McCartney: Esquire Interview

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by nicole21290, Jul 2, 2015.

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  1. Mkirk

    Mkirk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Christchurch, NZ
    Perhaps but that is outside of McCartney's control. Perhaps he could ask Taylor Swift to make them fix it?

    It is less than ideal but still more equitable. After all it seems McCartney is only seeking to have his name appear first on songs that he was the primary author of. The songs he had a hand in writing or co-wrote equally would all remain as by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. These changes would only apply to the media and formats that use the longer credit. Those using the Lennon/McCartney 'logo' credit would remain unchanged.

    Those essays and books are actually read by a fairly small number of beatley-geeks. Out in the real world amongst the casual fan and occasional listener the credits do matter.

    I took that as McCartney saying Lennon wouldn't care if McCartney's name was first on McCartney's song. That is a completely different thing to saying John wouldn't care if his name wasn't first on his songs or if his name was entirely omitted from the credits on one of his songs. He might well be fine with the former and concerned by the latter. Just as McCartney is. I don't know and as you say McCartney is in far better position to know. However fwiw Paul did swap the credits on Wings over America and John didn't seem to have an issue.
     
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  2. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

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    Kent, UK
    Exactly; Paul even pointed out in the interview that John's name would remain first on the songs that he primarily wrote, like Strawberry Fields, whereas Paul's would be first on songs like Yesterday.

    It is worth remembering that John didn't mind when Paul reversed the credits on WOA.
     
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  3. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    How is it trivial? Future generations will grow up only seeing John's name on the songwriting credits, and assume that he was the songwriting talent in the group.

    Seriously, how hard can it be to put yourself in his shoes and understand how annoying it must be to not receive credit for your work?
     
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  4. jeatleboe

    jeatleboe Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Perhaps a better goal would be in trying to get the longer full-name credits stopped? If it just said the shorter "Lennon/McCartney" there'd be no issue in the names running off the screen, if I'm understanding correctly? I mean, going by Paul now saying that's his only concern (unless I've misread, in ESQUIRE he's not saying he wants "McCartney" first in the logo).

    I'm thinking that most casual listeners and fans out in the real world who don't buy physical media probably wouldn't be interested... they just download a song they like by The Beatles, and that's that. But whether it was old records, CDs, or anything -- I don't think most people ever bother to check out who wrote what.


     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2015
  5. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    I could not agree more; this just goes to show that, no matter how much we music geeks may think that Lennon and McCartney are now viewed as equals, in reality the general public (at least in the UK), still see Lennon as the real talent, and many seem to see McCartney as nothing more than a sappy, arrogant bore.

    This is why Paul tries to set the record straight in interviews, like he did in Esquire, but unfortunately the press take his comments out of context intentionally just to cause controversy. They have always picked on him, and it has deeply affected his reputation here in Britain.
     
  6. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    Why shouldn't Paul have his name first on his songs? As he is pointing out, he doesn't want Lennon/McCartney swapped, he only wants his name first on his songs when the credits list the full names of the songwriter's. Yoko wouldn't even allow him that, not even for Yesterday, despite the fact that John said nothing in 1976 regarding the WOA credits.

    As Paul pointed out, the original deal was that the credits would be alternated, but that never happened and John and Brian reneged on the deal. Paul put up with that, but I don't see why he shouldn't have his name first on his songs.
     
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  7. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    And don't forget: When Paul finally dies, Yoko is all set to have the credits changed to "Ono/McCartney". ... ;)
     
  8. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    It is comments like that which make me think about how petty, bitter and horrible this world can be at times.

    So what if he is rich? Does that mean that we should all lie about him, insult him and take his comments out of context?
     
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  9. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    Or maybe Ono/Lennon? :laugh::D
     
  10. OobuJoobu

    OobuJoobu Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, UK
    Utterly irrelevant to the argument.
     
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  11. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    This is my first look at this thread.

    All 7 pages haven't been like this, have they?!:D
     
  12. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Ugly elephant on the ornament....

    Your turn next... ;)
     
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  13. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    Have you read the interview? I thought that it was actually really good, although it has now had parts taken out of context by the press. Nicole tried her best to stop that happening here, by quoting interesting parts of the interview which tend to be ignored, but unfortunately it hasn't stopped the occasional troll.
     
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  14. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Page 1 was very good. Definitely worth reading in the loo.

    Pages 2-7 should be flushed down the toilet. ;)
     
  15. jeatleboe

    jeatleboe Forum Resident

    Location:
    NY
    Can we imagine someone (Paul? Yoko? Both?) having to count beans and decide who's the dominant writer on the more collaborative Beatles songs? Sure, it's easy enough when it comes down to "Yesterday" or "I Am The Walrus", but what about the 50-50 collaborations, or the 60-40 ones? Do they become: "Lennartney" or "McCennon"? :cool:
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2015
  16. Moontrekker

    Moontrekker Active Member

    Exactly how much should I care that a celebrity billionaire gets picked on by the press every now and again ? I can think of countless more appropriate examples of how "petty, bitter and horrible" the world is than that.

    Who's "we all" ?
     
