The Beatles redux?
Lennon and McCartney’s sons team up for a new song
It’s been a particularly big week for the sons of famous rock stars.
Last weekend, Jakob Nowell — son of the late Sublime frontman Bradley Nowell — stepped into his father’s shoes for a highly anticipated Sublime set at Coachella. The next day, singersongwriter YG Marley was joined by his mother, Lauryn Hill, to perform a string of ’90s classics, including “Killing Me Softly.”
But the biggest music nepo baby news is the release of “Primrose Hill,” a new song co-written by James McCartney and Sean Ono Lennon: both progeny of the Beatles.
“Today I am so very excited to share my latest song co-written by my good friend (Sean Ono Lennon),” wrote McCartney, the 46-year-old son of Paul and the late Linda McCartney, in an Instagram post that showed him with Lennon, 48, son of the late John Lennon and Yoko Ono. “With the release of this song it feels like we’re really getting the ball rolling and I am so excited to continue to share music with you.”
The song was also given a boost by the senior McCartney, who shared it on Facebook.
It goes without saying that there will be massive expectations for any song that carries the “Lennon-McCartney” songwriting credit. Fortunately, “Primrose Hill” — a warm, sentimental pop ballad featuring lush harmonies, gentle acoustic guitar and a shuffling backbeat — delivers. You might even get chills when the boys start to harmonize in the song’s second half. “Not only are they the spitting images of their Dad’s (sic),” wrote one YouTube commenter. “They harmonize like them too! So good.”
Indeed, the track feels refreshingly honest and modest in its scope, especially in the wake of the off-puttingly surreal Beatles song “Now and Then,” which was completed and released last fall with the help of artificial intelligence.
Named after a park in North London, the younger McCartney described the inspiration for the song in a post on X. “I had a vision as a child in Scotland, on what was a lovely summers (sic) day. Letting go, I saw my true love and saviour in my mind’s eye,” he wrote. “‘Primrose Hill’ is about getting the ball rolling with me & finding this person.”
“Primrose Hill,” which arrives alongside the song “Beautiful,” marks James McCartney’s first music as a solo artist since 2016. In addition to two solo studio albums and two EPs, he has also collaborated, as both a musician and a songwriter, with both his parents on their respective solo albums.
Sean Lennon is also an established musician, songwriter and producer. Since the late ’90s, he has released four solo albums, several film scores and has recorded with a number of bands.
In other Beatles news, Peter Jackson — the famed “Lord of the Rings” director and mastermind behind the acclaimed Beatles docuseries “Get Back” — recently announced that he had used digital technology to restore Michael LindsayHogg’s 1970 documentary “Let It Be,” which captures the aftermath of the band’s breakup. The film will be released on Disney Plus on May 8.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that Michael’s movie, ‘Let It Be,’ has been restored and is finally being re-released after being unavailable for decades,” Jackson said on the Beatles website.
“I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for ‘Get Back,’ and I’ve always thought that ‘Let It Be’ is needed to complete the ‘Get Back’ story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and the Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and ‘Let It Be’ is that documentary — the movie they released in 1970.
“I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades. The two projects support and enhance each other: ‘Let It Be’ is the climax of ‘Get Back,’ while ‘Get Back’ provides a vital missing context for ‘Let It Be.’ Michael LindsayHogg was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made ‘Get Back,’ and it’s only right that his original movie has the last word … looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”
And if you still need more Beatles content, mark your calendar for 2027, the year that director Sam Mendes plans to release four intersecting feature films that tell the story of each of the four members of the Beatles through each band member’s perspective.