This “Desperado” Inspired Song by Paul McCartney Was Almost Lost Forever, Thanks to a Knifepoint Robbery

There’s a certain sense of guilt and shame that comes with losing a song idea because you misplaced your notes. (Or because you never wrote the notes down to begin with). But when a song is almost lost forever because of the actions of someone else, that’s an entirely different feeling of helplessness. One that Paul McCartney had to face head-on after a harrowing experience while staying in Lagos, Nigeria.

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Paul and his wife, Linda McCartney, went to Nigeria to record Wings’ third studio album, Band On The Run. The newlyweds and their bandmates were eager for a change of pace. Africa offered warmer weather, fresh surroundings, and a healthy distance from the drama and daily humdrum of their native United Kingdom.

However, what was supposed to be a peaceful walk home from the recording studio to their rented villa reminded the McCartneys that going to a foreign country isn’t always guaranteed to be a relaxing getaway.

Paul and Linda McCartney Were Robbed at Knifepoint

When the English musicians arrived in Africa, their colleagues warned them not to walk anywhere, especially at night. They told the world-famous McCartneys to take a car everywhere instead. “But you know,” Paul McCartney later said in an interview with music journalist Paul Du Noyer. “That’s what they say in Harlem. You’ve got to experience the place.” So, off the couple went to experience a nighttime stroll on a thirty-minute walk in Lagos.

Before they reached their villa, a car stopped, and a man inside offered the couple a ride. They declined, and the car continued a little further down the road before stopping again. Six men climbed out of the vehicle and approached the McCartneys with knives drawn. “Linda, who’s a dead ballsy chick, she’s screaming, ‘Don’t touch him! He’s a musician! He’s just like you!’” Paul remembered.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. The anonymous muggers took the couple’s money, Linda’s camera, and multiple cassette tapes that held the demos for their in-progress album, Band On The Run. The McCartneys made it to their villa, unscathed but definitely shaken, and continued on with their work the next day.

Wings Had to Recall Their Songs by Memory After the Incident

With no more demo cassettes, Paul and Linda McCartney and the rest of Wings were tasked with the difficult job of recalling their songs and arrangements by memory. This included the album’s title track, which McCartney likened to Eagles’ wistful “Desperado” image, as well as “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)”, which they had just finished recording before the couple decided to take a walk home. The robbers—who seemingly had no idea who, exactly, they were attacking—likely didn’t know the true value of the cassettes they stole.

“It was stuff that would be worth a bit on eBay these days,” Paul later told Clash. “We figured the guys who mugged us wouldn’t even be remotely interested. If they’d have known, they could have just held on to them and made themselves a little fortune. But they didn’t know, and we reckoned they’d probably record over them.”

Wings never found their missing demos, but it didn’t seem to hurt the album’s performance. Band On The Run topped the charts in both the U.K. and the United States and became one of McCartney’s most beloved post-Beatles albums.

Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images