February 28, 2024 • 23 mins
“Drink to me, drink to my health” were among the last words spoken by the great Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. On somewhat of a lark, Dustin Hoffman challenged Paul McCartney to use those words to write a song – on the spot. McCartney indulged Hoffman and, without hesitation, an early version of “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)” poured out of him.
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with assistance from Jake Gorski and sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
The Castle's last words, Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Was a dare.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Justin Hoffmann said to me, can you write a song
about anything? I said, Wow, I don't know. Maybe you know,
He said, just a minute, and he ran upstairs. He
came back down with the newspaper article about the depth
(01:22):
of Picastle, and he said, see what Pocasta's last words were.
His last words to his friends were, drink to me.
Drink to my health. You know I can't drink anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
You drink to me.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Dream do my health.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
You know I can't dream any move.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm Paul Wildon for a while now, I've been fortunate
to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
the era.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music. In this episode Picasso's last words
drink to Me. McCartney met Dustin Hoffman on a nineteen
(02:49):
seventy three trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica, where Hoffman and
Steve McQueen were filming the historical prison drama Papillon. Hoffman
had invited Paul and his wife Linda to his home
for a dinner party, and after dinner, the actor issued
the song a musical challenge. He read them an article
(03:12):
that had been published in Time magazine earlier that year.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Right up to the end, picquetulst no Time. The day
before he died, I had been a day like many
others at Notre Dame de vill his Hiltop villa at
Mouja on the French Revivia. Late in the afternoon, the
artist had taken a walk in the little part that
surrounds his sprawling stonehouse, overlooking the reddish foothills of the
(03:38):
Maritime Apps.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It was Adare. Hoffman wanted to know if the legendary
musician really could make music from anything.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So he could write a song about that.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
I did happen to have my guitar with me, so
I accord and started singing a melody to those words.
And he was FLABBERGASTU his then wife, He's not with
her anymore any I think it was.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Annie, Annie, come here? Can we listen to this? Listen, listen,
look at this.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I just came.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
He's got the song Brandoater bad less night.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
He's painting.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
Later that evening, Piso and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends
for dinner. Pikasu was in high spirit.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
He bad us well, said night to us.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Drinking, drinking my health, he urged, drinking, drink, you know
I can't drink anymore, drink more. At eleven thirty, he
rose from the table and announced, and now I'm let's
go back to work.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
You know what dream any.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
In an interview, Hoffman recounted what it was like to
see McCartney write the song before his eyes.
Speaker 8 (05:18):
I swear by all that's holy that he began singing
this song of the story that I had just told
him about Picasso. It just came out of him. Drink
to me, drink too, my health. You know I can't
drink anymore three o'clock in the morning. It's right under
(05:43):
childbirth in terms of great events of my life. I mean,
I was at the birth of something. The fact is
that he didn't come back the next day. He didn't
even start fiddling around. It was literally immediate I finished
the story and he strummed his guitar.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
It was a sort of you know, can you write this?
It was almost he set me a little task.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
And I like the words.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
So then I thought, well, I've got to kind of
set it up. The grand old painter tired last night.
His paintings on the wall four wenty bad us well
and say good night to us all.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So then that's his this quote.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
May I just say something about that we're talking about
drama earlier on. You know, the fact that the speaker
of the song yeah is in the scene is very important.
R Yeah, because he bad us, well, it's not he
bad them well, he bad us well. And when it's
(06:53):
us well. The beauty of that is I suppose that
not only is the speaker involved, but they bring in
the listener, so we're all there immediately.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I hadn't thought of it like that, but that's true. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
In recent weeks he had been working especially hard preparing
for a big show of his latest paintings at the
Book's Palace in May. On this night, before he went
to bed, he painted until three am.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Three coup in mine.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
I'm getting very bad.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I suppose that one could set one could musicalize quote
unquote any sentence any English language. Maybe not any, but many.
I mean, the language has its own intrinsic musicality. I
suppose how often quote yes, how often does the rhythm
(07:52):
of the words themselves influence how the let's call it
the melody might turn out all the time, all.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
The time, all the time. You want to get something
that rolls along naturally and that's interesting at the same time,
but that fits with the music you're hearing with it.
So sometimes you have to alter a word because it
(08:32):
just doesn't quite work with them either. So you look
for something that says the same thing, but just it's
an alternate word. Maybe it's now it's a two syllable
word instead of the one syllable word. That didn't work
all the other way around. But I'll be waiting for you, waiting,
I'll be waiting for you there. So, yeah, it's very
(08:57):
important that the rhythm sounds natural.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
When it isn't, it can sticks out of the sort
of thumb. I know how.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Paul McCartney took inspiration from everywhere. Talking to him that day,
I remembered a poem by the seventeenth century poet Ben Johnson.
