On his 2020 album McCartney III, Paul McCartney strips things back to essentials — raw, home-recorded, and deeply personal. “Pretty Boys” is one of the album’s quiet surprises, a song that feels observational yet layered with meaning, blending Paul’s eye for detail with his gift for melody.
The track begins with a gentle acoustic guitar, steady and unhurried, setting the mood like a journal entry put to song. Paul’s voice, weathered with time yet warm with intimacy, delivers the lines with a conversational ease: “Pretty boys all in a row, lined up, waiting to go…” At first glance, it sounds like simple imagery — models, faces, fleeting beauty. But beneath the surface lies something deeper: a meditation on the way people are packaged, judged, and consumed in a world obsessed with appearances.
There’s a quiet melancholy in his delivery, as though he’s reflecting not just on “pretty boys” in fashion or fame, but on the human tendency to reduce others to surfaces. The refrain feels almost like a sigh, gently reminding us that behind every image there is longing, vulnerability, and stories unseen.
Musically, “Pretty Boys” is understated — no flashy production, no swelling orchestration. Just Paul, his guitar, and the kind of subtle layering that lets the lyric breathe. That sparseness is deliberate: it keeps the focus on the words, on the mood, on the intimacy of a man sharing his thoughts in solitude.
What makes the song so moving is how it reflects McCartney’s lifelong curiosity. Even at 78, he isn’t content to simply revisit the past; he’s still observing, still questioning, still peeling back the layers of the world around him. “Pretty Boys” may not shout for attention, but it lingers — a quiet, thoughtful track that reveals itself slowly, like a whispered truth.
In the end, “Pretty Boys” isn’t just about beauty or fame. It’s about seeing beyond what’s in front of us, about recognizing the humanity in everyone, and about the quiet wisdom that comes from looking deeper. It’s McCartney at his most subtle — not delivering a grand anthem, but offering a quiet reflection that stays with you long after the final chord fades.