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9.22pm
Reviewers
17 December 2012
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parlance said
As for the typo, if you hate to pick up on grammar, then don’t. It doesn’t becone you.
Never done it before, but if a phrase doesn’t make sense to me, I’ll be bold enough to ask whether you meant the phrase I know, or whether it’s a phrase where you are. It doesn’t becone me not be curious about a phrase I may not know.
"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
To @ Ron Nasty it's @ mja6758
The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
9.26pm
1 December 2009
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parlance said
As for the typo, if you hate to pick up on grammar, then don’t. It doesn’t becone you.
parlance
Dude, relax! He was asking for clarification, that’s all – whether you typed “team” instead of “comb” by mistake, or whether you were intending to suggest “a team of fine-tooth combers”, which is what I assumed. There’s no need to take offense when people are just trying to avoid miscommunications. (By comparison, I know you meant to type “become” instead of “becone” there, so there’s no need for me to mention it at all.)
vonbontee
[EDIT: OK, started this post before mja’s own reply, and I see he’s covered all the same ground including the “becone”, so it’s redundant now. But I’ll leave it up here for posterity all the same.]
GEORGE: In fact, The Detroit Sound. JOHN: In fact, yes. GEORGE: In fact, yeah. Tamla-Motown artists are our favorites. The Miracles. JOHN: We like Marvin Gaye. GEORGE: The Impressions PAUL & GEORGE: Mary Wells. GEORGE: The Exciters. RINGO: Chuck Jackson. JOHN: To name but eighty.
9.36pm
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline Thank you, von.
"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
To @ Ron Nasty it's @ mja6758
The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
10.06pm
8 November 2012
Offline Chill people. It’s just a typo. If you’ve run out of anything to add to the actual topic, perhaps the best option is to step away for a bit.
parlance
10.18pm
21 November 2012
Offline I agree with that first line of your last post Parlance, but still, when most people read that interview and Paul says ”I wrote”, they would think he literally means that. Not many people will think ”Oh I guess he phrased it badly and actually means this or that”.
When I read the ”Kite” think I was like ”ok, I’ll cut him some slack”. But ”If I Fell ”? Seriously, Paul? Dafuq.
It’s also definitely not true that none of the music came from John. I even remember either Paul or John himself saying that John wasn’t just capable of writing rockers or just lyrics and that the music of ”If I Fell ” was a perfect example of that.
If I were Paul, I would let it go. I would let go of what the masses think. Who cares if John wrote most of whatever song but Paul came up with 3 words and the way the triangle sounds? Certainly not me. But hey, that’s just me. On the other hand I can kind of see why he’d get so annoyed about those things. But it’s so unfair to do that now. Why not before John’s death, like most of you were wondering. There were 10 years between the break-up and his death. And why such a remark all of a sudden? It was not as if the interviewer asked him about that. It was not relevant at all.
10.44pm
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline A Rolling Stone article on If I Fell.
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
10.50pm
8 November 2012
Offline ^^Sorry I’m not somewhere I can quote, but fair enough, Linde, re how people might interpret “I wrote.” The problem for me is assigning some ulterior motive and joking as if greedy, egotistical Paul just can’t wait to claim more and more of poor John’s legacy for himself.
As for why Paul does it, I stand by the assertion most people see John as the genius, and Paul just stood around making Zoolander poses all day with a bass. Just this past Sunday I had someone tell me John was the sole brain behind the group.
I don’t think Paul’s trying to take more than his fair share. I think he’d be happy if most people remembered it was a partnership.
parlance
11.07pm
Reviewers
Moderators
1 May 2011
Offline Those who think either John or Paul were the sole brains behind the Beatles are complete buffoons who ignore the facts so to support their ill-conceived stance. I lose a little more time for them day by day.
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
11.20pm
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline Dafuq? What does that mean?
And sorry, parlance, I made one off-topic aside to something you had said, and thanked von for his response. That doesn’t mean I have suddenly lost a point of view.
I agree with pretty much all Linde has to say. I understand how irksome it must be for Paul that he is somehow seen as the “other one” in Lennon-McCartney. As I said previously, three songwriters in the ’60s redefined what a song could be, and Paul McCartney was one of them.
I remember that on the day Linda died there was an interview on the BBC news channel with Bob Geldof, where he recounted how Linda had asked him to try and persuade Paul that he didn’t need to obsess so much over his place in history. “I’d be screaming down the line that there’s one fecking Paul McCartney , and one fecking John Lennon , and they were the only two in the room, and both would be remembered as long as music is listened to. Would he have it? Would he feck!” (This is a paraphrase.)
