John Lennon’s defining song, according to Paul McCartney
For all the incredible songs that The Beatles wrote between them, there isn’t a single album of theirs that avoids having an absolute stinker somewhere in the tracklist.
Despite frequently being hailed as the public’s favourite member of the Fab Four, due to his highs being arguably higher than his bandmates’ best moments, Paul McCartney is unfortunately responsible for some of the most embarrassing and schlocky songs in their catalogue, and it’s not as though they come in small doses either.
He couldn’t help but ruin the perfection of Abbey Road with ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, perhaps the most frequently referred-to offender, and even though he handed over the vocal duties for ‘Yellow Submarine’ to Ringo Starr to sing on Revolver, he still couldn’t avoid being the one whose name is forever attached to it. As talented as he was and remains to this day, McCartney couldn’t help himself sometimes when it came to writing some of the most grating material you’ve ever heard.
That being said, George Harrison also knew how to write a goofy song. ‘Piggies’ is the most frequent attractor of derision in his oeuvre, despite it not being a patch on McCartney’s worst crimes against songwriting, and while Ringo Starr was barely responsible for having written any of his own songs, none of them rank particularly highly in other people’s estimations.
Lennon, on the other hand, tended to take things a little more seriously, and his way of letting off steam tended to be more experimental in nature rather than going for gimmicky humour. ‘Revolution 9’ is perhaps the greatest example of Lennon coming up with something out of the ordinary and causing heads to turn, and there are other moments where he would experiment with tape loops and psychedelic flourishes that other members tended to distance themselves from.
However, there’s one example of Lennon trying his hand at humour that McCartney apparently loved, despite it being scorned by most other listeners, and while most people would put it nowhere near the upper echelons of his work, McCartney argued that it’s one of his finest efforts.
‘The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill’ is one of many songs on The White Album that dive into more lighthearted territory, although, while McCartney would have undoubtedly loved the fact that his counterpart had written a song that matched the energy of ‘Rocky Raccoon’, it was actually one of his favourite Lennon compositions for a completely different reason.
“I remember John singing ‘Bungalow Bill’ in Rishikesh,” he claimed in a 1994 interview. “This is another of his great songs and it’s one of my favourites to this day because it stands for a lot of what I stand for now. ‘Did you really have to shoot that tiger’ is its message. ‘Aren’t you a big guy? Aren’t you a brave man?’ I think John put it very well.”
Never had I previously considered how ‘Bungalow Bill’ could be interpreted as a pro-vegan and animal rights anthem, but if that’s what McCartney took away from it over its ostensibly kooky veneer, then fair enough. To call it his career-defining work, on the other hand, seems a bit far-fetched, no matter how positive the message behind the song may have been to McCartney.
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