The Beatles icon Paul McCartney discussed being robbed in a GQ interview.
Afterward, in the dressing room, mid-afternoon red wine is flowing, and triggered by a question about the recording of the Wings’ album Band on the Run in Nigeria, a destination chosen pretty much on a whim, McCartney gives a captivating account of their adventures and misadventures there, including a blow-by-blow account of how he and Linda were mugged when they ignored local advice and tried to walk home in Lagos after dark. His storytelling culminates in the tale of an evening where he finds himself in a place way out of town and way out of his depth and way out of his head…and then Fela Kuti’s band start up and play this hypnotic keyboard riff…and McCartney found himself just weeping.
“That music, I’ll never forget it,” he says. “I can still remember the riff.”
This climactic declaration sounds like a rhetorical one, but it is not. At that, McCartney goes over to the corner, where there is an electric piano, plugs it in, and—an improbable collision of time frames and history; the 76-year-old in the upstairs room of the building where he once went to school, remembering a piano riff that made him cry 45 years earlier in Nigeria—Paul McCartney starts playing exactly what he heard on that night long ago. It starts with a simple but insistent repetitive pattern being pounded out, a motif that then, in a release of tension, relaxes into some more expansive, much jazzier chords. In other words, it doesn’t sound like anything you’d expect to hear Paul McCartney play.
Paul McCartney posted on his official website a couple of months ago:
How do we top of January? Well, for the month that celebrates all things ‘love’ we invited fans to send Paul’s song ‘My Love’ to their Valentine. We also set the loving ambience asking about your favourite “Silly Love Songs” and Paul got in touch to post a message for George Harrison’s birthday. What’s not to love?
However, February isn’t just a month to get romantic, it’s also the time of year we binge watch our favourite new blockbusters as award season begins. On the subject of awards, we celebrated Paul receiving the highest of British kid’s TV honours – a Gold ‘Blue Peter’ Badge! Speaking of which, Paul celebrated Rami Malek’s success on Twitter after the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ actor shared a photo of the two meeting backstage on the #FreshenUpTour last December!
Paul McCartney released a new album titled Egypt Station last year, and he is currently on tour behind the album:
Explaining the album’s concept, Paul says, “I liked the words ‘Egypt Station.’… I think of it as a dream location that the music emanates from.” The title is taken from the piece of art featured on the cover, which Paul painted in 1988.
Egypt Station has won praise from critics around the world. In a four-star lead review, Rolling Stone said, “Macca keeps adding new gems to his songbook, with nothing to prove except he’s the only genius who can do this… (And, oh yeah – in his spare time, he happens to still be the greatest live performer on Earth.)” London’s Sunday Times, Q Magazine and MOJO also awarded the album four stars.
