Why didn't Paul write and record with George after 1970?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Mister President, Sep 1, 2016.

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  1. Dream #9

    Dream #9 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    I agree with you. Harrison was a moody guy. McCartney could be controlling especially the later years with the Beatles. There's parts of the anthology where Harrison looked as if he didn't want to be there. But who knows what went on between them in private, maybe they were the best of pals :)
     
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  2. Bemagnus

    Bemagnus Music is fun

    Anyway Paul did a great live version of it back in 2004 I believe. I was there and it was good. Even though his current George tribute with ukelele Something is even better
     
  3. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Temperamentally, the two men were poles apart, though I think they got on personally. The 'issues' between them were largely musical and, later, business.

    We are unsure how serious George was being when he referred to Paul's 'always being six months older than me.' (sic)

    The Hey, Jude session probably stuck in George's mind: whenever he felt himself warming to the idea of working with Paul, he possibly recalled that date and thought better of it.
     
  4. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Right. I don't follow Clapton's observation to mean Paul was not a fan of the song.
     
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  5. Neil Anderson

    Neil Anderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    I think George's moodiness is exaggerated. And he worked with Paul longer than a lot of other musicians, look at Henry McCullough and Denny Seiwell. Of course, Harrison was much better compensated than they were, but still, Harrison was apparently very patient with Paul's ways, up to a point. According to Doug Sulpy's Drugs, Divorce, and a Slipping Image, (if I remember correctly) Neil Aspinall at one point after George walked out of the Get Back Sessions, pointed out that anyone in George's position in the Beatles would feel slighted and that he'd put up with it for a long time.
     
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  6. gkmacca

    gkmacca Forum Resident

    I don't think you can easily make comparisons like that. George worked with Paul while they were growing up together as friends and musicians and public figures. After that, any musician who worked with Paul, or George, were working with legendary figures, and thus in many cases it was a relationship between a boss and hired help.
     
  7. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    George and Paul knew each other from childhood. In some respects they were closer then any two Beatles, although in some respects they were also the farthest apart. Neither of them collaborated that much with anyone after the Beatles, and the downside was considerable. If they came up with only an average song or songs, they would've gotten slammed.
     
  8. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US

    (Tries not to be irritated, tries not to be irritated, tries not to be irritated. Fails
    ). Yes, because Paul was the only one of the four with those "ways" of his. George was never irritating or moody. In fact, George was practically perfect in every way. And it's only that Pesky Paul and his "ways" that were always to blame for everything that ever went wrong in the band. Because, you know, it's not like this was a band filled with four very head-strong personalities.:blah:

    There. I feel better now. :angel: Sorry. But for goodness sake, this tendency to object to the least bit of criticism of George and to act like St. George was so patient with this horrible ogre just wears a bit thin, and ignores the fact that George, you know, wasn't a saint and could be very moody and cranky (as his own friends and wives have attested). He wasn't always right in his every interaction with Paul. In fact, he was dead wrong about adding those guitar noodles to Hey Jude. People seem to forget that whatever tensions Paul had with George in the studio, Paul also got along very well with other people in the studio for years -- people like George Martin and Geoff Emerick and most of the time with John.
     
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  9. Ephi82

    Ephi82 Still have two ears working

    Location:
    S FL
    seems clear to me that George and Paul had personalities that became less and less compatible as they aged. That happens, especially as you go from teens to mature adults.

    Pure conjecture here, but my impression is that George wasn't the only musician who would have trouble collaborating with Paul. Paul was respected, but I am not sure that had a lot of friends among his fellow artists. Although he is at core a really good guy, he carried a huge ego and with it celebrity arrogance. Add to that a cheery and somewhat overly sweet outward disposition, he would appear to be a fake to a lot of people.

    With George being the perpetual cynic, and the number 3 guy in the biggest act in history, it's hardly surprising that he didn't work with Paul after the breakup.
     
  10. Neil Anderson

    Neil Anderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    hey, I don't disagree with any of what you've said. I was just making the point that George wasn't the only musician who had issues with Paul's working methods, and he put up with it longer than several other people who worked with Paul.
     
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  11. Mike Visco

    Mike Visco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newark, NJ
    these statements about other musicians working with Paul remind me of a comment made by Steve Miller from the Flaming Pie sessions...to paraphrase: "I came in and Paul told me exactly what to play..." I read this as a bit of a slam. I mean this was Steve F'n Miller...and you are writing out his guitar part???
     
  12. Hardy Melville

    Hardy Melville Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    I suppose I am in effect on record here as Paul not being my favorite. But I've always felt he was and is an earnest and well meaning person who tries to be fair. I'd even say he's a stand up guy for the most part.

    But then there's the I think accurate perception that even to the extent one concedes George could be taciturn, he numbered more friends in the music world than Paul did. Why was that? Was it that Paul simply had less time to devote to that direction, spending more time writing, producing, or in general along those lines? Perhaps.

    More likely is Paul is one of those people who unintentionally gives off a vibe of superiority. I can even say deservedly so in the sense that his talents were obviously huge. But there is something some can find off putting about that. This kind of difference in personality between the two is not unique to them, even if their fame no doubt entered into the way they had dealings with others. But the type of personality Paul has, one of natural self confidence and earnestness, can be, even if unfairly, off putting. Meanwhile George's sort of diffident personality is to some endearing in that it can draw one into a sort of implied shared point of view.

    Of course I didn't know them personally and all this is based on being at some remove from them even as a near lifelong fan. But it does seem like I said here.
     
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  13. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US
    But the thing is: Paul has/had plenty of long-term partnerships in music -- arguably as many long-term ones as George ever had, if not more.

