{"id":168346,"date":"2025-06-08T19:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T19:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/168346\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T19:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T19:20:12","slug":"paul-mccartney-was-nearly-killed-during-most-chilling-encounter-of-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/168346\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney was ‘nearly killed’ during most chilling encounter of career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul McCartney released one of his most celebrated albums on this day in 1973, but recording it proved to be costly as he was ‘nearly killed’ while working on the record<\/p>\n

07:04, 08 Jun 2025Updated 08:46, 08 Jun 2025<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul McCartney was ‘nearly killed’ while recording an album released on this day in 1973 (file)(Image: Michael Putland, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

An album which veteran songwriter Paul McCartney released on this day in 1973 saw The Beatles member “nearly killed”. After leaving the Fab Four, McCartney would embark on a string of successful solo albums and also formed another group, Wings. McCartney will release a book detailing his experiences in the Denny Laine and Linda McCartney-featuring band later this year.<\/p>\n

While Wings would stick together for a decade and provide McCartney with some of his best-known songs, like ‘Jet’ and ‘Live and Let Die’, making one of the band’s biggest albums proved to be a death-defying experience. McCartney and the band recorded what would be their most critically acclaimed release, releasing it on this day in 1973.<\/p>\n

The Beatles songwriter has spoken openly about the dangerous time making ‘Band on the Run’, the Wings album which would offer audiences hits like ‘Let Me Roll It’ and ‘Mrs. Vandebilt’.<\/p>\n

Wings opted to record the album at EMI’s studio in Lagos, Nigeria, which proved troublesome from the get go when the band’s instruments were stolen.<\/p>\n

The H\u00f6fner bass guitar McCartney had used all through his time in The Beatles was stolen at the time, though he was reunited with it at a show in Manchester, 50 years later.<\/p>\n

McCartney recalled<\/a>: “We were told not to walk on the streets alone, but you get told that in every dangerous country.<\/p>\n

“Being madcap rock \u2018n\u2019 rollers, Linda [McCartney\u2019s wife and Wings member] and I decided, \u2018What do they know? Since it\u2019s such a lovely night, we\u2019ll walk home.\u2019 So we got robbed.<\/p>\n

“We ran back to the place we were staying at and got under the blankets until morning, thinking: \u2018Have they followed us?\u2019 We got into the studio the next day, and the studio manager said: \u2018You\u2019re lucky you\u2019re white. If you were black they would have killed you because they would worry that you would recognise them.<\/p>\n

“If they thought you could have identified them to the police, they would have finished you off.’ So yeah, we lost the tapes, but because we had been doing them so recently I remembered them.”<\/p>\n

\"LindaBand on the Run would become a huge hit for McCartney and wings (file)(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In an incident recalled by Geoff Emerick, the sound engineer alleged Linda McCartney had stepped in to prevent the Wings troupe from being killed. She is said to have told the knife-wielding men: “Don’t kill him – he’s Beatle Paul!”<\/p>\n

It was not just the locals which nearly killed McCartney, as according to the songwriter he was “fainting dead away” during one session in the studio because of the heat.<\/p>\n

Emerick recalled: “Within seconds, he turned as white as a sheet, explaining to us in a croaking voice that he couldn’t catch his breath.<\/p>\n

“We decided to take him outside for some fresh air, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, because once he was exposed to the blazing heat he felt even worse and began keeling over, finally fainting dead away at our feet.”<\/p>\n

Despite the health woes and horrid conditions, ‘Band on the Run’ remains a fond part of McCartney and Wings’ discography. A Reddit<\/a> post praising the album saw many consider it a peak of McCartney’s career.<\/p>\n

One user wrote: “A genius songwriter and master craftsman at the top of his game. He\u2019s incredible.” Another added: “Sheer joy in listening to that album!<\/p>\n

“My vinyl album (bought when it was released) still includes the original ‘polaroid snapshot’ poster as well as the record sleeve with the lyrics.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney released one of his most celebrated albums on this day in 1973, but recording it proved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,11693,4162,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-168346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-paul-mccartney","11":"tag-the-beatles","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114649368318062514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}