Yoko Ono's legal battles for John Lennon's name and legacy | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Any need for hundreds of page-breaking smileys?

I remember reading a Paul McCartney interview for Rolling Stone magazine where he discusses his grievances with the Lennon/McCartney thing, and how Yoko was basically being an idiot about it. Not really a lawsuit but I think it’s quite interesting.

Here’s a link to the interview: http://www.rollingstone.com/mu…..617?page=1

But here’s the part I was on about:

But what can you do about it?

I apologize in advance for this — this is a crazy little pet peeve of mine. I’ll try and keep it short. “Lennon-McCartney” was always cool. I like it. It’s a logo. But what was happening was, for example, my poem “Blackbird ” appeared in an anthology, and it appeared as “By John Lennon and Paul McCartney .” I mean, wait a minute, I wrote that.

Sort of like “Yesterday ,” which none of the other Beatles even performed on.

Same thing, but this was being reproduced as a poem. I thought, “That should really say, ‘Written by Paul McCartney .’ Or at the very worst, ‘Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon .’ I should get front billing.” So when the [Beatles] Anthology came out, after thirty years of always having John’s name in front, I thought it should say, ” ‘Yesterday ,’ by Paul McCartney and John Lennon .” So I rang up and asked Yoko. This is when Linda and I were going through our real horror times. I rang Yoko up and said, “Couldn’t I, on the Anthology, just on this one song, put my name in front? Could we put, ‘Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon ‘? It would be a great favor to me.” Linda actually rang her and said, “Do this as a favor.” Well, it became a major issue — and listen to me talking about it, like I’m trying to make it little. But in the end, she just said no.

Then, after that, I was in Rome, late at night in a bar. And there was a pianist’s fake book in the corner. Well, I have to go and look at it, don’t I? I open the page, and it says, ” ‘Hey Jude ,’ written by John Lennon .” There was no room on the page, and “Paul McCartney ” got left off. That was the killer blow. It was like, “Awwrrrgh!” So I thought, “This is what’s going to happen.” This is what I meant when people said, “Don’t worry, Paul.”

So I say: Put me first, man. But, listen, I’m in deep therapy. I’m seeing a therapist every three hours about this. [Laughs] No, no, seriously, I do think it would be not a bad thing for me to be allowed to do that — and only when our names are used in full. When it’s Lennon-McCartney, John should always come first.

How would that ever happen?

Yoko has to say, “What a good idea, Paul.”

That’s unlikely.

It’s slightly unlikely. [Laughs] But this is why we don’t have a great relationship. That, and the fact that Linda rang her personally during the height of her chemo s**t and asked her, and Yoko said, “That’s never going to happen.”

And, you know, I don’t have a hard time with her. She’s a good lady. She’s a great artist. [Looks away and laughs] I should get off it — there are more important things in the world. But it’s become sour, and it never was when John and I worked together. We were the two guys who knew it didn’t matter. So, that’s enough gossip for one day, loves!

mr. Sun king coming together said:

That is why Paul is a douche.

How the hell is he the one coming out of that badly?

Linda: Could Paul reverse the credit for one song on which John doesn't appear?

Yoko: That's never going to happen.

You can see why Yoko disagreed (Paul's songs are much more lucrative than John's, if they reversed the credit then that would open her up for losing some royalties down the line), but it was still selfish of her.

mr. Sun king coming together said:

The Walrus said:

You can see why Yoko disagreed (Paul’s songs are much more lucrative than John’s, if they reversed the credit then that would open her up for losing some royalties down the line), but it was still selfish of her.

Not at all.  She wouldn’t have lost a dime.

Not immediately, no, but she’d be opening herself up for Paul coming at her and saying “right, if you admit I wrote all of Yesterday and Hey Jude , I want 100% of the money the songwriter is entitled to, and you can have 100% of Julia “. Or, in an even more extreme case, McCartney wanting to split the Lennon-McCartney credit for all songs they wrote seperately.

The ordering of Lennon/McCartney never seemed to be important. Please Please Me had all the originals credited to McCartney/Lennon, I don’t believe Lennon batted an eyelid when Paul reversed the credit while he was alive either.