The John Lennon album Paul McCartney thought had only one good song: “I didn’t like the others”
It would have been impossible for the rest of The Beatles to ignore each other once they decided to go their separate ways. They were brothers in many ways when making their classics in the 1960s, and when their time had ended, it would have only been more painful if they stopped talking to each other untifor the rest of their careers. But even if they had mutual respect for each other as writers, Paul McCartney and John Lennon were always going to have their fair share of disagreements in terms of what their music should be about.
Throughout the Fab Four’s tenure, you could already tell that both of them were moving in different directions based on what they were making. McCartney was always interested in writing a great pop song every time he wrote a tune, but around the time of Rubber Soul, Lennon stopped seeing his music as strictly mainstream music. This was high art, and he wanted to make sure that he was making songs that alerted people to the real problems with the world.
They were both making music for different reasons, but there’s a way for someone to balance both sides of that musical spectrum. Macca had his handful of tunes that had a message behind them, and no matter how little Lennon thought of his melodic skills, there aren’t many people who could make simple chord changes sound so beautiful like he did on ‘Love’ off Plastic Ono Band.
Around the time they went their separate ways, though, Lennon was almost trying to shed his skin of The Beatles in whatever way he could. Not many were brave enough to appear completely naked on their album cover, and even when he laid his soul down on Plastic Ono Band, it was hard for many people to get onboard with songs that had swearing on them, like ‘Working Class Hero’ or the screaming on ‘Well Well Well’.
It may have taken a while for most people to get it, but by the time 1971 rolled around, McCartney was only impressed by one song in Lennon’s solo catalogue, saying, “I liked ‘Imagine’, I didn’t like the others much. But really, there’s so much political shit on at the moment that I tend to play them through once to see if there’s anything I can pinch.” Then again, that’s because a lot of the political doctrine wasn’t in Macca’s wheelhouse.
He would eventually grow into a fine lyricist about current events, but when Lennon hit the ground running, his sloganeering was half the reason he made music. There was no way that people would forget about the Beatles, so the next best thing was to use his platform for good by advocating for causes on tracks like ‘Give Peace A Chance’ and ‘Power to the People’.
It’s not like McCartney exactly knocked it out of the park right out of the gate, either. McCartney was meant to be a demo album in many ways, and while many people can recognise the absolute genius happening on RAM, you would have sworn that the former Beatle had released nothing more than an album of excessive flatulence if you asked any of the critics back in the day.
But there was always room for those old wounds to heal, and both Lennon and McCartney did at least find time to pick each other up, with Lennon loving Band on the Run and ‘The Cute Beatle’ eventually covering ‘Give Peace a Chance‘ on his solo tours. There might have been a lot of bad blood, but like all great brothers, ‘The Nerk Twins’ always found a way to make up after years of exchanging blows.