I still believe it is right to turn around to Paul and ask him to quit his competition with John, that it’s something that – since he tried the McCartney-Lennon thing – has only damaged him, has made him look increasingly petty and grasping.
I love Paul. One of my favourite songwriters ever, I just wish he’d stop telling us about his huge contributions to Lennon songs that he wasn’t claiming when John was alive to challenge him. There are McCartney that I hear Lennon twists in, that John always said were all Paul, whatever we as fans might think. I just have a problem with Paul’s statements since John’s death, when there is no longer any credible challenge, being taken as gospel.
Especially when I have heard Paul make two statements, one about an event and another about a song, that were palpably wrong, but that he was not challenged over because he was Paul McCartney .
The easiest one to address is a remark he made to the BBC Radio One series McCartney on McCartney, and it’s something he said in other arenas as well, that the intelligent decision The Beatles made was not to go to America until they had a Number One there. Except we all know that things like the Ed Sullivan contract was signed long before they had a sniff of a Number One in America. If they were not Number One in America in February 1964, they would not be turning around and saying, “Sorry, Brian, you promised us, we’re not getting on the plane.”
I would like to see Paul sit down and be interviewed by someone happy to ask hard questions and be challenged.
But that’s stopped happening, and so I say it is the responsibility of places like here to question his version of events.
"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
To @ Ron Nasty it's @ mja6758
The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
5.23am
1 August 2013
Offline Linde said
I agree with that first line of your last post Parlance, but still, when most people read that interview and Paul says ”I wrote”, they would think he literally means that. Not many people will think ”Oh I guess he phrased it badly and actually means this or that”.
True, which is why I think it’s good to question it in places like this, as mja6758 says. But that doesn’t mean he had dastardly ulterior motives in saying it. Is Paul not allowed to misremember or phrase something badly, in one interview out of forty billion interviews, at the age of 71? Heck, I saw a recent interview the other day where he said something like, “And when I met John, he had lost his mum, too.” I doubt his actual memory has gone faulty here; sounds more like a brain-to-mouth malfunction, where things like tense and pronouns are the first casualties.
Linde said
On the other hand I can kind of see why he’d get so annoyed about those things. But it’s so unfair to do that now. Why not before John’s death, like most of you were wondering. There were 10 years between the break-up and his death. And why such a remark all of a sudden?
I imagine at the time Paul simply thought it best not to fan the flames, and hoped that John would eventually chill out and give a more balanced and honest account of their partnership. There was no way for him to know John was going to die and have his every word canonized. And if John hadn’t been so keen to divide the kingdom and start rewriting history the second the band broke up, Paul wouldn’t have been placed in such an impossibly defensive position to begin with, where every disagreement he has with what became “common knowledge” sounds like bloody heresy. That mountain of misinformation that grew up in the ’80s still plays a big role in shaping the context we place Paul’s words in today. Sometimes it’s like he’s held to a standard of honesty and decorum that we don’t hold presidents or popes to (let alone John Lennon ).
I guess I’m in the minority here, but taking all things into consideration, I actually think Paul has been remarkably circumspect, generous, and consistent in his story. After all, there are also plenty of songs John claimed no credit for, to which Paul nevertheless takes care to point out John’s contribution, even though nobody would be the wiser if he didn’t. Also, I can’t help thinking of the many times Paul has said something that’s been instantly decried as laughably self-serving — his role as messenger in John and Yoko’s reunion after the Lost Weekend, for example. At the time, Yoko denied it, and then ten years or whatever later she admitted it was all true after all (which just goes to show you that stranger things have happened in Beatleland than Paul writing 16 seconds of a song everybody always thought John wrote).
5.30am
1 August 2013
Offline mja6758 said
There are many McCartney claims that have only been made since John’s murder that disagree to varying degrees with what he said before John’s death.
I’ve never read these; my impression was Paul left the credit issue well enough alone until the ’84 Playboy interview. By any chance do you remember these sources?
6.10pm
11 November 2013
Offline One of the things which irritates me about this issue is the fact that there seems to be a strong point of view which would prefer Paul to shut up and say nothing, rather than tell us something which gives us more information about the songs we all love. Is this the wish to “preserve John’s legacy” winning out over the wish to know more about those songs?
