The song John Lennon thought Paul McCartney should’ve saved for somebody else: “Nothing to do with The Beatles”
In the final days of The Beatles, a compliment from John Lennon to Paul McCartney was rare. While the two songwriters started out as close friends and inseparable artists, they slowly morphed into two very different musicians where their styles often clashed. In this one instance, Lennon even dared to suggest that McCartney’s style was no longer right for the band as a whole, suggesting that one of their biggest hits should’ve been given to someone else instead.
Throughout it all, though, Lennon and McCartney always assigned their songs to the masses. Even on tracks almost solely crafted by one or the other, they were always labelled as a ‘Lennon-McCartney’ creation. At first, that was a fact as the two boys wrote together in the kitchens of their childhood homes. But as the years went on and they grew apart, that enduring communal label felt more like a nod to the fact that even if their relationship was strained, their artistry was utterly inseparable.
Having learnt to write songs together, building their sound and style out of their mutual taste and the music they were showing one another before hitting the big time and navigating new fame together, Lennon and McCartney’s entire musical brains and understanding of the industry tether them together. Even later on, when they move into their solo careers, it is impossible to separate the pair or ignore the impact they have in shaping each other’s sound.
But that doesn’t mean they appreciated it. Especially in the Beatles’ final moment, Lennon, in particular, was more critical of McCartney than he was kind. He called his contributions to Abbey Road “Granny shit” as a final parting present, but even before that, when they were working on Let It Be, Lennon put up a fight to the huge hit that gave the record its name.
To him, this piano ballad was another example of how McCartney’s sound was pulling away from the group. “That’s Paul. What can you say? Nothing to do with the Beatles,” Lennon told David Sheff from Rolling Stone. Not only separating himself from the song, he attempted to separate the whole group as he added, “It could’ve been Wings”, suggesting that McCartney should’ve kept the track for a different project.
But while Lennon lightly ate his words later on when the song became one of the band’s biggest hits, the whole conversation is symptomatic of the state the songwriters were in. They now operated with a complete disconnection. Suddenly the old friends didn’t seem to get to each other. “I don’t know what he’s thinking when he writes ‘Let It Be’”, Lennon said as if his friend had become a musical mystery to him.
Mostly, though, Lennon seemed to object to the whole Let It Be album. During the footage of the difficult Get Back sessions, it’s clear that McCartney is the one trying to hold the group together while the others had all clocked out, even all walking out of the band at some point. “We didn’t really want to do it,” Lennon said, shrugging their whole final release off as something he was forced into as he added, “Paul was hustling for us to do it.”
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