Money (That's What I Want) | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I’m not sure this deserves a thread on its own, so I’ll put it here. I read a McCartney anecdote today that made me realise that he and John Lennon were both using the same story around the same time, and that Bob Dylan and David Bowie both loved it.

Here’s McCartney in 2007:

I’ve given up saying it cos I think it’s a little bit over the top, but there was a time in the late Sixties when I used to be in New York and people would say to me, “Hey man, you look just like Paul McCartney ”, and I’d say: “I wish I had his money!” And it was like so vulgar that they thought, ‘Well, that can’t be him. He wouldn’t say that.’ I told that to Dylan once, Bob Dylan. He said, “I must use that line, man.” He liked that.

And here’s an excerpt from a speech by David Bowie in 1999:

Towards the end of the 70s, a group of us went off to Hong Kong on a holiday and John was in, sort of, house-husband mode and wanted to show Sean the world. And during one of our expeditions on the back streets a kid comes running up to him and says, “Are you John Lennon ?” And he said, “No but I wish I had his money.” Which I promptly stole for myself.

[imitating a fan] “Are you David Bowie?”

No, but I wish I had his money.

It’s brilliant. It was such a wonderful thing to say. The kid said, “Oh, sorry. Of course you aren’t,” and ran off. I thought, “This is the most effective device I’ve heard.”

I was back in New York a couple of months later in Soho, downtown, and a voice pipes up in my ear, “Are you David Bowie?” And I said, “No, but I wish I had his money.”

“You lying b*****d. You wish you had my money.” It was John Lennon .

Isn’t that funny?

Yes indeed. The McCartney quote was one I only read today. Presumably the “I wish I had his money” line dated from the Beatles years, and if so I wonder who came up with it. And if they coined it independently of one another, well isn’t that a nice example of synchronicity?