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  17. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    He clarified that he was happy only to have them swapped on Yesterday, or for John's 'Playboy interview' list to be followed.

    There are no excuses as to why the swaps shouldn't happen.
     
  18. nicole21290

    nicole21290 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    But it was nothing to do with bighead. It’s just to do with identifying who wrote what. John did a really good Playboy interview where he did that: “This is mine, this is Paul’s.” So I thought, “Just use that! John said it!” I thought that was perfectly reasonable and I still do, by the way.​

    John's words would be the determining factor. I believe he's said before the close collaborations would stay as is, John's name first. He's not going to go into the percentages and go "Well, 60% of that was mine; I want my name first." It's about the ones clearly authored primarily by one individual. Being a pedant about hypotheticals isn't particularly useful here...

    This was his statement in 2002 about the issue, and he talks about those cases:

    "The truth is that this is much ado about nothing and there is no need for anybody to get their knickers in a twist. I'm quite happy with the situation and I'm not worried about what Yoko Ono is saying - as I am more excited about now, rather than then, having finished a great tour and winning the No.1 tour of the year. The people whose opinion matters to me have had their say."

    "But I think it's time that I made it clear what the facts are over this long-running and rather silly dispute."

    "John and I wrote many songs together but in an article in Playboy magazine John very accurately divided the credit for each of the Beatles songs between us - 'I wrote this; this one was Paul's' etc. - and when I ran the exercise for myself a few years back for Barry Miles's book 'Many Years From Now' I found that John and I were in complete agreement as to who had done what."

    "At the very beginning, the first time this ever came up was at a meeting at Brian Epstein's office in Albemarle Street in London between Brian, John and myself. I arrived at the meeting to find that Brian and John had already independently decided the the billing would be 'songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney'."

    "I said 'What about McCartney/Lennon?' They said 'We'll do this for now and we can change it around to be fair at any point in the future'.

    "Been reassured by this, I let the matter go and our songs became known as Lennon/McCartney songs, a fact I was perfectly happy about.

    "Many years later, when we were involved in 'The Beatles Anthology' project, instead of using the term Lennon/McCartney, the songs were been credited as 'written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney'. I made a request to Yoko Ono to have my name put first on the song 'Yesterday', which John had often admitted he had nothing whatsoever to do with. "

    "I felt that after 30 years this would be a nice gesture and something that might be easy for Yoko to agree with. At first she said yes, but then she rang back a couple of hours later and reversed her decision."

    "The fact is that it was not a decision that was hers to make, but because of her objection I was not allowed to have my name in front of John's."

    "Many people say to me that it doesn't matter and in many ways I agree, but an incident that happened recently made me wonder whether it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have each song labelled accurately so that people would know which of the two composers had the bigger input in which song."

    "Late one night, I was in an empty bar flicking through the bar pianist's music book when I came across 'Hey Jude written by John Lennon'. If there is an argument for 'correct labelling' I think this is probably the best one. Computers these days often allow certain space for labelling of any item and as we all know the end of the label often gets cut off a sentence or title. For instance, I recently went to see a film which the tickets described as 'Miss Congenia'."

    "I personally don't see any harm in John's songs such as 'Strawberry Fields' and 'Help' being labelled 'by John Lennon and Paul McCartney' and my songs such as 'Let It Be' and 'Eleanor Rigby' being labelled 'by Paul McCartney and John Lennon'. It lays out the information so that no one is in any doubt as to who did what - and I have also pointed out to Yoko Ono that I'm happy for our co-written songs to have John's name in front of mine."

    "I think it is fair and accurate for the songs that John declared were mine to carry my name first. This isn't anything I'm going to lose any sleep over, nor is it anything that will cause litigation, but it seems to be harmless to me after more than 30 years of it been the other way for people like Yoko who have benefitted, and who continues to benefit from, my past efforts to be a little generous and to not have a problem with this suggestion of how to simply map out for those who do not know who wrote which of the songs."

     
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  19. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    My first line referred to your bitterness towards Paul, and the lies referred to the press treatment of Paul. Hope that clears it up for you. :)
     
  20. Moontrekker

    Moontrekker Active Member

    So any post which isn't praising Paul to the hilt is considered "bitterness towards Paul". And "we" are all "the press". I see.
     
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  21. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    Well, I think that Paul said it better than we can with this comment.
     
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  22. Zeki

    Zeki Forum Resident

    Why would anyone need to count or do any calculating? All that is needed is someone with reading skills, someone who can refer to the John Lennon 1980 Playboy interview.
     
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  23. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    You weren't only not praising him, you were attacking him for having feelings and opinions despite the fact that he is rich. How kind of you.

    As for 'We', I was referring to the press, and explaining that 'we' shouldn't all join in and follow their bitter and rude ways.

    We will have to agree to disagree; I believe that rich people are still entitled to an opinion.
     
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  24. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member

    I haven't read it. Will check it out. All I know about it is you mentioning yesterday that the article stated the next Archives would be out in the autumn! If that is true, that would be my main focus.:D
     
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  25. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    The issue has a little box at the side, separate from the interview, where it confirms that it will be released this Autumn.
     
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