Paul McCartney was asked once again about his thoughts on fellow Beatle John Lennon, who was killed in 1980. McCartney suggested that what the public know knows about Lennon is “revisionism” and that the singer has become a “martyr.”
In an interview with Esquire U.K., McCartney was asked if he was frustrated by the constant comparisons between him and Lennon. McCartney said that it was disappointing to him that suddenly the four members of the Beatles were not considered equals after Lennon died.
“When John got shot, aside from the pure horror of it, the lingering thing was, OK, well now John’s a martyr. A JFK,” McCartney said. “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.’”
McCartney continued, “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 also said that he didn’t like Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, suggesting that McCartney wasn’t as involved in the group as he was. “There was a lot of revisionism: John did this, John did that,” McCartney recalled. “I mean, if you just pull out all his great stuff and then stack it up against my not-so-great stuff, it’s an easy case to make.”
When asked about the Lennon/McCartney writing credit on every Beatles song the two wrote, McCartney said that he did ask if they could swap the names on songs he wrote solo. That didn’t happen. “And I didn’t mind. It’s a good logo, like Rodgers and Hammerstein. Hammerstein and Rodgers doesn’t work,” he said.
in 1996, when the Beatles regrouped for the Anthology documentary, McCartney asked Ono for permission to swap the names on songs he wrote. At first, she agreed, but then later changed her mind.
“And it became a bit of an issue for me. Particularly on that particular song, because the original artwork had 'Yesterday' by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and a photo of John above it,” McCartney said. “And I went, ‘Argh! Come on, lads!’ Anyway they wouldn’t do it.”
McCartney turned 73 last month and released his latest album, NEW, last year.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com
There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>
Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}