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There are more than three guitars on it.

Mark Lewisohn offers this breakdown of the four-track in The Complete Recording Sessions:

     track one: drums and bass guitar

     track two: rhythm and lead guitar

     track three: John’s lead vocal

     track four: tambourine, guitars and backing vocals

And, yes, Paul does play lead guitar on the song.

Lewisohn’s description of Paul’s contribution is, “Paul played both bass guitar and lead guitar on the song, including the characteristic opening sequence.”

RunForYourLife said
I believe he’s mistaken, as that would require going through the hassle of re-stringing the Rickenbacker. The bendy bits after the bridges and during the fadeout are definitely Macca on the Casino, though.

I believe there’s something you’re forgetting, