Pablo Picasso’s last words to his friends are supposed to have been ‘Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink anymore.”
I was listening this past week to an episode of the podcast A Life in Lyrics which are conversations between Paul McCartney and poet Paul Muldoon about McCartney’s songwriting. They collaborated before this on the book The Lyrics: 1965 to Present about that topic.
The episode was about an odd mishmash of a song on Paul McCartney and Wings’ 1973 album Band On The Run, titled “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me).”
I say “mishmash” because the song includes some spoken word and interpolations of two other tracks also on the album, “Jet” and “Mrs. Vandebilt.”
McCartney says he was on vacation in Montego Bay, Jamaica where he “snuck” onto the set of the film Papillon where he met Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen. After a dinner with Hoffman, with McCartney playing around on guitar, Hoffman did not believe that McCartney could write a song “about anything.” Hoffman pulled out a magazine where they saw the story of the death of Pablo Picasso and his famous last words, “Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore” and challenged Paul to write a song about that on the spot.
The grand old painter died last night
His paintings on the wall
Before he went he bade us well
And said goodnight to us all
Drink to me, drink to my health
You know I can’t drink any more
While recording Band on the Run in Lagos, Nigeria, Wings were invited to former Cream drummer Ginger Baker’s nearby ARC Studios. “Picasso’s Last Words” was recorded there with Baker contributing percussion using a tin can full of gravel. The song was remastered in 2010.
Weekends in Paradelle 