It had been covered by Johnny Cash, Drink to.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Me only with thine eyes and I will play with my.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Would you have been conscious of Ben Johnson's or some
version of Ben Johnson's song Drink to me only with
thine eyes or whatever it is? Yes, ancient, yes, ancient,
drink to me.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I will drink too.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard it.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I mean, yeah, I didn't think of that, because the
whole thought here was just the challenge of doing it
for Dustan, you know. So I was just concentrated on
the words he stuck in front of me, And I
(10:21):
think what was nice was that he obviously seeing it,
stroke heard it as melodic.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So he recognized that probably had possibility.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, he recognized the I think, don't you if you
think about it. You know he's an actor anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Well, that's right, he's a singer, really. I mean, he's
a vocalist, vocal rhythm of words.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
And I think when he read the quote, most people
would probably think, wow, so that's what he said. But
I think Dustin, I'm guessing here, but I would guess
that he would think, oh no, this flows beautifully.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Drink to me, drink to my health. You know, I
can't drink any more. Pump pa pump pump pumpo.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
You know there's like a nice little mathematical equation. Well so, yeah,
so it was a pleasure. It was a great pleasure
to do it, just to shut.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
Off dem any more.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Dustin Hoffman remembered reading the article about because those last
words and talking with Paul McCartney about the famous pinter.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
And I was so struck by that sentence that I thought, well,
he must mean that he can't drink anymore because he
doesn't want to get too high, because he has to
go back and work. And in some strange way, you know,
I can't drink anymore, also means it's the last time
I'm going to be doing this with my friends, because
(12:07):
I'm going to dine in a few hours many more.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I like that that it was probably just something ordinary
that was said earnestly, you know, farewell to his friends. Well,
it becomes his last words. Then it becomes a quote
in an article. Then Dustin reads it and makes it
(12:42):
more than a quote, and it suggests it's a poem,
it's a lyric, and he shows it to me, and
I agree with his suggestion, and I for music to it.
So it's a nice little way for things to happen.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Because the song starts with the story of Picasso's last words,
but after a minute or two it splinters into a montage.
Among other things, there's a clip from an advertisement for
a French tourism service offering French language programs and farm
(13:23):
houses available for visitors to rent. Picasso lived much of
his life in France, but it's not immediately obvious what
(13:44):
the connection is in the song. Why does the song
move into such abstraction. One might wager that it was
a pinterly choice by McCartney. He himself is a photographer
and pinter, and he's learned a thing or two about
abstract art from other practitioners, especially the Dutch American expressionist Vielanning.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
When I started painting for years before, I'd had this
idea that it must be meaningful, the painting. It just
had to have some significance, some significant meaning, and it
stopped me completely.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I could never paint.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I'm going, what significant idea am I coming up with?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
I'm looking at the garden that's lovely, but it's not
really significant.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
So it stopped me, stopped me stopping.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Then I met to Cooning and I asked him about
what one of his paintings was and he said, I
don't know. It looks like a cut hut. And I
just thought Jesus, and it blew my mind open. In
this context and in the song context, this idea of
it not having to mean something is quite liberating.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
HM.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
We can hear this liberation in the second half of
Picasso's Last Words. The song departs from its initial subject,
veering into samples from other songs on the album Band
on the Run. The first is from wings hit single.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Jet When did you know or did you ever know?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
That Jet?
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Was going to be an it when it came to
Jet or Ban on the Road, I had those of
tricks that I could use that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
One of the tricks with Jet is shouting.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That works.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
It's always a good opener for any song. Choose a word,
you know, run, I'm going, You've got to you better
get out of here.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Run. It works. It's the shouting.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It's funny you should say that now, because I was
reading a review yesterday, I think of a new translation
of BeO Wolf and the first word of BeO Wolf
is something like what what? And they think, you know,
there are various ideas that's what that means.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
But yet it's yet.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No, seriously that it was meant to represent. I think
at some level the first strum on the lyre from
the poet kicking off, but it's not a similar idea.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Jet was actually the name of a pony we had, yes,
a little little Shetland pony we had for the kids, Jim.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Jim.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The other sample is in the outro, which borrows from
Missus Vanderbilt, that upbeat track from Band on the Run
about McCartney's rejection of an aristocratic lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
We used to get asked when we're first in the Beatles.
Are you worried that you've joined the established? But we
didn't know. We thought it was a club, which it
was in London. I mean we didn't really know what
they meant. And we knew what they meant were you've
gone a bit society.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah you weren't a desperate at or yeah you know
that's right.
