Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)” is a song by the British–American rock band Paul McCartney and Wings, released on their 1973 album Band on the Run. The longest track on the album, it was not released as a single. The song includes interpolations of “Jet” and “Mrs. Vandebilt,” the second and fourth tracks on the album, respectively. Wings band member Denny Laine covered “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)” in 2007 on his album Performs the Hits of Wings. An abbreviated performance of the song appears on the live album Wings over America.

Writing

In an interview on British TV channel ITV1 for the program Wings: Band on the Run, to promote the November 2010 2xCD/2xDVD rerelease of the original album, 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”, so 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.” McCartney created a demo of the song and lyrics on the spot, prompting Hoffman to exclaim to his wife: “…look, he’s doing it… he’s doing it!”

Recording

While recording Band on the Run in Lagos, Nigeria, Wings were invited to former Cream drummer Ginger Baker’s ARC Studios in the nearby suburb of Ikeja. While Baker insisted to McCartney that they should record the entire album there, McCartney was reluctant and agreed he would spend one day there. “Picasso’s Last Words” was recorded during that time and Baker contributed by playing a tin can full of gravel. […]

We met Dustin Hoffman when we were in Jamaica – and went to have dinner with him one night. We were talking about songwriting… and he pulled out a copy of Time magazine. He said ‘Here’s a piece that I thought was really lyrical’. It was the story of how Picasso had toasted his friends one night saying how he couldn’t drink any more – and the next morning he was dead.

So I plonked a few chords and out came the song – Dustin was very excited about it. When we came to record it at Ginger Baker’s studio the idea was to fragment it, make it sort of cubist. It’s very disjointed, but that’s the way it’s meant to be, folks!

Paul McCartney – From interview with Disc Magazine, 1973

From YouTube:

Taken from a sound effects tape compiled by Theatre Projects Sound Limited of London for Paul McCartney and Wings’ album Band On The Run, in October 1973, we present for the very first time the full original French broadcast as used in the song “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me).” This spoken word recording was originally made for the 1970s BBC French Language Service program, “Le Flash Touristique.”

Last updated on February 25, 2023

Lyrics