# Who plays the shakers on Wings’ 1973 song ‘Picasso’s Last Words’?

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/who-plays-the-shakers-on-wings-1973-song-picassos-last-words/
- Published: 2026-11-07T00:15:00+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-07T02:03:34+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/who-plays-shakers-wings-1973-song-picassos-last-words/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- Ginger Baker played gravel-filled percussion on a Wings track.
- The contribution was recorded in Lagos in 1973.
- The song grew from a dinner challenge by Dustin Hoffman.

## Summary

Ginger Baker, the renowned Cream drummer, contributed to Wings’ ‘Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)’ by shaking a container filled with gravel. The unusual percussion features towards the end of the 1973 song, recorded during sessions for *Band on the Run* in Nigeria.

Paul McCartney began writing the song in Jamaica after actor Dustin Hoffman challenged him to demonstrate his songwriting, pointing him to Pablo Picasso’s reported last words. At Ginger Baker’s Lagos studio on 17 September 1973, the musicians assembled and rearranged different musical passages, including fragments of ‘Jet’ and ‘Mrs Vandebilt’. McCartney recalled using tin cans filled with gravel, while Denny Laine remembered Baker playing a gravel-filled fire bucket.

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