"John is in fact the leader of the group" - Paul McCartney, 10/28/62

The Lennon list is severely remiss without "Happiness is a warm gun"When this is included I think Johns work is superior....... but that to me is not a bad bunch of Paul songs.......and I always favor John

 

The "leader" of the Beatles was John, Paul, and to some extent George Martin, but if you were to push me to choose one at a time, then it would be John from the groups formation to 1965ish and Paul from 1966ish to The End.

 

With the passage of so much time, I've come to realize she replaced lots of people - Cynthia, Epstein, Paul, and the Maharishi, among them.

 

There's also John's comment that Paul told Ringo how to play the drums on Ticket to Ride.

And they sped up Help because Paul (and George?) wanted it so...

 

But Yoko never replaced that digestive biscuit that she stole from George. Shameful behavior...

 

I totally agree with you. That was the real source of it. When you think about it, he had more motive to resent Paul over it than John. After all, he and Paul knew each other and were friends before John ame into the picture.

There's a video somewhere on YouTube where George is asked about a comment Paul said about how George and him could write something together. George's answer: "So NOW he wants to write with me?". Very revealing. He resented Paul not viewing him as an equal or song-writing partner.

Guess he didn't really care about being left out of George songs...

One has to consider Paul and John kinda used to do everything together, not even just music, so it wasn't the same thing. If you read Paul's comments about John doing the How I Won the War movie, he actually sounds somehow upset. He then went and did The Family Way soundtrack, felt guilty and gave John half the money. He helped John with his book as well...

It does seem like all of John, George and Ringo might have felt like Paul didn't much want them on his songs.

 

Yeah I make errors sometime, trying to finish a post, sometimes out of ignorance or faulty memory. John did say though, that when MCartney dashed off a Beatles track by himself, that it was hurtful to him. He made the point of saying he never did that, except for Julia.

My main point though, Hurricane Smith was a super qualified eyewitness as an engineer, songwriter, artist. A valuable witness for the Beatles inner workings. Paul McCartney was certainly the most adept & natural musician in the group. The most gifted arranger generally or probably.

My own view though is they were all super gifted & motivated as writers, singers, musicians & arrangers. Or at least John Paul & George.

Paul McCartney was probably the best record producer among the Beatles, but J&p&G could all do any facet of a record, soup to nuts, & they did, together & alone.

If the Beatles wanted to do Blues, hard rock, reggae, country, bluegrass, baroque pop, or whatever, any of the 3 of them could & did do that whenever they wanted to, together or alone.

I'm not speaking as a doe eyed fan frozen in the headlights. Just objectively, they could write words or music, sing lead or harmony, almost any style, produce, play lead or rhythm, or bass or piano or organ, percussion. McCartney is a decent drummer with a good feel & Harrison was gifted with any stringed instrument, guitar, sitar, ukelele or whatever. Lennon was the most limited musically, but by far the cleverest wordsmith with lyrics, poems. At least 3 Beatles paint or draw, these are all very clever, talented people. Historically so. Just objectively. From a very poor, post war environment, with bomb craters literally on the way to school...

They all have/had great talent & varied abilities. What other rock band can you think of, where the 3rd guy down the pecking order, wrote songs like Something & Within you without you. I can't think of any. I'm not sure there are any. Certainly CSNY comes to mind or Fleetwood Mac & a few others, but they couldn't do as many things as the Beatles, Lindsey B probably can, but not the girls.

 

John was in the control room for Blackbird, making suggestions, just as Paul was in the control room for Julia, making suggestions.

I don't think John had any interest in Martha My Dear (great tune) but obviously he wanted to be a part of Why Don't We Do It In The Road (sounds like all Paul to me including drums).

 

57-63 John, 63-66 Beatlemania which includes all those that make it go (brian, capital, EMI, promoters), 67-69 Paul, 70 whoever needed to get stuff done.

 

Patent nonsense, since 'Why' is the greatest song not credited to The Beatles that features more than one Beatle. But Yoko is the best part about it.

 

I like the guitar and Ringo isn't bad either.

 

How many of those are? It sounds extremely specific.
As for patent nonsense, to compare Yoko with Paul on a musical level...

 

But the thing is, you're guessing, Norm is not. You cannot just put both on the same level.

It doesn't matter that George Martin nor Geoff Emerick didn't use the same precise words Norm used and called him the main musical force. It seems actually clear that both of them also regarded him particularly high. Which really makes sense really given that it pertains to their own area of expertise.

 

John's quotes from the 1973-1976 period seem to indicate he did want the band back together. And it didn't happen.