Speaker 9 (18:25):
And it was like, na, we're not, we're not. We
know a few posh people yet. But to me that
missus Vanderbilt embodied richness and she was a famous like Rockefeller.
If you needed to refer, you know, quiz programs and
give me five rich people's names, it would have been Nabelt, Rockefeller, Getty.
(18:52):
You know, there's certain ones you just know because they're
in the newspapers. So that was what she was.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
And my idea is it's again, it's the same throwing over.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Of the rules. I don't want that.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
I know it's money, it's rich andary, but what comes
with it is bothersome.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
H The connection between Picasso's Dying Words, a French tourism manual,
(19:54):
a character based on a Shetland pony, and an American
aristocrat is not particularly clear beyond the context of the music,
the meaning is slippery, so.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
They're bits from other songs. Has the notion of all
songs being one song all songs? Yeah, Well, I'm prompted
partly because in the literary sphere is strictly literary sphere.
One of Stevens thinks of his poems as being one poem,
(20:27):
the whole of harmonium. He calls it. It's all one thing.
It's he spent his whole life writing one big phone.
I mean, obviously they're discreet there by severate things, But
I mean, does it mean anything to you at all
that Stevens might have thought in those terms that you're
doing one song? Your life is about writing one song?
(20:48):
Or is that just too crazy and fanciful?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
But you know, as a bit of a stretch for me,
because my stuff quite varied, and I think that kind
of suggests it isn't one song.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Right, It's a lot, right, a lot of them.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
They don't neatly fit together, you know. If you've got
something like High Eye High next to Alan, it's quite
a difference.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Like many songs in McCartney's catalog, Picasso's Last Words doesn't
strive for cohesion. It brings together fragments to juxtapose them.
The edges between the samples are sharp. It's a form
of musical cubism, the very style that Picasso pioneered.
Speaker 7 (22:09):
Hell Hell, Hell.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Picasso's last words drink to Me from Wings album Band
on the Run, released in nineteen seventy three. In the
next episode, Love.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
I was being accused of just writing silly love songs
and was in danger of starting to buy into this
idea that you should just be a bit tougher and
a bit more worldly. But then ask me realized that's
(23:01):
exactly what love is.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
It's worldly, a polemical love song to the skeptics. That's
next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A
Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia NPL
(23:25):
and Pushkin Industries.
Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and
Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
(00:35):
Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,
pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
The Castle's last words, Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Was a dare.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Justin Hoffmann said to me, can you write a song
about anything? I said, Wow, I don't know. Maybe you know,
He said, just a minute, and he ran upstairs. He
came back down with the newspaper article about the depth
(01:22):
of Picastle, and he said, see what Pocasta's last words were.
His last words to his friends were, drink to me.
Drink to my health. You know I can't drink anymore.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
You drink to me.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Dream do my health.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
You know I can't dream any move.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm Paul Wildon for a while now, I've been fortunate
to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters of
the era.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
It was like going back to an old snapshot album
looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music. In this episode Picasso's last words
drink to Me. McCartney met Dustin Hoffman on a nineteen
(02:49):
seventy three trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica, where Hoffman and
Steve McQueen were filming the historical prison drama Papillon. Hoffman
had invited Paul and his wife Linda to his home
for a dinner party, and after dinner, the actor issued
the song a musical challenge. He read them an article
(03:12):
that had been published in Time magazine earlier that year.
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Right up to the end, picquetulst no Time. The day
before he died, I had been a day like many
others at Notre Dame de vill his Hiltop villa at
Mouja on the French Revivia. Late in the afternoon, the
artist had taken a walk in the little part that
surrounds his sprawling stonehouse, overlooking the reddish foothills of the
(03:38):
Maritime Apps.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It was Adare. Hoffman wanted to know if the legendary
musician really could make music from anything.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So he could write a song about that.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
I did happen to have my guitar with me, so
I accord and started singing a melody to those words.
And he was FLABBERGASTU his then wife, He's not with
her anymore any I think it was.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Annie, Annie, come here? Can we listen to this? Listen, listen,
look at this.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I just came.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
He's got the song Brandoater bad less night.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
He's painting.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
Later that evening, Piso and his wife Jacqueline entertained friends
for dinner. Pikasu was in high spirit.
Speaker 7 (04:40):
He bad us well, said night to us.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
Drinking, drinking my health, he urged, drinking, drink, you know
I can't drink anymore, drink more. At eleven thirty, he
rose from the table and announced, and now I'm let's
go back to work.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
You know what dream any.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
In an interview, Hoffman recounted what it was like to
see McCartney write the song before his eyes.
