'Oh no, they're going to finish us off': Sir Paul McCartney recalls terrifying knifepoint robbery
Sir Paul McCartney feared he'd be "finished off" when he and then-wife Linda were robbed at knifepoint in Lagos.
Sir Paul McCartney feared he'd be "finished off" when he was robbed at knifepoint.
The 81-year-old musician has recalled the terrifying moment when he and wife Linda were recording Wings' 1973 album 'Band on the Run' in Lagos, Nigeria, and were ambushed with all their “cameras, tape recorders, cassettes in a bag, and Linda’s photographic equipment”.
In an interview for his record label, seen first by The Sun newspaper, he said: “We’d been visiting some of our crew at their house and someone said, ‘Do you want a lift home?’ We said, ‘It’s such a beautiful night, we’ll walk.’”
Adopting a "desperado" spirit, the couple wandered into a no-go area and thought they were being offered a lift when a car stopped and the driver wound down his window.
Paul recalled: “I just say, ‘No, listen man, very nice of you but we don’t need a lift.’”
The vehicle, which contained 2five or six local guys" drove off but then suddenly stopped again.
The Beatles legend continued: “All of them get out. I said, ‘Holy cow. Wait a minute, they’re not offering us a lift.’ The penny drops. One of the guys is holding a knife at me.
“We give them all our stuff and they get back in the car. Screech off. They go the wrong way. They come back and we’re going, ‘Oh no, they’re going to finish us off!’
“Anyway, they zoomed off. Eventually Linda and I walked home. We just got into bed and said, ‘Forget it.’ "
And the 'Live and Let Die' hitmakers were told afterwards they were "lucky" to have made it out alive.
He added: “The next day, we went to the studio and the manager said, ‘Man, you’re lucky you’re white. If you were black, they could have killed you because you might have recognised them.”
Despite losing the original demos to the robbers, Paul wasn't too concerned because of a "rule" he and late Beatles bandmate John Lennon had "always had".
He explained: “It meant I had to remember the album,.
“We didn’t have cassettes or recording devices back then [in The Beatles].
“We used to say, ‘If you can’t remember it, how will the people remember it?’”