 

I agree with that. There's also that story that Paul told about George and him hitch-hiking to some town and staying in some family's house for the night. As soon as John was in the picture, in those very early teen days, closeness of Paul and George took a backseat.

Also a bit ironic, that the 'spiritual' beatle would act like this, and even for so long, when it seems that it was John ditching most of George's songs, while Paul at least worked on them and tried to bring in something, even if the song was considered second-rate (like OANS) or abandoned completely (Not Guilty). So if anything, logically George should have had some problems with John's attitude and behavior. However after the band was done and over, George contributes to John's stuff several times, while Lennon didn't even play a single thing on Harrison's records (maybe there was no need for it though), and George was even annoyed that John declined the Bangladesh live show participation, yet still Paul was the villain and John was alrite.

That's not saying Paul was super eager, later George complained that "before Paul would do one of my songs, I had to do ten of his", but in reality, when you have only a few songs, and John and Paul have much more, what can one do? I think they all realized that George finally got up to their level but it was just too late. Maybe something else happened between George and Paul that is still unknown. Then again, it seems to me, even though I was born much later, that after The Beatles split up, and the solo careers were happening, it was kind of 'trendy' to crap on anything McCartney did in those days. John was this 'relevant' person with his antics and statements, George got massive praise for ATMP, and when Paul released Ram, it wasn't really that appreciated or liked by the public and the critics. Only couple decades later, "suddenly" Ram becomes this awesome "tour de force" and "essential McCartney" album (I love it, by the way). I mean, I (think) even Ringo made some comments about how 'there's not a good tune on it' or something.

A lot of the band dynamics were rooted in their teenage years, and then were changing naturally as they were growing up, but also money and drugs played into the mix of course. That said, on topic of Paul being 'producer'. I mean, it looks like music is his life, he likes to do it, still does it, and enjoys it, even when it might be no longer 'exciting' and becomes "a job", that happens with anything - he still works at it. I never saw or read an interview where Paul would be bitching about this or that, he just did the albums and toured a lot, first with Wings for years, then solo. Only in the last decade or so I think he might have started to tell some more personal stories and saying "John could be a bastard too, you know?". Which is not something you hear from Paul often, he seems 'fake' to a lot of people for a reason - telling same stories, keeping to the 'safe' image, being all polite and trying not to piss anybody off.

I don't know, does not seem to me that John or George had same eagerness to make music and tour around as much as Paul did, he was like the workaholic beatle. Maybe that all was already apparent to some people even in 64-65? "He was keen!"

 

I think people overstate the frequency of Lennon's non-appearance on Harrison songs, and draw conclusions about it that are not necessarily true. Of the 21 Harrison songs the Beatles recorded, I count seven that Lennon does not appear on at all (either singing or playing):
Love You To, Within You Without You, Long Long Long, Not Guilty, Savoy Truffle, Here Comes the Sun, and I Me Mine.

In the case of three of those tracks, Lennon did not appear for specific reasons that had nothing to do with any presumed negative attitude toward George's work:
"Within You Without You" featured no Beatles besides George, presumably because George wanted it that way.
"Here Comes The Sun" was recorded when Lennon was medically incapacitated.
"I Me Mine" was recorded after Lennon had quit the band.

So there's just four Harrison songs on which Lennon does not appear for unknown reasons. It's certainly possible he chose not to appear on them because he disrespected George or the songs. But we should note that neither Harrison nor Lennon ever said that was the reason, nor has anyone else connected with the band ever suggested that. And it's just as possible (and I'd argue more likely) that Lennon did not appear on those tracks because George didn't want him to. Lennon was hardly an instrumental virtuoso, and we know of at least one instance where George erased a Lennon contribution to one of his songs.

 

It is specific - perhaps one of the experts on this thread can provide some list of all the songs featuring more than one Beatle after the split to contextualise my statement?

It just seems so wrongheaded that everyone rattles on about dreck like "I'm The Greatest" while overlooking something as artistically groundbreaking as "Why" just because there still exists the misogynistic view of Yoko as being free of talent.

As for Paul vs Yoko on a musical level, that's apples vs grapefruits (I hope you see what I did there). Anything I've heard of Paul trying to be avant-garde has been disastrous (and I don't believe he's ever been as emotionally open as either Plastic Band album), and I'm sure Yoko's attempts to write comfortable predictable popular music would be similarly grim.

