John sometimes made these points, then added tempering statements later. But often his supporters simply took the main points and turned them into dogma. So these critiques require careful examination, and we will examine them one by one.
There is a widespread assumption that John wrote hard-edged rock, while Paul wrote ballads. For example, Rolling Stone writes that John was the Beatles’ “most committed rock & roller.” [19] This is certainly a half-truth. John did write some hard-edged rock songs, while Paul wrote a number of ballads. But they both also wrote an enormous range of many kinds of music.
To take Paul first. He wrote ballads such as “Yesterday,” “She’s Leaving Home” and “The Long and Winding Road,” but he also wrote many driving, rave-up rock songs. Aside from the scorching “Helter Skelter,” maybe the apotheosis of Paul’s hard rock writing, he (mainly) wrote and sang, “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Hold Me Tight,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “She’s a Woman,” “I’m Down,” “Back in the U.S.S.R,” “Oh! Darling” and “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road.” He took the lead vocals on Little Richard screamers such as “Long Tall Sally,” and “Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey,” then wrote songs like “I’m Down” in this same style. On a less frantic level, but still magnificent, original rock songs, are such offerings as Paul’s “Things We Said Today,” “You Won’t See Me,” “Lady Madonna,” “What You’re Doing,” “Got To Get You Into My Life,” “Hello Goodbye” and “Lovely Rita.” “Hey Jude” starts as a rock ballad, but ends up in an improvisatory rock frenzy.
In addition, Paul wrote gentler songs somewhere between ballads and rock songs, such as “I’ll Follow the Sun.” In fact, from the days of the early Beatles, he did not think that the group should be confined to writing and performing only rock; he wanted the Beatles to reflect the breadth of popular music. He felt that the group would stand apart from lesser groups because of this. But he has always loved to play and sing full-bore rock.
His use of strings in his ballads was often remarkably restrained, classical in flavor (as in “She’s Leaving Home,” “Yesterday,” and “Eleanor Rigby”). George Martin deserves credit for influencing this element of Paul’s style. It finally fell to Phil Spector, brought in by Lennon, ironically enough, to provide a really over-the-top orchestration for a McCartney song, on “Long and Winding Road” with its strings, angel choirs and harps.
In the same way, while John wrote great rockers such as “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Money,” and “She’s So Heavy,” and sang over-the-top covers such as “Twist and Shout,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzie,” and “Money,” he also wrote ballads remarkable for their tenderness and melodic power, such as “If I Fell,” “Good Night,” “Across the Universe,” “Because,” and “Julia.” (Martin provided a “Hollywood” orchestral accompaniment for “Good Night” at John’s request.)
The generalization that John’s songs often expressed pessimism, while Paul’s were optimistic, is again a half-truth, as some of Paul’s songs certainly were optimistic. However, many of Paul’s songs do not express simplistic optimism, and many of his most characteristic songs are tragic. He wrote a number of songs about relationships failing, such as “You Won’t See Me” or “For No One.” His most famous ballad, “Yesterday,” is completely tragic. Some of his songs are sophisticated mixtures of light and shadow — examples are “Things We Said Today,” “Let It Be,” “Long and Winding Road,” “Blackbird,” and “Hey Jude.” Often he wrote songs as therapy, to counter moods of darkness and hopelessness, as in “Let It Be” (“When I find myself in times of trouble”) or “Long and Winding Road.”
One of the important recurring themes in his songs is loneliness, as in “Eleanor Rigby.” This important side of McCartney’s artistic vision, capturing a haunting sense of emotional separation and isolation, which continued into his solo period, is not light optimism.