11.29pm
10 August 2011
Offline Yes, why would McCartney not want to set the record straight? The ‘Beatle barometer’ swung all the way to Lennon’s side the moment he died, and although it has righted itself to a certain extent, in the mind of the public it’s often Lennon’s Beatles.
"Into the Sky with Diamonds" (the Beatles and the Race to the Moon – a history)
1.02am
17 January 2014
Offline John took the lyrics of the poster and wasnt very proud of the song. But Johns poster his idea his song. Maybe he helped with the melody or music, but he should have made what he did clear. John was in a f**k at this time wiriting wis For Revolver and SPLHCB . goood morning from corn flakes commercial, Lucky from sons painting, Love A Day In The Life but the verses he got from new paper, being for the benefit from poster, Tomorrow Never Knows tibetan book of the dead. Shows how good he really was that even in a funk he still gave Peppers that unique dream atmosphere. I think he broke out out of funk with Across The Universe which caried over to the White Album . Really set up his solo writing style. not knocking his stuff on Revolver and Peppers in my top 5 albums’ , but even he admitted to being in a fun.
2.40am
9 January 2014
Offline kezron9 said
John was in a f**k at this time wiriting wis For Revolver and SPLHCB . goood morning from corn flakes commercial, Lucky from sons painting, Love A Day In The Life but the verses he got from new paper, being for the benefit from poster, Tomorrow Never Knows tibetan book of the dead. Shows how good he really was that even in a funk he still gave Peppers that unique dream atmosphere. I think he broke out out of funk with Across The Universe which caried over to the White Album .
First of all, great typo. Second, I don’t think John was in much of a funk in terms of inspiration. He was more into drugs than songwriting but as far as songs being influenced by newspapers, or books, that’s pretty much the norm for him throughout his whole career, isn’t it? He usually got started off after hearing some expression somewhere or a rhythm of another song, or a lyric, etc.
3.05am
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline ivaughan said
kezron9 said
John was in a f**k at this time wiriting wis For Revolver and SPLHCB . goood morning from corn flakes commercial, Lucky from sons painting, Love A Day In The Life but the verses he got from new paper, being for the benefit from poster, Tomorrow Never Knows tibetan book of the dead. Shows how good he really was that even in a funk he still gave Peppers that unique dream atmosphere. I think he broke out out of funk with Across The Universe which caried over to the White Album .
First of all, great typo. Second, I don’t think John was in much of a funk in terms of inspiration. He was more into drugs than songwriting but as far as songs being influenced by newspapers, or books, that’s pretty much the norm for him throughout his whole career, isn’t it? He usually got started off after hearing some expression somewhere or a rhythm of another song, or a lyric, etc.
Also love the typos, also agree ivaughan totally. Every great artist gets inspiration from the things around them, and the things they come into contact with. Millions have read Tibetan Book of Dead, seen cornflakes ad, none came up with those songs. Circus Poster, read it, many changes, inspiration. A Day In The Life , may have thought about it because he read it in the paper, but friend dying in a car crash, film he appeared in, only strictly from newspaper 4000 holes. Child’s picture! Are you seriously suggesting John shouldn’t have been inspired by the world he inhabited?
I will give an example, Dustin Hoffman I think it was without checking, relaxing poolside with Macca, asked if it was true he could write about anything, Paul said yes. Dustin picked up the latest edition of Time and quoted an article. Half-hour later Paul came back with Picasso’s Last Words.
Inspiration is where inspiration is found!
"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
To @ Ron Nasty it's @ mja6758
The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
6.09am
17 January 2014
Offline I am quoting John himself from his 1980 Playboy interview. He was The Beatles and his own harshest critic, we all know this. I loved those songs, they are some of my favorites of all time. I never realized until he pointed it out himself analyzing his own career that he was writing differently. He said they needed another track and he had the poster laying around. He also only contributed 4 tracks himself, while contributing to Getting Better and With a Little Help . So even his output was less, maybe because of his self considered ****FUNK**** Also I believe Paul is claiming credit for the bass line which really makes the song. Paul actually talks about it in this special on his 2013 Quebec show http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VSn33wvIMmA. All that I am saying that even when John considered himself in a funk he wrote some of his best stuff in my opinion. I am simply agreeing with John. I totally agree it was acid induced, that can mess with your ego and inner self ( I would know). He liked to write about himself and was very autobiographical. He did write his master piece Strawberry Fields, during this period. That is the style he preferred. He was so good that no one knew he was in a funk. But after he said it himself I can see how his 66-67 style and matter was very different from his 68 style of The White Album . The White Album and first side of Abbey Road were much similar to his solo style. His 66-67 style is a very unique body of work of his and I love it because it is different from most of his catalog. But can you point out a track past 66-67 that is similar to say Good Morning, You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) which he got from a phone book And Your Bird Can Sing ? He liked writing and finding inspiration from his own life and the excitment of living. Living life again is what helped him regain his muse again in the summer of 1980. If your a Lennon fan read the Fred Seamens book, great look into his later years.
