Lennon and McCartney: Were they equal?

[Nowhere Man]

Yeah I know, everyone and there mothers probably had this discussion before but I want to hear some fresh perspectives from those who can write much more coherently than myself.

Can I just ask, is there anyone else on this forum that prefers Lennon to McCartney? I'm only asking because i've met so many wankers that happen to prefer John's music that I think from the start it drew me more to Paul's music. When I was younger especially I felt that a lot of Lennon vs McCartney arguments tended to boil down to those who  considered John to be the cooler option.

I would argue that musically Paul was more important to The Beatles, (gasp!) but to be honest I think my own personal bias towards some of John Lennon's wankier fans has marred my ability to consider both members contributions equal.

So what do you think? Obviously I feel they both were about equal in terms of songwriting but isn't it also true that most of John's ideas would have gone to shit without Sir Macca and George Martin? (and vice versa)
I'm certain Macca is still constantly irked when people overstate John's contribution to the Beatles.

50 years from now, who will be more the more revered fab?

[Sam]

The best Beatle was in fact Brian Bollweevil. His hardened exoskeleton gave him his drumming prowess, but he was crushed in a fracas when the band discovered their havests blighted. It was the beginning of their move from a predominately agricultural sound to a hip, urban ecology, favoured by both teenagers and Coleoptera.

[CaledonianGonzo]

At any rate, one of them was not even the second best Beatle in The Beatles.

[massive bereavement]

Neither of them were as good as Yoko.

[lazyhour]

Macca was obviously best, though Lennon did write Oh Yoko, which is brilliant. Apart from that he was a sneering, largely tuneless twat.

[biggytitbo]

McCartney has definitely been best the last 30 years or so.

[Replies From View]

If McCartney had been killed he'd have been the revered one.  As it is, Lennon didn't prune up and do that thing Mark Gatiss said about McCartney's eyebrows becoming dyed with typewriter ribbon.

Assuming that the fair test is to only go as far as 1980, I do tend to lean more towards Lennon's songs.  The answer is probably whoever did the fewest mawkish songs. 

If anything their solo work proves that the Best One Out Of The Beatles was actually their producer George Martin and their various engineers.

[newbridge]

McCartney by a large margin, but neither one of them were "great" songwriters because they couldn't write good lyrics. McCartney is just really, really good at writing pop melodies.

[DrGreggles]

I'll take Lennon over McCartney, probably because I don't like ballads.

[non capisco]

I'll take McCartney just because he didn't write 'Imagine', objectively and undeniably the world's shittest song.

[Petey Pate]

I'll take McCartney just because he didn't write 'Imagine', objectively and undeniably the world's shittest song.

Yet he did write Wonderful Christmastime.

Anyway they were equal in acting ability, as anyone who's seen Help knows. Ringo was the true star of the band in that regard.

[Jockice]

I'll take McCartney just because he didn't write 'Imagine', objectively and undeniably the world's shittest song.

It's not! That's Shiny Happy People by REM. Imagine is definitely in the top (or bottom) ten though. Like most preachy message songs it wants me to do exactly the opposite of what it's calling for, in this case to embrace capitalism. Lennon certainly did with his rooms full of fur coats or whatever it was.

McCartney for me definitely (and that's despite Mull Of Kintyre, another bottom tenner) basically because in some circles to say he was more talented than Lennon is seen as heresy. Note the use of the word 'was.'

[Replies From View]

Yet he did write Wonderful Christmastime.

Anyway they were equal in acting ability, as anyone who's seen Help knows. Ringo was the true star of the band in that regard.

I think Lennon comes across a better actor than McCartney.  It might be due to effort, though; McCartney tries to emote and does quite badly, whereas Lennon retains his deadpan, largely unemotive persona through all their films (until he's sarcastically worrying about Blue Meanies in the cinema) and seems in his element.  He's good in 'How I Won The War', too.

[biggytitbo]

Mccartney is objectively a much better musician than Lennon, a better player, singer and a much better melodicist. Lennon was a better lyricist - although he had his fair share of shockers too (run for your life, imagine, luck of the Irish). Mccartney main weakness in that area is he was too restless. Especially in the 70s he had such a surfeit of musical ideas, and was so restless he hardly bothered with lyrics - often just putting placeholders (literally just noises in the case of bip bop) in so he could get on to the next song. Often he wouldn't even bother to finish a song, he'd just mush a few unfinished pieces together to get them out of the door. This was less of a problem in the beatles because the rest of the band slowed him down, and there was also the spur of competition so his lyrics are generally stronger simply because he spent more time on them. He could still write pithy, funny or evocative lyrics when he felt like it though - stuff like Monkeberry Moon delight or Love in Song.