When John stated that he was part of the counter-culture, while Paul was writing light pop music for the mainstream, it almost amounted to an excommunication. While there is an element of this idea that is fairly subjective, and so hard to “prove” or “disprove,” one can point to a number of factual details that do not fit this broad picture. For example, Paul was very much part of the late sixties counter culture, as psychedelic elements in his songs show. With John, he was influenced by Dylan to write lyrics that departed from Tin Pan Alley themes and were often enigmatic (as in “Paperback Writer,” “Baby You Can Drive My Car” or “Fool on the Hill”). More importantly, for our purposes, he was very much into experimental music that was not top-forty teeny-bopper, or Mantovani Strings, fodder. Living in London, frequenting the Indica bookstore, he became interested in the experimental music of people like Stockhausen and Cage. He was the first of the Beatles to use backward tape loops that appeared on such songs as “Tomorrow Never Knows.” He was instrumental in working out the avant-garde orchestral effects in “Day in the Life.”
Sgt. Pepper , often the most highly regarded Beatle album (and rock album) in critical polls, is one of the central manifestos of the counter-culture, and McCartney was the dominant songwriter for this album. (He thought of the title song conceit for the album, an artificial group, and was the dominant writer for “Sgt. Pepper’s,” “With a Little Help,” “Getting Better,” “Fixing a Hole,” “She’s Leaving Home,” “When I’m 64,” “Lovely Rita,” and “Sgt. Pepper’s reprise.” John was the dominant writer for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” “Good Morning Good Morning,” and “A Day in the Life.” (However, songs that leaned toward collaborations were “With a Little Help,” “Lucy in the Sky” and “A Day in the Life.”)
Lennon complained of the number of songs McCartney was writing during the St. Pepper , Magical Mystery Tour era. [20] Lennon regarded Paul as the dominant writer for those albums, and saw himself as regaining his creativity during the White Album period.
When John accused Paul of writing “granny music,” this is a critique that has some basis in fact. John scathingly mocked Paul’s songs that were based on a former era, the music hall song, such as “Honey Pie,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Your Mother Should Know,” and “When I’m 64.” However, as has been discussed above, Paul always consciously sought a breadth of style in the Beatles, to set them apart from lesser, one-dimensional groups. He liked, and likes, many types of music. When you talk about the challenge of creating a rock album that is listenable, that does not repeat the same song over and over, this is an intelligent point of view. Second, Paul has explained that he disagrees with the concept of generation gaps, and in his Beatle songs he sometimes consciously reached out to older people. He was strongly influenced, not just by Elvis and Buddy Holly, Dylan and Brian Wilson, but by the jazz and pop standards of his parents’ generation.
Purely from a personal, aesthetic point of view, you may not like the McCartney ballads or music hall songs; but he has a thoughtful rationale for them.
While I have responded to John’s critique of Paul’s music, and to overly schematic views based on them, it is important to also look at the impressive variety in the songs mainly written by John. His songs could range in tone from high seriousness to comic songs of lunatic whimsy and fantasy, such as “Hey Bulldog” or “Mean Mr. Mustard.” He too could reach out to another generation (in “Julia” and “Goodnight”). “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” offers a brilliant historical overview of early rock styles. John’s mother taught him old standards, much as Paul had learned standards from his father. [21] John could write exuberant rock, experimental oddities, and tender, quiet songs. In his final interview, he said, “That was the thing about the Beatles — they never stuck to one style. . . . We loved all music. . . . if you look down those Beatle tracks, I’m right there with all the sentimental [things, ] — just the same as Paul or anyone else. I love that music just as much.” [22]
Beyond Collaboration: Two Styles
Having removed the most obvious
fallacies about the McCartney-Lennon songwriting, then, we may attempt an evaluation of their individual styles. McCartney writes strong unpredictable melodies; his harmonies are inventive (by the standards of twentieth-century popular music); he developed, during the Revolver and Sgt. Pepper albums, a technique of synthetically creative pastiche that allowed him to range over the whole gamut of popular music in this century. He has mastered both rhythmic rock, softer ballads, folk, and the music hall comic song. A perfectionist as an arranger/producer, he is continually exploring new textures of instrumentation while recording his music. His songs can be lighthearted, comic, even grotesque, but his artistic vision also contains a persistent thread of tragedy, loss, loneliness and darkness that balances his more upbeat songs (or provides depth to his otherwise positive-leaning songs). His lyrics are often unremarkable, seeming afterthoughts, but expressing his most basic concerns — loneliness and loss in human existence, the need for love, the warmth of family, comic celebration, comic sadness. He is more focused on music, harmonies and melody than on lyrics, as is obvious from many of his comments on writing his songs in the Beatles era.