6.28am
22 December 2013
Offline kezron9 said
Also I believe Paul is claiming credit for the bass line which really makes the song.
I’m not sure that I agree that it (the bass) “really makes the song”, George Martin cutting up a tape of Circus Fairground Music before tossing it all up into the air and asking Engineer Geoff Emerick to splice it all back together at random is what really gives this track its signature sound, in my opinion. Besides, was Paul coming up with the bass line ever in doubt that he felt the need to “set the record straight”? George Harrison never got proper credit for his revolutionary guitar riff for ‘I Feel Fine ‘ which DOES “really make the song”, why is it that Paul doesn’t step up to the plate for the others who didn’t get due credit on his songs? George actually put it best back in the late 1980s while being interviewed for MuchMusic (Canada), Christopher Ward asks him how he feels about Paul performing some of John’s songs, check out his response:
Bless him…:-)
7.19am
17 January 2014
Offline Billy Rhythm said
kezron9 said
Also I believe Paul is claiming credit for the bass line which really makes the song.I’m not sure that I agree that it (the bass) “really makes the song”, George Martin cutting up a tape of Circus Fairground Music before tossing it all up into the air and asking Engineer Geoff Emerick to splice it all back together at random is what really gives this track its signature sound, in my opinion. Besides, was Paul coming up with the bass line ever in doubt that he felt the need to “set the record straight”? George Harrison never got proper credit for his revolutionary guitar riff for ‘I Feel Fine ‘ which DOES “really make the song”, why is it that Paul doesn’t step up to the plate for the others who didn’t get due credit on his songs? George actually put it best back in the late 1980s while being interviewed for MuchMusic (Canada), Christopher Ward asks him how he feels about Paul performing some of John’s songs, check out his response:
Bless him…:-)
Billy, I am a musician so maybe I hear the song different the bass playing on Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite carries the whole rhythm track. Did you listen to the Rendez-vous interview? One of the hardest baselines hes done. Also George didnt take credit because he didnt write the riff John did. Well nicked it from someone else and changed it up a little.
7.41am
22 December 2013
Offline It carries “the whole rhythm track” because there’s not much else there but circus music and a basic drum track, it sticks out more because there’s no guitars, just because it’s “One of the hardest baselines he’s done” doesn’t automatically qualify it for “ownership” of the song, nobody’s EVER disputed that Paul contributed the bass part for this song, so there’s no need to “reclaim ownership”, Ringo contributed the drum part, should he also make a similar statement on his next tour? The irony is that John himself distanced himself from “ownership” by admitting that he copied the lyrics word for word from the poster, the song was all ready credited to Lennon AND McCartney, sorry but I missed the part where Paul didn’t get proper credit for his work on that song. There’s very few Beatles’ songs where Paul didn’t contribute a great bassline (and many of them are “hard to play”) so by this logic he has a lot of “ownership to reclaim” for future shows, ‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me & My Monkey’, ‘Glass Onion ‘, ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, the list goes on. Ringo had best get started straight away as well, yikes.
I believe that George had a lot more to do with many “Lennon/McCartney” songs and wasn’t given proper credit, George on the creation of ‘I Feel Fine ‘ which he most certainly was present during its creation:
| “ | I’ll tell you exactly how that came about. We were crossing Scotland in the back of an Austin Princess, singing ‘Matchbox ‘ (Carl Perkins) in three-part harmony. And it turned into ‘I Feel Fine .’ The guitar part was from Bobby Parker’s ‘Watch Your Step,’ just a bastardized version. | „ |
| —George Harrison , Musician Magazine, March 1990, p. 34, 1990 | ||
Paul makes the point of claiming how he was present during the writing of ‘Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite’ and played the bass for it, sounds like pretty much the same scenario for “Lennon/Harrison” on ‘I Feel Fine ‘…:-)
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