The surprising Paul McCartney smash that got John Lennon recording again

Paul McCartney : Coming Up

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On April 13, 1980 Paul McCartney's UK#2 hit "Coming Up" debuted on the charts at #62. Recorded during the Summer of '79 at High Park Farm in Scotland, the song was part of a session that was never intended to be released commercially.

I originally cut it on my farm in Scotland. I went into the studio each day and just started with a drum track. Then I built it up bit by bit without any idea of how the song was going to turn out. After laying down the drum track, I added guitars and bass, building up the backing track. I did a little version with just me as the nutty professor, doing everything and getting into my own world like a laboratory. The absent-minded professor is what I go like when I’m doing those; you get so into yourself it’s weird, crazy. But I liked it. 

Then I thought, ‘Well, OK, what am I going to do for the voice?’ I was working with a vari-speed machine with which you can speed up your voice, or take it down a little bit. That’s how the voice sound came about. It’s been speeded up slightly and put through an echo machine I was playing around with. I got into all sorts of tricks, and I can’t remember how I did half of them, because I was just throwing them all in and anything that sounded good, I kept. And anything I didn’t like, I just wiped.

In the memorable video for the songs McCartney plays dual roles impersonating Ron Mael of Sparks, Hank Marvin of The Shadows, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, and his own self as a young Beatle playing a Hofner bass. 

American DJs preferred playing the B side, a live version recorded on the last night of a 1979 tour in Glasgow. In the US the song topped the charts at the end of June, for two weeks.

The song is believed to have inspired John Lennon to get back in the studio, as McCartney relates:

I heard a story from a guy who recorded with John in New York, and he said that John would sometimes get lazy. But then he’d hear a song of mine where he thought, ‘Oh, shit, Paul’s putting it in, Paul’s working!’ Apparently Coming Up was the one song that got John recording again. I think John just thought, ‘Uh oh, I had better get working, too.’ I thought that was a nice story.

A Beatle gets busted in Japan

Paul McCartney : Frozen Jap

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On January 16, 1980 Paul McCartney was arrested at Tokyo's Narita Airport when authorities discovered half a pound of marijuana in his luggage. McCartney claimed it was all for personal use but, in Japan, that's enough to warrant a smuggling charge and a seven year prison sentence. Instead of celebrating the Beatle's first tour of Japan since the Fab Four did it in 1965, McCartney spent nine days in the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center. Those nine days were the longest he ever spent away from his wife Linda.

That McCartney would bring in so much weed after years of Japan refusing his visa due to other marijuana arrests isn't easy to understand. But in 2004, McCartney offered up this explanation:

“We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything to smoke over there, This stuff was too good to flush down the toilet, so I thought I’d take it with me.”

Later that year, after disbanding Wings, McCartney released a solo album, McCartney II, featuring a 1979 Kraftwerk-inspired instrumental with the unfortunate title "Frozen Jap". Again, this one isn't easy to understand. Here's Paul's reasoning:

Now, I’m sure people will think it was recorded after that incident in Japan. We decided to change the title to Frozen Japanese for the album release in Japan, since we didn’t want to offend anyone over there. But when the Japanese were told of the album’s track listing, they went spare. They thought it was connected with the fact that I had been busted there. They regard it as an incredible slur.