Speaker 8 (05:18):
I swear by all that's holy that he began singing
this song of the story that I had just told
him about Picasso. It just came out of him. Drink
to me, drink too, my health. You know I can't
drink anymore three o'clock in the morning. It's right under
(05:43):
childbirth in terms of great events of my life. I mean,
I was at the birth of something. The fact is
that he didn't come back the next day. He didn't
even start fiddling around. It was literally immediate I finished
the story and he strummed his guitar.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
It was a sort of you know, can you write this?
It was almost he set me a little task.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
And I like the words.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
So then I thought, well, I've got to kind of
set it up. The grand old painter tired last night.
His paintings on the wall four wenty bad us well
and say good night to us all.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So then that's his this quote.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
May I just say something about that we're talking about
drama earlier on. You know, the fact that the speaker
of the song yeah is in the scene is very important.
R Yeah, because he bad us, well, it's not he
bad them well, he bad us well. And when it's
(06:53):
us well. The beauty of that is I suppose that
not only is the speaker involved, but they bring in
the listener, so we're all there immediately.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I hadn't thought of it like that, but that's true. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
In recent weeks he had been working especially hard preparing
for a big show of his latest paintings at the
Book's Palace in May. On this night, before he went
to bed, he painted until three am.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
Three coup in mine.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
I'm getting very bad.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I suppose that one could set one could musicalize quote
unquote any sentence any English language. Maybe not any, but many.
I mean, the language has its own intrinsic musicality. I
suppose how often quote yes, how often does the rhythm
(07:52):
of the words themselves influence how the let's call it
the melody might turn out all the time, all.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
The time, all the time. You want to get something
that rolls along naturally and that's interesting at the same time,
but that fits with the music you're hearing with it.
So sometimes you have to alter a word because it
(08:32):
just doesn't quite work with them either. So you look
for something that says the same thing, but just it's
an alternate word. Maybe it's now it's a two syllable
word instead of the one syllable word. That didn't work
all the other way around. But I'll be waiting for you, waiting,
I'll be waiting for you there. So, yeah, it's very
(08:57):
important that the rhythm sounds natural.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
When it isn't, it can sticks out of the sort
of thumb. I know how.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Paul McCartney took inspiration from everywhere. Talking to him that day,
I remembered a poem by the seventeenth century poet Ben Johnson.
It had been covered by Johnny Cash, Drink to.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Me only with thine eyes and I will play with my.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Would you have been conscious of Ben Johnson's or some
version of Ben Johnson's song Drink to me only with
thine eyes or whatever it is? Yes, ancient, yes, ancient,
drink to me.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I will drink too.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, I've heard it.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
I mean, yeah, I didn't think of that, because the
whole thought here was just the challenge of doing it
for Dustan, you know. So I was just concentrated on
the words he stuck in front of me, And I
(10:21):
think what was nice was that he obviously seeing it,
stroke heard it as melodic.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So he recognized that probably had possibility.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Yeah, he recognized the I think, don't you if you
think about it. You know he's an actor anyway.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Well, that's right, he's a singer, really. I mean, he's
a vocalist, vocal rhythm of words.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
And I think when he read the quote, most people
would probably think, wow, so that's what he said. But
I think Dustin, I'm guessing here, but I would guess
that he would think, oh no, this flows beautifully.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Drink to me, drink to my health. You know, I
can't drink any more. Pump pa pump pump pumpo.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
You know there's like a nice little mathematical equation. Well so, yeah,
so it was a pleasure. It was a great pleasure
to do it, just to shut.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
Off dem any more.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Dustin Hoffman remembered reading the article about because those last
words and talking with Paul McCartney about the famous pinter.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
And I was so struck by that sentence that I thought, well,
he must mean that he can't drink anymore because he
doesn't want to get too high, because he has to
go back and work. And in some strange way, you know,
I can't drink anymore, also means it's the last time
I'm going to be doing this with my friends, because
(12:07):
I'm going to dine in a few hours many more.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I like that that it was probably just something ordinary
that was said earnestly, you know, farewell to his friends. Well,
it becomes his last words. Then it becomes a quote
in an article. Then Dustin reads it and makes it
(12:42):
more than a quote, and it suggests it's a poem,
it's a lyric, and he shows it to me, and
I agree with his suggestion, and I for music to it.
So it's a nice little way for things to happen.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Because the song starts with the story of Picasso's last words,
but after a minute or two it splinters into a montage.
