Paul McCartney and family on holiday in Jamaica

THERE’S still a chance that the Beatles will play together again, Paul McCartney said yesterday. ” Providing everything was all right and planned properly, I can’t think of any reason why they shouldn’t,” he said. Paul, who split with the rest of the group three years ago, was talking at London’s Heathrow Airport before flying with his family to the West Indies for a holiday. He’s pictured with his wife Linda, her daughter Heather, 10, by a previous marriage, and their daughters, one-year-old Stella, and Mary, 3.

“Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)“, released on the 1973 album “Band On The Run“, was written during those days in Jamaica.

On one of our Jamaican holidays we had heard that Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen were around, shooting the film Papillon. We were invited to visit the set and Dustin asked us back to his house for dinner. He was asking me how I write songs; I explained that I just make them up. He said, Can you make up a song about anything?’ I wasn’t sure, but he pulled out a copy of Time, pointed to an article and said, ‘Could you write a song about this? It was a quote from Picasso, from the last night of his life. Apparently, he had said to his friends, ‘Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink anymore,’ and then gone to bed and died in his sleep. So I picked up a guitar, started to strum and sing ‘Drink to me, drink to my health…’, and Dustin was shouting to his wife, ‘He’s doing it! He’s doing it! Come and listen!’ It’s something that comes naturally to me but he was blown away by it. And that song became Picasso’s Last Words.

Paul McCartney – From “Wingspan – An Intimate Portrait“, 2001

Going further

The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of interviews, extensive ground up research, and thousands of never-before-seen documents THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1 is an in depth, revealing exploration of McCartney’s creative and personal lives beyond the Beatles.

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The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001

An updated edition of the best-seller. The story of what happened to the band members, their families and friends after the 1970 break-up is brought right up to date. A fascinating and meticulous piece of Beatles scholarship.

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