Who was The Beatles’ lead singer?
Okay, I think it’s pretty fair to say that unless you’ve been living under a rock and have somehow managed to stumble across a website delivering stories on popular culture shortly after your emergence, then you’ll have heard of The Beatles at the very least. Whether or not you’re clued up on all of the essential facts about the iconic Liverpudlian rock group is another matter entirely, but you might be wondering what roles everyone in the band played.
For the most part, excluding their early days before achieving immense success and worldwide infamy, the band consisted of four members, and their primary roles within the group were as follows: John Lennon played rhythm guitar, George Harrison played lead guitar, Paul McCartney played bass, and Ringo Starr played drums.
However, there were occasions when the members switched duties, with most of the band demonstrating a unique versatility. For example, all members of the band tried their hand at piano at some point, and the three members who played stringed instruments would rotate their positions from time to time. There are even a handful of examples where McCartney stood in for Starr behind the drumkit, with ‘Back in the USSR’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ being two notable examples where their bassist stood in for the absent drummer.
But this doesn’t determine who the lead singer of the band was, and given that all members of the band would have their own opportunities to assume vocal duties to varying amounts of frequency, it’s hard to even establish a de facto frontman. Over the course of what is referred to as their “main catalogue” (studio albums and charting singles released during the band’s lifespan), the band released a total of 213 songs between 1962 and 1970 – 211 of which have verbalised vocals on them.
But given that some members sang less often than others and that on other occasions, members shared lead vocal duties, it still remains unclear whether there was ever a true lead vocalist for The Beatles or if anyone was content with assuming the title given the group’s collectivist philosophy.
So, who was the true lead singer of The Beatles?
If we’re to determine the lead singer of the band based on the number of tracks they contributed lead vocals to, then we can immediately rule out both Starr and Harrison due to the fact that they sang on the fewest tracks. Including songs where lead vocals were shared between members or where the band sang as a group, such as on the Abbey Road track ‘Carry That Weight’, Starr only sang lead vocals on 12 tracks, while Harrison was slightly ahead of him on 35.
This leaves things to be decided between Lennon and McCartney, who contributed the majority of the songs between them and were always credited as songwriting partners despite not always choosing to work collaboratively. In total, McCartney sings lead vocals on 104 songs, while Lennon pips him to the post with 112 lead vocal performances. Once again, these four totals do not add up to 211 because they include every song where vocal duties are shared.
If we use this as our metric, then John Lennon ought to be declared the lead singer of The Beatles because he sang on most tracks. However, this only counts for just over half of their discography, and it feels a little unfair on Paul McCartney, seeing as he doesn’t fall much further behind with his own statistics.
Alternatively, we could look at this question another way and consider the phrases ‘lead singer’ and ‘frontman’ mutually exclusive and refer to the same duties. In many public appearances, Lennon was perceived as the main spokesman for the band and would often be the most prominent voice outside of their musical offerings, putting him a little ahead of McCartney. In addition to this, Lennon also formed the precursor band, The Quarrymen, in 1956, which didn’t feature McCartney from the start. In essence, Lennon is responsible for The Beatles even having existed.
However, in terms of their live performances, Lennon and McCartney were usually both positioned on either side of the stage, standing slightly further forward than guitarist George Harrison and with drummer Ringo Starr at the back. Their microphones were often level with one another, which gave off the impression that they were deliberately sharing the duty of being the ‘lead’ singer.
If forced to pick just one candidate, then Lennon has more factors working in his favour that determine him to be the lead singer of The Beatles. In all truth, it was a shared role between him and McCartney for the most part, with both Harrison and Starr only ever taking the role on more sparingly.
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