Lennon, on the other hand, came to put his primary focus on lyrics. His style is (sometimes) defined by extended word play, often comic — “Strawberry Fields,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Glass Onion,” “Come Together.” Some of his characteristic songs can be dreamy in tone — “Strawberry Fields,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” “Across the Universe,” “Imagine.” Other Lennon songs can be political and topical, as in “Revolution.” Though his music is generally first-rate, his melodies can be minimalist, serving as background for the lyrics, as in such songs as “Come Together,” “I Am the Walrus,” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.” His lyrics, even in his early Beatle days, could be intensely autobiographical and personal — “Help,” “Nowhere Man,” “In My Life,” “Norwegian Wood.” On the other hand, they could be fantastic and fictional in the tradition of Lewis Carroll.
Paul was always more interested in music, and Lennon ended up more interested in lyrics (partly as a result of Bob Dylan’s influence). They certainly crossed over and performed superbly outside of the field of their particular interest at times — Lennon sometimes wrote great, inspired music, and Paul occasionally wrote superior lyrics that have had a powerful impact on his audience over the years. But their main focus was always clear.
These two focuses come though clearly in their interviews: for instance, Paul tended to write music first, then add the lyrics (as in the case of “Yesterday”); when he wrote words first, he called it working “upside down.” [23] Lennon described Paul as a lazy lyricist: “I always had an easier time with lyrics, although Paul is quite a capable lyricist who doesn’t think he’s a capable lyricist, therefore he doesn’t go for it. Rather than face the problem he would avoid it.” [24] Thus we have Paul writing music naturally, leaving the lyrics aside till later. Lennon’s creative inclinations were exactly opposite. He said: “Paul has a special gift when it comes to making up tunes. I find myself using tunes which already exist and fitting my words to them . . . With me I have a theme which gets me started on the poetry side of the thing. Then I have to put the tune to it, but that’s the part of the job I enjoy least. Words come easier.” [25] Thus Lennon is avoiding the music. “It’s the playing around with words I enjoy most,” he said. [26] “I can’t leave the lyrics alone; I have to make them make sense apart from the song,” he explained in 1980. [27] He almost seems to yearn for words without music: “See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words without melody, that don’t have to have any melody. It’s a poem, you know, you could read ‘em.” [28] George Martin, though he knew both Paul and John could write both good music and lyrics, was aware of their natural creative leanings: “Paul’s melodies and his harmonic structures appealed to me more than John’s because John’s melodies and his music were tailor-made to fit his words rather than the other way around. The lyrics would lead and develop John’s songs.” [29]
Strangely enough, John and Paul did not collaborate much in what would have been a natural way: Lennon writing words, Paul writing music. Only in “In My Life” — if McCartney’s account of how the song was written is correct — do we have a case of (mostly or all) Lennon lyrics combined with pure McCartney music. But the two writers’ artistic visions probably became much too divergent early for this kind of thing to happen regularly. However, they certainly influenced each other in their particular areas of expertise. John has said: “In the early days I wrote less material than Paul because he was more competent on guitar than I. He taught me quite a lot of guitar really.” [30] Paul once (according to Lennon) “encouraged Lennon to introduce a larger variety of notes and chords into his compositions.” [31] On the other hand, George Martin once said of McCartney that, “All the time he’s trying to do better, especially trying to equal John’s talent for words.” [32] Lennon’s style of free-associative word-play has influenced McCartney’s lyric style to this day.
