Really? The guy who penned the line, “Jo-Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, for some California grass,” has given up pot?
Yep, Paul McCartney says he has left marijuana behind him after many years of indulgence and now prefers wine or “a nice margarita.”
The former Beatle told the Daily Mirror in London he doesn’t want to set a bad example for his children and grandchildren by using marijuana. He said Saturday his decision is “a parent thing.”
He says “the last time I smoked was a long time ago.”
McCartney had been a long-time marijuana user who spent 10 nights in jail after he was arrested trying to enter Japan with a large quantity of the drug in 1980.
The 72-year-old British rock/pop star is fit and has long advocated a vegetarian lifestyle. He continues to perform for adoring crowds worldwide.
The words “grass” and “Tucson” are indelibly linked, due in part to McCartney’s long affections for both.
In The Beatles’ 1969 hit “Get Back,” McCartney put Tucson in the song because of his then-wife Linda’s connection to the city, he once told a reporter. She’d been a University of Arizona student before she moved to New York and met McCartney.
Jo-Jo was a made-up name, he said. The lyrics urged Jo-Jo, after leaving Tucson for said grass, to “Get back to where you once belonged.”
The McCartneys bought a ranch on the east side near Redington Pass in 1979, and frequently visited Tucson over the next nearly 20 years, until Linda McCartney died in 1998.
Maybe now he’d like to put "margarita" and "Tucson" into a new lyric? Just sayin.’
