‘Lovely Rita’: The Paul McCartney song that turned John Lennon off: “I’m not interested in writing like that”
Paul McCartney and John Lennon learnt how to write songs arm in arm. It is impossible to separate the talent of the two musicians or attempt to unpick one from the other as The Beatles and their solo careers were utterly influenced by their friendship and years of collaboration. But as time wore on and their closeness began to falter, they seemed to become less convinced by each other’s talent. In John Lennon’s case, his criticism of McCartney began with one song.
At the start, Lennon and McCartney were a match made in heaven. Meeting at a summer fête in Liverpool, the coming together of the two teenage lads changed music history forever. The songs they began writing together while gathered around kitchen tables in their childhood homes would become timeless anthems beloved around the world. Even in those first years of friendship, they began building an incredible discography that would go on to be one of the most powerful catalogues ever created, giving them hit after hit during their nearly eight-year career together.
However, as time went on, cracks began to show. Especially in the mid to late 1960s, when drugs were brought into the equation, and the two boys were now men with their own lives and interests, their collaborative relationship began to become as estranged as their personal one. Sure, they still came into the studio and worked together, but they were no longer found spending time crafting a song one-on-one as often as they used to be.
It meant that for the first time since the band began, the two songwriters began walking on different paths. McCartney was interested in storytelling songs, packing his lyrics with characters and whimsical happenings. Lennon was more psychedelic, weaving poems busy with metaphors and hazy meanings. On Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1967, that became evident.
From their different paths, the old friends began looking at one another’s work with confusion or critique. While before, they’d typically always been a fan of what the other brought to the table, it suddenly became clear that maybe that was because their offerings were usually pretty similar. But now, they looked and sounded very different.
When McCartney brought ‘Lovely Rita’ into the studio, that was starkly obvious. “I’m not interested in writing about people like that,” Lennon said matter of factly in 1980. “I like to write about me, because I know me. I don’t know anything about secretaries and postmen and meter maids,” he added, taking a jab at the narrative-driven songs that his bandmate had become interested in.
It simply wasn’t a style of songwriting Lennon cared for as he claimed, “That’s Paul writing a pop song. He made up people like Rita, like a novelist,” as if his old friend was now a very different kind of writer to the young boy he met, or to the kind of writer he himself was.
But, as things were still more cordial and supportive in the band, Lennon helped with the song. It was still registered as a Lennon-McCartney creation, and Lennon provided guitars and backing vocals and did whatever he could to bring ‘Lovely Rita’ to life. However, down the line, as things worsened, there would be moments where he wouldn’t be quite so helpful with the narrative-driven songs he described as “granny shit”.
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