The “Lennon/McCartney” songwriting credit acts as staple on most of the Beatles’ tracks. The credit persists long past Lennon’s death and isn’t questioned for the most part. The ordering seems simple from an alphabetical standpoint, and John Lennon’s mythical status seems to reinforce what could otherwise be an arbitrary placement. In a new interview with Esquire, Paul McCartney appears sore at how Lennon’s name still comes first. Did Lennon engineer the credit order on purpose? McCartney showed up late for a meeting during the Beatle’s early days, and the rest was history:
What happened, when we were kids we were looking for what to call our songs. We had a meeting with Brian Epstein, John and me. I arrived late. John and Brian had been talking. “We were thinking we ought to call the songs, Lennon and McCartney.” I said, “That’s OK, but what about McCartney and Lennon? If I write it, what about that? It sounds good, too.” They said, “OK, what we’ll do is we’ll alternate it: Lennon and McCartney, McCartney and Lennon.” Well, that didn’t happen. And I didn’t mind. It’s a good logo, like Rogers and Hammerstein.
McCartney did mind, very much, as the credit order continued long after Lennon’s death. Even in songs that Lennon had no part in writing, the “Lennon/McCartney” label stuck. Yet the casual observer is free to assume that Lennon always did most of the writing. McCartney goes on to reveal how Yoko Ono shut down a request to have the order changed. He also discusses how John’s post-death status as “a martyr” has rewritten history:
The Beatles split up and we were sort of all equal. George did his record, John did his, I did mine, Ringo did his. It was as we were during the Beatles’ times. We were equal. When John got shot, aside from the pure horror of it, the lingering thing was, OK, well now John’s a martyr. A JFK. So what happened was, I started to get frustrated because people started to say, “Well, he was The Beatles.” And me, George and Ringo would go, “Er, hang on. It’s only a year ago we were all equal-ish.” Yeah, John was the witty one, sure. John did a lot of great work, yeah. And post-Beatles he did more great work, but he also did a lot of not-great work. Now the fact that he’s now martyred has elevated him to a James Dean, and beyond. So whilst I didn’t mind that – I agreed with it — I understood that now there was going to be revisionism. It was going to be: John was the one.
McCartney’s frustration is palpable, and it’s understandable that he’d feel slighted by Lennon’s mythical status. Still, McCartney lives on as one of history’s richest musicans. He’s done more than well even though his name came second on songwriting credits.
(via Esquire & Rolling Stone)
