era,”. Also detailed is a track titled 'Despite Repeated Warnings', which is “an epic multi-movement closer clocking in at seven minutes with a song suite structure harkening back to the days of Paul’s previous combos.”
The upcoming album will be McCartney’s 17th solo studio record and the first full-length effort in five years. It's a follow-up to his 2013 studio-album, 'New,' which as the title suggests, marked a complete change in direction for the former Beatle. After a run of records inspired by standards and singer-songwriters, 'New' did a complete left turn, drowned full of modern pop sounds. Sir Paul took it up another notch in 2015 when he teamed up with Kanye West and Rihanna on the single 'FourFiveSeconds.'
The new singles' artwork includes vintage travel tickets, passport stickers and illustrations of sand, sky and railroads, something that's also reflected in the lyric videos as well. McCartney's social media posts from June 18 have also been echoing similarly themed imagery, so it looks like travel will be a strong motif throughout the new album.