Paul McCartney A Little Bitter About John Lennon

Paul McCartney recently sat down for an interview with Esquire UK, where he talked about John Lennon. The magazine quotes him as follows:

"John did a lot of great work, yeah. And post-Beatles he did more great work, but he also did a lot of not-great work. Now the fact that he's now martyred has elevated him to a James Dean, and beyond. So whilst I didn't mind that – I agreed with it – I understood that now there was going to be revisionism. It was going to be: John was the one."

And talking about sharing writing credits with Lennon, McCartney had this to say:

"What happened, when we were kids we were looking for what to call our songs. We had a meeting with Brian Epstein, John and me. I arrived late. John and Brian had been talking. “We were thinking we ought to call the songs, Lennon and McCartney.” I said, “That’s OK, but what about McCartney and Lennon? If I write it, what about that? It sounds good, too.” They said, “OK, what we’ll do is we’ll alternate it: Lennon and McCartney, McCartney and Lennon.” Well, that didn’t happen. And I didn’t mind. It’s a good logo, like Rogers and Hammerstein. Hammerstein and Rogers doesn’t work. So I thought, “OK”. But what happened was the Anthology came out [in 1996, with Epstein and Lennon now long dead]. And I said, “OK, what they’re now saying is, ‘Song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.’” I said, if you’re doing that, it’s not Lennon and McCartney, it’s not the logo any more. So, in particular cases like 'Yesterday', which John actually had nothing to do with, none of the other Beatles had anything to do with – I wrote it on my own, sang it on my own, they’re not on the record, nobody is even involved with it, and they didn’t mind that and I didn’t mind, nobody minded, but that’s very much mine – so I said, “Could we have ‘By Paul McCartney and John Lennon’, wouldn’t that be a good idea? And then on ‘Strawberry Fields’ we’ll have, ‘By John Lennon and Paul McCartney’. ‘Nowhere Man’, ‘John Lennon and Paul McCartney’. ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Paul McCartney and John Lennon’. Seeing as we’re breaking it up, can we do that?” And at first Yoko said yeah. And then she rang back a few days later and she had this guy Sam Havadtoy who she was living with – she was co-Havadtoying – and she said she’d decided it wasn’t a good idea and no, no, no, no. And it became a bit of an issue for me. Particularly on that particular song, because the original artwork had 'Yesterday' by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and a photo of John above it. And I went, “Argh! Come on, lads!” Anyway they wouldn’t do it."

Read the full interview at Esquire UK. It's well worth the read!