Songfacts®:

• "Home To Us" is Paul McCartney's warm, nostalgic tribute to the working-class Liverpool neighborhoods where he, George Harrison and Ringo Starr grew up. McCartney told the crowd at a special listening event at Abbey Road Studios: "The three of us were raised in quite poor conditions. Even though where we lived was a little rough, it was home to us."
  
  Starr's childhood neighborhood, the Dingle, gets a particular nod. McCartney said of it: "Ringo was from the Dingle, and that was well hard. He said he used to get mugged coming home, because he worked."
  
  John Lennon, though a fellow Liverpudlian, grew up in more comfortable surroundings at his Aunt Mimi's house in Woolton, rather than in the working-class estates the other three called home.
• "Home To Us" joins a long line of McCartney songs that use Liverpool as both setting and emotional touchstone. The most famous is "Penny Lane" co-written with John Lennon, which paints a vivid, almost cinematic portrait of a real Liverpool street - the barber, the banker, the fireman - with the same warmth and eye for working-class detail. "In My Life," though largely credited to Lennon, was inspired by Lennon and McCartney reminiscing about specific Liverpool landmarks and friendships. More recently, "Early Days" (from New, 2013) revisited the pre-fame years in Liverpool much as "Home To Us" does - specifically the bond between McCartney and Lennon before the world knew who they were.
• The song began in 2024 as a jam between Ringo Starr and producer Andrew Watt at Watt's Los Angeles studio. Both are LA residents, and McCartney introduced the two, suggesting Starr drop by. Starr recalled: "I went down, and there was a kit in his studio, and he played guitar and we jammed."
  
  Starr initially wanted to use the material for his own album, Long Long Road. McCartney, who was also working with Watt, heard the drum track and thought it was "really good - very Ringo," and decided to build a song around it.
• The collaboration nearly collapsed in a fog of crossed wires and veteran-rock-star confusion. After McCartney finished the song he sent it back to Starr with a sort of musical, "Here you go, mate." When he asked Starr to sing on the demo, Ringo misunderstood and only recorded the chorus vocals. McCartney assumed this meant he disliked the song.
  
  After a phone call to clear things up, Starr returned to add more drums and sing the full song, line by line with McCartney. "We took my first line, Ringo's second line, and then we had a duet," McCartney said. "We'd never done that before."
  
  McCartney noted with a laugh: "Ringo's never done a duet with one of the Beatles." Despite decades of collaboration in The Beatles, this was the first time the two have swapped lead vocal lines as a true duet.
• McCartney recorded "Home To Us" for his album The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The track was written and produced by McCartney, with co-production by Andrew Watt. Much like his stripped-back 1970 debut McCartney, the sessions were largely self-performed, with Paul handling most of the instruments himself. "Home To Us" stands apart as the only track on the album featuring a guest drummer, with Starr contributing drums and co-lead vocals.
• For backing vocals, McCartney wanted a female presence on the track. "I had the idea it would be nice to hear girls," he said. "Chrissie Hynde said she'd do it, and Sharleen Spiteri - they're mates. So they did it."
  
  Chrissie Hynde is the frontwoman of The Pretenders, and Sharleen Spiteri is the Scottish singer-songwriter who fronts the band Texas.
• "Home To Us" is the 10th track on The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Described by McCartney as his "most introspective album to date," the record revisits his Liverpool coming-of-age alongside his late bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison. "Home To Us" is the most Beatles-esque track on the album, featuring tempo shifts, key changes and layered harmonies.
• Released as the album's second single, the song continues the album's working-class Liverpool thread that started with lead single "Days We Left Behind," which recalls "smoky bars and cheap guitars" and the boys of Dungeon Lane heading down to the Mersey shore.