John Lennons brutal assessment of Paul McCartneys | Music News

Despite the shared credit, there was a aggressive edge between the 2, each striving to be the first inventive power behind the best songs – a rivalry both John and Paul acknowledged as a motivating issue.

In a 1980 interview with Playboy, John mentioned writing ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, stating: “There was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the A-side – who got the hits.‌”If you discover, in the early days the bulk of singles, in the flicks and all the pieces, had been mine … in the early period I’m dominating the group.” He added: “The cause Paul sang on ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (in the bridge) is because I could not attain the notes.”

Back in 2018, McCartney spoke about the undercurrent of competition with John Lennon during their Beatles days. In a candid chat on CBS’s 60 Minutes, he confessed: “We had been aggressive, yeah. Not brazenly, but we later admitted”. Mimicking his former bandmate, Paul impersonated John’s likely thoughts: “yeah, so Paul’s written a good one there, I higher get going.”

Paul elaborated on how they pushed each other creatively, revealing glimpses into their internal rivalry with comments like: “And I’d equally, ‘that’s a bit good, proper’. Here we go, come on.

“If he’d written ‘Strawberry Fields’, I would write ‘Penny Lane’, you know, he’s remembering his own area in Liverpool, so I’ll remember mine.”

There was certainly one gem from Paul’s repertoire that left John inexperienced with envy. Reflecting on quite a few Bealtes’ tracks during an interview with Playboy, John lamented not having penned the 1963 smash ‘All My Loving,’ conceding: “‘All My Loving’ is Paul, I regret to say. Because it’s a damn fine piece of work. But I play a pretty mean guitar in back.”

Featured on the sophomore album ‘With The Beatles,’ this tune stood out as a significantly good instance of Paul’s songwriting prowess. Music historian Mark Lewisohn extolled it in his e-book, labeling it as “magnificent… by far (McCartney’s) best, most complex piece of songwriting yet.”

On the subject of its creation, Paul supplied some backstory: “It was the first song (where) I’d ever written the words first. I never wrote words first, it was always some kind of accompaniment. I’ve hardly ever done it since either. “

McCartney revealed that despite John Lennon’s retrospective reward for ‘All My Loving’, there was only one music that Lennon personally complimented him on during their time collectively in The Beatles.He recounted: “I think it’s ‘Revolver’, it was ‘Here, There and Everywhere’, (it) was one of my songs on it but John sort of just (said) when it finishes, ‘that’s a really good song that, I love that song.”

McCartney admitted his response to the uncommon praise was: “Yes he likes it’. You know, I’ve remembered it to this day. It’s pathetic really.”

However, it seems McCartney was more beneficiant with his own reward in direction of Lennon. When requested if he would commend Lennon’s songwriting, he responded: “Yeah, I would tell him his stuff was great. You’d normally have to be a little bit drunk, it helped. “.