Paul McCartney has told NME that he still does not know whether retirement from recording and performing is something that will ever be on the cards.

The Beatles icon released his newest solo record, "The Boys Of Dungeon Lane", on May 29. The album looks back on his childhood years in Liverpool and carries a strong sense of nostalgia throughout. Among its highlights are "Home To Us", a duet with Ringo Starr, and the emotional lead single "Days We Left Behind".

Before the album arrived, McCartney sat down with NME to reflect on both his past and future. During the conversation, he was asked whether he could ever picture himself stepping away from music completely.

"I don’t know. I never know, y’know?" he replied. "I remember when I was 50 years old, my manager at the time said, ‘Well, are you thinking of retiring?’ I went, ‘Uh, I don’t think so.’ But he obviously thought, 50… which, I get it, because we thought 30 was really old [when] we were 20. So 30 was like that’d be unseemly, but it came, and it went, and people were still playing, and audiences like the music."

He went on to say that he is aware there are fewer and fewer chances for audiences to experience music from his generation performed live by the artists who originally made it. "If the music is from that period, they don’t get to hear it live any other way, so you’ve got to hear Neil Young live to get the whole feel of Neil – the Neil feel. Same with a lot of bands – the Stones, The Eagles. There’s nothing like it."

McCartney also shared that the act of writing songs remains one of the biggest motivations in his life.

"Creative satisfaction is just writing a song – it’s still the same old satisfaction that it was," he explained. "There’s something magical about it, and I often think, ‘I never set out to be a singer-songwriter person.’ When I was at school, I thought the only thing left for me would be a teacher, because I didn’t have massive qualifications and unfortunately, that mean[t] you have to be a teacher."

"But I got in the band, and it just led me to this. So, the satisfaction is just being able to write a song and, if you pull it off, that’s the same satisfaction that it always was. Some of them you pull off better than others, but it’s still a great thing."

He added: "It’s still a great achievement to sit down with, let’s say, my guitar and there’s nothing there, and I’m just noodling around, and suddenly, maybe after three or four hours, I’ve got a song. I know how it goes, and I’ve written the lyrics down, and it’s a real achievement. That still is a magic feeling for me. I think that’s the creative buzz still, and hopefully always will be."

Elsewhere in the interview, McCartney discussed how excited he was to contribute to a new album by The Rolling Stones, saying he appreciated the fact that he had never become "blasé" about opportunities like that.

NME awarded "The Boys Of Dungeon Lane" four stars, with Jordan Bassett describing the album as "a guided tour of the long and winding road".

"Elsewhere, against all odds, given that this album arrives some 63 years after the Beatles’ debut ‘Please Please Me’, Macca actually makes history on ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’," the review states. "Remarkably, the jaunty ‘Home To Us’ is his first-ever duet with Ringo Starr, who assists him in celebrating their rough-and-tumble hometown. ‘Days We Left Behind’, though, is the album’s real tear-jerker, as Paul nods to the “secret code” he shared with John Lennon but will never reveal.

"Still, despite the absence of any real bombshells, it’s a pleasure to accompany McCartney as he gets back to where he once belonged."