The 1973 song that made Paul McCartney instantly jealous of the “fast, flashy” John Entwistle
When we think of Paul McCartney, we rightly think of one of the greatest songwriters to ever exist.
In fact, this tends to be the case with a lot of The Beatles. When people talk about the band, they talk about the fact that four of the greatest songwriters (creative license given to Ringo Starr, obviously) managed to find one another within the confines of the same band. As soon as these musicians put their heads together, making great music was as easy as you like.
If we look at John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney, each person was great when it came to making music, but they also weren’t carbon copies of one another. The fact that they were all such different musicians meant that The Beatles’ sound never became predictable, as they were always putting out exciting music that kept taking the world by storm.
With such different musical outputs, it’s no surprise that each individual had varying approaches to creativity. With McCartney, he always felt that it was best to lean into uniqueness, even when it seems strange or slightly unorthodox, as you’re likely doing something right if it hasn’t already been done before.
“I used to think that anyone doing anything weird was weird,” he said, “I suddenly realised that anyone doing anything weird wasn’t weird at all and it was the people saying they were weird that were weird.”
With this style of thinking, McCartney managed to cement himself as one of the greatest songwriters to ever set foot into a recording studio, but he isn’t necessarily remembered as an exceptional bass player, wherein we forget to focus on how great he was at creating a solid rhythm section as well.
This seems slightly unfair, as while we love his lyrics and the way he can put songs together, the reason so many Beatles songs, Wings songs, and solo McCartney songs sound so good is that he creates a great foundation that he builds those songs on top of. It’s his knack with a bass that allows him to do this, and so Paul McCartney understands intimately what it takes to be a good bass player.
One instrumentalist he was particularly impressed by was John Entwistle, who was widely regarded for his ability as a bassist, even more so than McCartney in some respects. That seems like a bold call, but he really did have an exceptional talent when it came to adjusting his style, depending on what bizarre concepts his fellow bandmates in The Who threw at him, and Macca got to experience his ability to adapt first-hand, which led to him acknowledging The Who rhythm player as one of the very best.
“Paul walked into the control room while I was recording a particularly fast, flashy solo on ‘Avenging Annie’, an Andy Pratt song,” wrote Entwistle in his book, “After I had finished it, he came out on to the studio floor and said to me, ‘That was very nice. But I bet you can’t play country and western’. I replied by playing a lightning-fast, slapping bluegrass passage. Paul muttered as he left, ‘Flash cunt’.”
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