[Replies From View]

Mccartney is objectively a much better musician than Lennon, a better player, singer and a much better melodicist. Lennon was a better lyricist - although he had his fair share of shockers too (run for your life, imagine, luck of the Irish). Mccartney main weakness in that area is he was too restless. Especially in the 70s he had such a surfeit of musical ideas, and was so restless he hardly bothered with lyrics - often just putting placeholders (literally just noises in the case of bip bop) in so he could get on to the next song. Often he wouldn't even bother to finish a song, he'd just mush a few unfinished pieces together to get them out of the door. This was less of a problem in the beatles because the rest of the band slowed him down, and there was also the spur of competition so his lyrics are generally stronger simply because he spent more time on them. He could still write pithy, funny or evocative lyrics when he felt like it though - stuff like Monkeberry Moon delight or Love in Song.

The thing about McCartney though is he always does that dreadful "O" face when he sings, instantly nullifying any skills he may have.

[thenoise]

I'll take McCartney just because he didn't write 'Imagine', objectively and undeniably the world's shittest song.

It inspired my friend richard to rewrite the lyrics so that it was about femidoms, which the funniest thing the 11 year old thenoise had ever heard.

[SteveDave]

I was firmly in the "Everything (bar a couple of songs) Paul did after the Beatles was shit" camp but then I accidentally heard "Ram" & was converted. Then I saw "Rockshow" in the cinema & realised that "Venus & Mars" is one of the best albums ever made. Only one & a half duffers ("Venus & Mars (Reprise)" & "Spirits Of Ancient Egypt") on there.

Now I've gone back & through every Wings thing & whilst there is a lot of fluff on them, there's also a lot of stuff I wouldn't expect like "Mumbo", "Girls School", "Beware My Love", "Soily" & the quite lovely "Warm And Beautiful"

[Noodle Lizard]

Paul McCartney can fuck one but John Lennon was a thoroughly despicable prick.  That's where I stand.

"In this ever-changing world in which we live in".  Add on something about PC gone mad and you've got graffic right there.

[Panbaams]

A paragraph in the closing pages of Philip Norman's Shout! neatly sums up Paul's post-Beatles work:

There is a band called Wings with a clutch of Gold and Platinum Discs that long ago lifted it into the Guinness Book of Records. Its leader is a multimillionaire businessman who professes himself a simple, unspoilt lad with all the subtlety at his command; who allows his wife to sing on stage, unmelodiously; whose every lyric betrays what editing it has not had, what sentimentality no one dared mock; whose songs, for all their commercial success, can never lay the ghosts of songs a decade before them, nor extinguish the knowledge of what Paul McCartney would do if only he would try.

[wosl]

He's good in 'How I Won The War', too.

He is good in that[nb]Although Paul would've been just as good in it![/nb].  Mind you, everyone's good in that - Ronald Lacey, Lee Montague[nb]Still going![/nb], Jack MacGowran, Roy Kinnear, James Cossins, Crawford.  Superb casting, great ensemble acting, and a really good film. 

[Beagle 2]

There is a band called Wings with a clutch of Gold and Platinum Discs that long ago lifted it into the Guinness Book of Records

People liked them.

Its leader is a multimillionaire businessman

Due to all the ace tunes he wrote, he's hardly Donald Trump.

Who professes himself a simple, unspoilt lad with all the subtlety at his command

Compare him to anybody of similar levels of fame (Jacko, John Lennon) and he pretty much is.

who allows his wife to sing on stage, unmelodiously;

So he loved his wife enough to want her to be a part of what he did.

whose every lyric betrays what editing it has not had, what sentimentality no one dared mock

No, nobody ever dared to mock the sentimentality of Paul McCartney lyrics, did they?

can never lay the ghosts of songs a decade before them, nor extinguish the knowledge of what Paul McCartney would do if only he would try.

Tough act to follow for sure, but he managed it better than the other three. It's amazing to me that people still pull a face when you mention solo Macca. It's always pretty easy to convert them.

[checkoutgirl]

A girl I went out with years ago said they are both pretty much level pegging in the looks department. They were pretty level in the tune writing department too, they got equal credit on most of their tunes and were a team so it's hard to know for sure. Let's give them a draw for tunesmithery. That leaves credibility. Lennon did peace protests, married a weird artist and got assassinated by a nutter with a gun before the 1980s had really got underway. 10 out of 10 for credibility. McCartney married a vegetable Tsar who died and then a one legged gold digging lunatic and went on tour playing Beatles songs with died hair and car company sponsorships. I'd give him plus points for The Frog Chorus but most people probably wouldn't. 5 out of 10 for credibility.