 

Oh yea, Wild Honey Pie is a one-man band tune, but John didn't mention that one. It's too bad George didn't contribute to Don't Pass Me By, it sorely misses some nice country & western type licks. Ron

 

1. Now I see what you meant, and I can't disagree more. Forget about I'm the Greatest, you are saying Why is superior to the whole Plastic Ono Band album (John + Ringo), nearly half of Imagine (John + George), most of All Things Must Pass (George + Ringo), half of Tug of War (Paul + Ringo). That's so wrong, man.

2. No offence, but defending Yoko's talent by playing the misogyiny card seems a little desperate to me. If that were true, I would never recognize any woman's talent, and yet I'm a big fan of Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, Adele, Sharleen Spiteri...
Believe me, I would have loved it if John had found a musical equal in Yoko, as he seemed to think, but sadly it's not true. I don't know about her avant-garde sculptures and stuff, but musically she is just no good: she can't sing, she can't play, she certainly can't compose.

He is (usually) not emotionally open, that's true, but I don't think that's a bad thing, it's not good or bad actually, it's just the way he writes. There is great music emotionally open and there is crap emotionally open. I think Paul lets his psyche express mostly in an indirect way, while John (especially after the Beatles break-up) was very explicit (sometime with good results, other times not). There are a few instances in which Paul is emotionally open and succeeds (Here Today, for example).

As for Yoko, her music is crap, it doesn't have to do with it being popular music (which she has tried too) or avant-garde.

 

True to a point, but his contributions to many other songs would have to be considered slight. His piano on Something is all but erased from the released take. While his playing on the outtake version is very much a fabric of the song, especially the long coda. As you mentioned his rhythm guitar track on Old Brown Shoe was taped over. And his contribution to Piggies, finding some pig sound effects and possibly a bit of background vocals, is at best, slight. I suppose it would be more appropriate to say John had waning interest in George's songs starting in 1968. That year he only plays on While My Guitar Gently Weeps and that contribution (electric guitar) is nearly buried and may well have been erased by another guitar overdub by George. Maybe George took out any perceived aggravation with John by minimizing his contributions? It's telling that several of his parts were removed or very much minimized in the later era. Ron

PS Anyone know if John took a week off from the White Album sessions? The first week of October they moved to Trident Studios. John was present for the first day, recording Honey Pie. He actually played lead guitar and both Paul and George praised him for that contribution. Then nothing for the rest of the week. He misses sessions for Martha My Dear and Savoy Truffle and mono mixing sessions the following Monday. He then misses the next day back at Abbey Road, well the first session, for George's Long, Long, Long, but he's back in tow later that evening for his own tunes, I'm So Tired and "Bungalow Bill"

 

Sure. Yoko is one of the greatest musical talents ever, and Paul friggin McCartney is just good at writing "comfortable predictable popular music".

Oh, and anyone who disagrees with you is because they're misogynistic, of course. Not because they could possibly hold a valid opinion different from yours...

 

The thing is, we don't know the reason for the nature of his contributions. It's possible it was waning interest on Lennon's part, but it's also possible that George didn't want him to play or chose to minimize what he did contribute. You've cited two examples that support the latter theory. George chose to remove his guitar from "Old Brown Shoe," and almost certainly George was the one who chose to bury his piano on "Something." On the three tracks where Lennon does not appear at all for unknown reasons, it's quite possible it was George's choice to not have him appear.

One reason I'm skeptical of the "Lennon was not interested in George's songs" theory is that neither George nor John ever said this. To the contrary, John said he was more supportive of George than Paul was. If John had felt George's songs were not worthy of his time, it stands to reason he would have said so in 1970, when he was going out of his way to be negative and critical of all things Beatles-related.

Of the eleven Beatles songs on which Ringo sings lead, George does not appear on two of them. And on a third ("Yellow Submarine") his contribution is very slight. Yet no one would suggest that was due to lack of interest in Ringo's work. I think we should be cautious about making assumptions about why Lennon was not on a few Harrison songs, absent evidence.

 

'Capital' or 'Capitol'? If 'Capitol records', they did nothing of importance until December 1963, when The Beatles were already unstoppable. And Capitol was a subsidiary of EMI Records.

 

You get my point though

 

Yep. Actually, they couldn't find the relatives so ended up spending the night on the stands of a stadium!

Yep. I think it's as I read in some other Beatles thread here: Paul was like a sitting duck, because he wouldn't answer back. I mean, Paul could have laughed in the press at Ringo over something like that (which he did say, I remember it as well)...

Ram did have very good sales though, so the public did appreciate it.

THIS. It's something I really appreciate about Paul. He's greateful and doesn't go around playing the victim. I hate the "poor me, I'm so rich and famous I cannot walk down the street" little act...