Paul McCartney And Wings:The Japanese Fiasco

Paul McCartney's arrest in Japan on January 16, 1980 is perhaps the most terrifying experience in his entire career.Being able to bring eight bags of marijuana on top of his briefcase,he didn't realize the danger of being in another country,with different laws and of different culture.Many people were asking "what was he thinking?",fellow ex-Beatle and former songwriting partner John Lennon made a consoling comment on why would anybody open his briefcase--he is after all,a Beatle.

McCartney is no stranger to trouble,dating as far back as the Beatles early days in Liverpool and Hamburg,Germany-the latter when they got deported after lighting a condom on their hotel room and nearly caused a fire.Not to mention the Beatles' disastrous tour of the Philippines 14 years earlier when they barely got out of Manila alive.Paul and Linda faced danger as well in Lagos,Nigeria in 1973 when they got robbed during a night stroll and nearly caused them their own lives.But the Japanese experience as we would all say is quite different for the law against drugs and people who use them frankly depends a lot on which country you were at that point.

Lets face it,every musician smokes grass and once in their life had in one time or another experienced taking drugs.Both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had problems with the authorities in the late sixties regarding dope, a sign that the seventies and beyond will be more less lenient to them.




Paul McCartney is no exception,he had problems with drugs and authorities himself.The Beatles were already taking amphetamines and other uppers during their Hamburg and Liverpool days to stay awake at their night performances in clubs and bars.The hard stuff came later,as the Beatles were introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan during the first American tour in 1964.Then the Beatles went on to experiment with other things while writing music and recording in the studio,hard drugs came and LSD which was popular in the mid sixties.Paul himself tried those things but soon saw the danger and just stucked to smoking cannabis ever since.

 The Beatles broke up in 1970,and after two solo albums, Paul formed his own band Wings in 1971 and his problems with drugs and authorities continued as Wings achieved worldwide fame and more number one albums and singles on both sides of the Atlantic.

 The Japanese incident wasn't the first time Paul got himself into trouble because of drugs just like other rock stars do.In 1971,his farm in Scotland was raided by police and found two cannabis plants on his lawn.Another bust in London and Sweden followed,in which in 1975 made Wings difficult to enter Japan and prompted them to make a video saying sorry to their Japanese fans even singing "Bluebird" to them[with Denny Laine looking pissed in the video] and before saying goodbye made a promise that they will be seeing each other soon.

 Five years later,Paul was cleared to go to Japan,where 11 big concerts were booked for January 1980.Paul eventually ruined it by bringing 8 bags of pot in his briefcase on top of  his clothes.McCartney was immediately arrested and was in detention for nine days for questioning.Other members of Wings were also questioned but not detained.Linda McCartney told a horrible story about her and the kids in a Japanese hotel worrying what was happening to Paul and was thinking of him being tortured and all that.People with drug problems in Japan spent years in prison and Linda made sure she doesn't hear the word years.She even told the music press that she and Paul were never apart since they married.

After nine days in jail,Paul was finally released and was told to leave the country.The scheduled Wings concert in Japan was cancelled and his deportation ignited the band's demise.The release of a solo album McCartney II confirmed Wings' dissolution,and Paul didn't tour again until  9 years later in 1989.

Paul went back to Japan in 1990 as a part of his world tour supporting the Flowers In The Dirt album and did some charities in Tokyo where he also planted a tree  and even spoke to students at  a school event and everything went fine so far.Japan became a regular stop for Paul on his world tours since then.

Japanese newsfeed of Paul's arrest in Japan

Part 2 of the Japanese experience

(c) Keith Vernon Adagio