So in summary, I don't care.

[phantom_power]

If that is what he is capable of without trying it is just as well he doesn't or there would be no point in anyone else bothering.

[Replies From View]

then a one legged gold digging lunatic

I read this as "cone legged", which is funnier.

[massive bereavement]

Paul was my favourite when I first got into The Beatles at the start of my teens because I was still at the stage of life where I was looking for validation for my parents idea of who I was, something that would show me what I'd already been told and wasn't too challenging. I was aware of Wings when I was a kid, so it was comfort zone music and Paul has that type of personality - charming, eager to please, very much on the surface with his conversation, vocals and melodies, there's nothing spooky or disturbing about his music.

When Paul screamed on record it was a scream of excitement - party time with Little Richard. In John's screams you could hear the pain and there came a point where I realised I needed to get to grips with what was going on inside. John was the one who set me on that path, his stuff got me to think about myself more. That was his personality, he would probe into what made people tick, not flatter their ego.

So Paul's music is basically for mummy's boys, and there's nothing wrong with that, my eldest is a mummy's boy, but I had a very difficult relationship with my mother so I related to John and then moved onto other artists who weren't so constricted by the formula of songs and the manufacturing of hit records. The Beatles are pretty useless when it comes to music, they didn't play music for its' own sake (or when they did, they did it extremely badly), so there isn't much in the way of real feeling there. There's slightly more of it with John, but Paul *is* dead in that respect.

[wosl]

McCartney has produced a greater amount of schmaltz (which still stands, if Dec. 1980 is the comparison cut-off point), but Lennon arguably produced the two most concentrated mawk-bombs in Imagine and Beautiful Boy.  Basing a song around the flush of fatherhood is fine, as long as you don't batten the words onto an especially weedy, syrupy tune, and it doesn't shove your firstborn's nose out of joint, in the process (for good measure, Sean gets name-checked at the end, making Julian's job of relating to it extra difficult). 

[Replies From View]

McCartney has produced a greater amount of schmaltz (which still stands if Dec 1980 is the comparison cut-off point), but Lennon arguably produced the two most concentrated mawk-bombs in Imagine and Beautiful Boy.  Basing a song around the flush of fatherhood is fine, as long as you don't batten the words onto an especially weedy, syrupy tune, and it doesn't shove your firstborn's nose out of joint, in the process (for good measure, Sean gets name-checked at the end, making Julian's job of relating to it extra difficult).

Hopefully Sean became bullied at school because of it, though.

[Serge]

The thing about McCartney though is he always does that dreadful "O" face when he sings, instantly nullifying any skills he may have.

I am convinced that he does this face and shakes his head at the point of orgasm too.

[Nowhere Man]

If McCartney fans are considered wussier individuals in general, where does that leave those of us who absolutely love Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys?

[massive bereavement]

McCartney has produced a greater amount of schmaltz (which still stands, if Dec. 1980 is the comparison cut-off point), but Lennon arguably produced the two most concentrated mawk-bombs in Imagine and Beautiful Boy.  Basing a song around the flush of fatherhood is fine, as long as you don't batten the words onto an especially weedy, syrupy tune, and it doesn't shove your firstborn's nose out of joint, in the process (for good measure, Sean gets name-checked at the end, making Julian's job of relating to it extra difficult).

Didn't Paul pick "Beautiful Boy" as one of his Desert Island Discs?
It is undoubtedly one of the worst solo tracks there is and apparently Sean does hate it.

With "Imagine" he was consciously producing something subversive, lyric wise, and disguising it as another "Let it be"/"Long and Winding Road" following the relative flop sales of his 1970 album (he used the phrase "spoonful of sugar" to help the medicine go down).

I think "Imagine" is misunderstood, people don't take it for what it was intended to be, I hear them parroting the professional Beatles hater Robert Elms' observation on the Imagine video, not knowing that Lennon left that house where the video was shot literally a matter of weeks later to go and live in a sparse two room flat in Greenwich Village in New York, supporting prisoners rights, dockers strikes and that sort of thing.

Peter Green (of Fleetwood Mac) wanted to give *all* of his money away to African children, and what happened to him? They put him in a mental home, gave him shock therapy and he ended up being periodically ridiculed in the press as a tramp. Lennon didn't play the big time showbiz celebrity with a bodyguard and got shot dead in the street. It's the public that turn these people into multi-millionaires and then expect them to feel guilty for having it, and then label them as hypocrites if they acknowledge that guilt in some way. What the fuck?