Among other things, there's a clip from an advertisement for
a French tourism service offering French language programs and farm
(13:23):
houses available for visitors to rent. Picasso lived much of
his life in France, but it's not immediately obvious what
(13:44):
the connection is in the song. Why does the song
move into such abstraction. One might wager that it was
a pinterly choice by McCartney. He himself is a photographer
and pinter, and he's learned a thing or two about
abstract art from other practitioners, especially the Dutch American expressionist Vielanning.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
When I started painting for years before, I'd had this
idea that it must be meaningful, the painting. It just
had to have some significance, some significant meaning, and it
stopped me completely.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I could never paint.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I'm going, what significant idea am I coming up with?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
I'm looking at the garden that's lovely, but it's not
really significant.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
So it stopped me, stopped me stopping.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Then I met to Cooning and I asked him about
what one of his paintings was and he said, I
don't know. It looks like a cut hut. And I
just thought Jesus, and it blew my mind open. In
this context and in the song context, this idea of
it not having to mean something is quite liberating.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
HM.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
We can hear this liberation in the second half of
Picasso's Last Words. The song departs from its initial subject,
veering into samples from other songs on the album Band
on the Run. The first is from wings hit single.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Jet When did you know or did you ever know?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
That Jet?
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Was going to be an it when it came to
Jet or Ban on the Road, I had those of
tricks that I could use that.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
One of the tricks with Jet is shouting.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
That works.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
It's always a good opener for any song. Choose a word,
you know, run, I'm going, You've got to you better
get out of here.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Run. It works. It's the shouting.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It's funny you should say that now, because I was
reading a review yesterday, I think of a new translation
of BeO Wolf and the first word of BeO Wolf
is something like what what? And they think, you know,
there are various ideas that's what that means.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
But yet it's yet.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
No, seriously that it was meant to represent. I think
at some level the first strum on the lyre from
the poet kicking off, but it's not a similar idea.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Jet was actually the name of a pony we had, yes,
a little little Shetland pony we had for the kids, Jim.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Jim.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The other sample is in the outro, which borrows from
Missus Vanderbilt, that upbeat track from Band on the Run
about McCartney's rejection of an aristocratic lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
We used to get asked when we're first in the Beatles.
Are you worried that you've joined the established? But we
didn't know. We thought it was a club, which it
was in London. I mean we didn't really know what
they meant. And we knew what they meant were you've
gone a bit society.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah you weren't a desperate at or yeah you know
that's right.
Speaker 9 (18:25):
And it was like, na, we're not, we're not. We
know a few posh people yet. But to me that
missus Vanderbilt embodied richness and she was a famous like Rockefeller.
If you needed to refer, you know, quiz programs and
give me five rich people's names, it would have been Nabelt, Rockefeller, Getty.
(18:52):
You know, there's certain ones you just know because they're
in the newspapers. So that was what she was.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
And my idea is it's again, it's the same throwing over.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Of the rules. I don't want that.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
I know it's money, it's rich andary, but what comes
with it is bothersome.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
H The connection between Picasso's Dying Words, a French tourism manual,
(19:54):
a character based on a Shetland pony, and an American
aristocrat is not particularly clear beyond the context of the music,
the meaning is slippery, so.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
They're bits from other songs. Has the notion of all
songs being one song all songs? Yeah, Well, I'm prompted
partly because in the literary sphere is strictly literary sphere.
One of Stevens thinks of his poems as being one poem,
(20:27):
the whole of harmonium. He calls it. It's all one thing.
It's he spent his whole life writing one big phone.
I mean, obviously they're discreet there by severate things, But
I mean, does it mean anything to you at all
that Stevens might have thought in those terms that you're
doing one song? Your life is about writing one song?
(20:48):
Or is that just too crazy and fanciful?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
But you know, as a bit of a stretch for me,
because my stuff quite varied, and I think that kind
of suggests it isn't one song.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Right, It's a lot, right, a lot of them.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
They don't neatly fit together, you know. If you've got
something like High Eye High next to Alan, it's quite
a difference.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Like many songs in McCartney's catalog, Picasso's Last Words doesn't
strive for cohesion. It brings together fragments to juxtapose them.
The edges between the samples are sharp. It's a form
of musical cubism, the very style that Picasso pioneered.
Speaker 7 (22:09):
Hell Hell, Hell.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Picasso's last words drink to Me from Wings album Band
on the Run, released in nineteen seventy three. In the
next episode, Love.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
I was being accused of just writing silly love songs
and was in danger of starting to buy into this
idea that you should just be a bit tougher and
a bit more worldly. But then ask me realized that's
(23:01):
exactly what love is.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
It's worldly, a polemical love song to the skeptics. That's
next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A
Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia NPL
(23:25):
and Pushkin Industries.
Host
Paul McCartney
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