Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote a lot of songs together as The Beatles. The result was the decision to come up with a songwriting credit that would serve as a trademark for all their work together. In the cover story for the new issue of British Esquire, the legendary Beatle is opening up about frustrations with the "Lennon/McCartney" songwriting credits that occur on all of their songs.
In the revealing new interview, Paul explains "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... And at first Yoko [Ono] 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."
Paul also opens about how John's assassination impacted the memory of the group. "The Beatles split up and we were sort of all equal... When John got shot, aside from the pure horror of it, the lingering thing was, 'OK, well, now John's a martyr. A JFK. I started to get frustrated because people started to say, 'Well, he was the Beatles.' And me, George [Harrison] and Ringo [Starr] would go, 'Err, hang on. It's only a year ago we were all equal-ish.'
"There’s a poetry book, Blackbird by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.” No! He didn’t write those lyrics! So, at the risk of seeming like… I tell you what, if John was here he would definitely say that’s OK. Because he didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t anything that worried him. But I’ve given up on it. Suffice to say. In case it seems like I’m trying to do something to John." Read the whole interview out now over at Esquire.