Thus it would be natural for Lennon to edit McCartney’s words, or add lines when his lyrics were incomplete. And it would be equally natural for Lennon to write a poem, leave it lying around, and have McCartney pick it up and write music for it. “I can’t leave lyrics alone,” said John. His contributions to the lyrics of McCartney songs have been abundantly documented. One wonders how much McCartney contributed to the music of John’s songs — suggesting a chord here, a melodic pattern there. There are hints of this in the interviews. On selected John songs, Paul remembered some collaboration (e.g., “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Help,” “In My Life,” “Glass Onion” [33] ), and his natural contribution in a collaborative situation would be musical. He stated that sometimes John would be “stuck for a melody; I’d produce a melody for him.” [34]
Paul also became the dominant music arranger of the Beatles. Those who have worked closely with the group have pointed this out; for example, one of the early Beatles engineers, Norman Smith said:
[in the early recording sessions, it was] nearly always Paul who was the MD, the musical director, as early as this. Obviously John would have quite a lot to say, but overall it was always Paul who was the guv’nor. Which is fair, because he was the natural musician, and even at this stage, the natural producer . . . With Rubber Soul , the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious . . .
George was having to put up with an awful lot from Paul . . . Paul was absolutely finicky . . . Mind you, there is no doubt at all that Paul was the main musical force. He was also that in terms of production as well. A lot of the time George Martin didn’t really have to do the things he did because Paul McCartney was around and could have done them equally well. [35]
Paul’s role as informal music producer caused tension within the Beatles, yet the group was also dependent on him. He relates an anecdote of George and Ringo telling him to lay off when he was dominating a recording session; then, when he did lay off, and a session was flagging, telling him, “Come on . . . Produce!” [36] As we have seen, in the case of “Across the Universe,” Lennon went so far as to accuse McCartney of sabotaging his songs, by not working on them enough. [37] George Martin responded that Paul’s songs got more finishing touches because “Paul was more interested. John’s irritation was a little unfair. John’s songs got a great deal of attention . . . They worked out the way I wanted them . . . Paul would sit down and ask what I planned to do with his songs, every note virtually . . . Lots of the arrangements to his songs were very much his ideas which I would have to implement. John would be more vague in what he wanted.” [38] McCartney recently responded to his reputation as domineering: “I’m pretty ruthless, ambitious, all that stuff . . . If we’ve gotta make a record, I’ll actually sit down and write songs. This could be interpreted as being overpowering and forceful . . . It just seemed to me when we had a session booked it was a cool idea to turn up.” [39] McCartney’s productivity caused John’s resentment. In addition, Paul’s driven, detai
l-oriented, production understandably annoyed his band-mates; on the other hand, this kind of attention to detail arguably was essential for the high achievement of the Beatle albums.
Beatles biographer Philip Norman has said, “John Lennon was the Beatles.” [40] Many rock critics explicitly or implicitly agree. This view is largely based on Lennon’s brilliant lyrics, his politics and his persona, as well as his music. However, if you take the music of the Beatles seriously, and see it as a central aesthetic accomplishment of the group, then you cannot hold Norman’s reductionist view, even in modified form. You can certainly see both Lennon and McCartney as central to the Beatles’ achievement (and marvel that two such gifted songwriters ended up in the same group), but serious critics will reject the “Lennon was a genius and McCartney was nothing” position. McCartney was arguably the central musician in the Beatles (considering the characteristic interests of Paul and John) and music was a central accomplishment of the group.
Lennon and McCartney: Singles and Albums
If we examine the songwriting balance of Lennon and McCartney on specific records, the results show a constant ebb and flow between the two songwriters. To start with the singles, the first Beatles single (“Love Me Do / P.S. I Love You”) was dominated by Paul, both sides; the second single (“Please Please Me / Ask Me Why”) was dominated by John, both sides. So some singles were dominated by one writer. On the other hand, many singles were split—“Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane” had a John song on side A, a Paul song on side B; “Hello Goodbye / I Am the Walrus” had Paul on side A, John on Side B. The A Side of a Beatles single was, of course, especially sought after; sometimes, when John had an A side, it was understood that Paul would have the next A side. For instance, after John’s “Day Tripper” in December 1965, the next single was Paul’s “Paperback Writer” in May 1966.
Who Wrote the Beatle Songs Page 42