ARC Studio, Lagos
Producer: Paul McCartney
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
The eighth and final Lagos recording session for Wings’ third album, Band On The Run, took place on 17 September 1973.
This was the only session held at Ginger Baker’s ARC Studio in Ikeja, Lagos. They recorded the backing track of ‘Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)’.
Baker had been angered by Paul McCartney’s decision to record Band On The Run at EMI’s studio rather than at ARC. Baker had also stepped in to defuse an angry confrontation with Fela Kuti two days before, when Kuti accused McCartney of wanting to misappropriate African music.
As a peace offering, McCartney agreed to record a song at ARC.
There was a bit of a kerfuffle at one point because somehow Ginger Baker, the drummer in Cream, had gotten the impression that we were going to record the album at his Nigerian studio, ARC. There were lots of phone calls flying back and forth, but Paul was adamant that he had never promised to work anywhere but at the EMI studio. Just to smooth things over, he agreed to a compromise: we would spend a day at Ginger’s place and see what it was like. We ended up doing most of the song ‘Picasso’s Last Words’ –which was intentionally recorded to resemble a Picasso painting, with lots of seemingly unrelated song fragments stuck together – at ARC, although we added a lot of overdubs later when we returned to London, editing them together, along with snatches of other tunes on the album, to try to make one cohesive piece out of it. Ginger’s studio was fairly well equipped, and he did his best to try to sell us on the idea of booking it for the rest of the album – he even lent a hand to the recording, playing some percussion at one point. But Paul had made a commitment elsewhere and he intended to honor it, so we only spent the one day there before returning to EMI.
McCartney began by recording backwards drum and cowbell loops. He and Denny Laine then overdubbed acoustic guitar parts. McCartney added bass guitar, and all of Wings recorded lead and backing vocals.
Percussion was then added. Wings and Ginger Baker were recorded shaking tin cans filled with gravel, along with other percussion instruments. ‘Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)’ was completed in London.
On this night, Paul and Linda McCartney were mugged in Lagos.