    1. 12 years with John.
    2. 10 years with Denny Laine.

    That's 22 years (!!!) of Paul's life with a single collaborator -- day in, day out, not just little one-offs every couple months.

    3. A lifelong friendship/working relationship with George Martin.
    4. More than a decade and 3 albums with his Fireman collaborator, Youth.
    5. He and Stevie Wonder have been close friends/collaborators for 30 years.
    6. More than 20 years with Wix.
    7. Dave Grohl and Paul have worked together in multiple things and remain friends.
    8. Paul and Elvis Costello remained friends and were/are both proud of the work ---whatever different artistic approaches they had.
    9. And Paul and MJ got along well in the studio -- not to mention Quincy Jones, with whom Paul has had a long friendship. Paul's fallout with MJ was over business (ring a bell?)

    So sure, Paul had his share of arguments/fallouts with some musicians -- but often those tensions were business related. But he also has/had good working relationships with plenty of musicians. All I was saying was that whatever pressures George and Paul had in working together, George contributed to it, too. Thanks to the Beatles' breakup, and Paul being odd man out, people have overstated the degree to which he's had "issues" with other musicians -- and focus only on that -- but ignore the fact that he has spent literally decades in partnerships of one kind or another with various musicians over the course of his life.
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2017
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  14. Neil Anderson

    Neil Anderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    well, I don't dispute any of that either, I never said George worked with Paul the longest, I was just making the point that several other people had the same reaction George did, and had even less patience with it than George did.
     
  15. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    What's interesting though is that in the examples you cite, many of them have an inequity in the relationship: Martin was McCartney's boss initially, then his mentor. Laine and Wix were his hired employees. Grohl likely relates to McCartney in a fanboy-to-idol way. And the guys who were on more equal footing with McCartney (Wonder, Jackson, Costello) did not work with him over any extended period of time... they were all brought in to work on specific, time-limited projects. I think one of the points being made is that McCartney does not seem to be close buddies with other musicians who are his peers in the manner George did. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but it does speak to a difference in their personalities.
     
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  16. Haristar

    Haristar Apollo C. Vermouth

    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    But the longest of all must be with George - 12 years from 1958 to 1970 and a further 26 years intermittently.
     
  17. Sam

    Sam Senior Member

    Location:
    Rochester, NY
    Who among us can really know? George didn't like the limelight, and it bothered him in many ways. He was bitter that he happened to be on a team with the likes of Lennon and McCartney, and acknowledged years later that it was hard to be recognized for his song writing abilities around such talent as John and Paul. I remember him being asked in the 1970s if he was going to go and see Wings when they were playing somewhere close to where he was. His comment was " I've already seen the Beatles," implying that Paul was simply trying to be a Beatle once more. Nothing could have been further from the truth, as Paul and company started off playing in colleges with Wings, and did his best to attempt to not perform many Beatle songs. What did George want him to do? Retire? George always thought Paul "crazy" for wanting to return to the stage. I always thought George was crazy not to. For some reason, George always seemed to look back on his Beatle years as a negative, which is why he never really went out of his way to work with Paul after 1969. Sad though, isn't it? Life is so, so short. I'll bet if John and George were allowed to come back to life, they would put aside the petty arguments that kept them apart from each other for so many years. Years you could never have back. In the end, it was all too late. Murder, cancer, all came calling so young. No time left to share the love and smiles that were tossed aside. No one left now to write a song with. Ringo had it right all along. When asked about the reunion that never was, and never will be, he replied, " We couldn't have changed the world, but we could have made it better for day."
     
  18. Dream #9

    Dream #9 Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
  19. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    By George !!

    I didn't realize Paul had such a harry son !

    [​IMG]

    Surely Paul and George collaborated on something together. o_O
     
  20. gkmacca

    gkmacca Forum Resident

    That sort of interview just made George seem petty. Paul had run out of good songs of his own? This coming from a man who went through long periods when the songs wouldn't come? I actually really liked George, but that's why that sort of nonsense really niggled.

    He had a terrible experience touring the US, while Paul had a great one, so, surprise surprise, George sneered about touring. George withdrew from view for a while after some flops, while Paul went on and had success, so George sneered at Paul for wanting success. George seemed amused that Paul had a movie flop, while his own movie business went down the tubes and no one was supposed to find that funny, even though it was a factor in George finally agreeing to another wave of the Beatle nostalgia he despised. It was all one way, those public snipes and slights.

    When George had a set back, he didn't expect Paul to take to the media to mock him. When Paul had a setback, cue George, smirking to the media.

    He wasn't the most self-aware of souls for one so spiritual.
     
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  21. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Doesn't matter, they were both past their (writing) prime by the 80's anyways... :hide:
     
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  22. backseat

    backseat Italian translator - Paul McCartney's 'The Lyrics'

    Location:
    Italy
    Maybe they did not write together after 1970... for the very same reason they did not write together before 1970.
     
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  23. tages

    tages Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I love George but sometimes he makes it hard - can you imagine what people would say if Paul said a similar thing about George's songs?
     
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  24. Haristar

    Haristar Apollo C. Vermouth

    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    The killer line is "Maybe he ran out of good ones of his own". Which is clearly meant as a joke but then he strangely contradicts it by saying "Well, it's true".

    I like George a lot, but it's true, he could be very bitter when it came to music he didn't like.

    And I highly admire George's solo career, but he's not really in much of a position to say that Paul ran out of good songs following the Beatles. Not every George song is a Here Comes the Sun, just like not every John song is an Imagine or every Paul song a Yesterday.
     
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  25. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    ... Not every George song is a Here Comes the Sun, just like not every John song is an Imagine or every Paul song a Bip Bop ... ;)
     
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