Momma Gets By

Written by: McCartney
Producers: Paul McCartney, Andrew Watt

Released: 29 May 2026

Available on:
The Boys Of Dungeon Lane

Personnel

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano

‘Momma Gets By’ is the final song on Paul McCartney’s 19th solo album The Boys Of Dungeon Lane.

There’s a song, ‘Momma Gets By’, towards the end of the album. That’s just a flight of fantasy. I’m imagining this woman faced with this guy who seems a bit lazy. I’m making up two characters in a play. I’m messing around with them and thinking, Well, what was she thinking? Why does she think that? It just turned into that song. You take bits of yourself, bits of the life you know, and that’s what’s interesting to me as a writer – writing about what is or what was or what could be.

The arrangement was by Ben Foster and Giles Martin, with the session musicians directed by Foster.

Sometimes in writing a song, you don’t draw on memories or or anything in particular except just you’re making up a story. Like ‘Lady Madonna’, it’s about not particularly people I know.

The mother is like the strong one and the father is a bit of a wastrel… It’s actually written from the point of view of their kid, [but] it’s nothing to do with my parents, honestly. It’s a little story I always had in my mind, like ‘Porgy and Bess’.