The song Paul McCartney wrote for Dustin Hoffman
The combination of Dustin Hoffman and Paul McCartney might seem like a weird one, but inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. For McCartney, the subject of artistic inspiration has always been an ambiguous domain. Over the years, some of the greatest artists have claimed that they don’t know how ideas possess them, but they are excellent at articulating their beauty.
That’s exactly what happened when McCartney ran into Hollywood icon Dustin Hoffman at a vacation resort in Jamaica. This meeting happened back in 1973, but it remains an important part of McCartney’s journey as an artist because it provides invaluable insights into the Beatles legend’s creative process.
At the time, Hoffman was in Jamaica for the filming of Papillon – a historical epic where he starred alongside Steve McQueen. An adaptation of French convict Henri Charrière’s autobiography, the production cost a lot of money because of the shooting in exotic locations, but Papillon ended up becoming a commercial success.
When the two of them got talking, Hoffman expressed curiosity about McCartney’s creativity. However, he did not ask any of the complex artistic questions most journalists and critics threw around to impress artists as well as their readers. Instead, Hoffman went the opposite route by asking a painfully reductive question: “How do you write songs?”
Although that might seem like an easy question to answer, many artists struggle when asked to explain their creative process. McCartney was no different, and his response showed that his creativity was also a mystery to him. Upon hearing the question, he answered: “They just come out of the air, I don’t know.”
Hoffman wasn’t one to give up so easily, which is why he continued his line of questioning to its logical conclusion. He asked again, “can you write them about anything?” Unsure about responding to such a question, McCartney shrugged, which is when Hoffman came up with the idea that would lead to the creation of a classic.
The actor requested a song on the spot and asked McCartney to draw inspiration from a news report. “Try this,” Hoffman said and pointed toward Time Magazine’s obituary of Pablo Picasso, the Cubist visionary who revolutionised art. Sure enough, McCartney started conjuring up a song based on Picasso’s alleged last words. After hearing the song, the actor started screaming, “Look, he’s doing it! Goddamn it! Holy shit!”
Listen to the song below.
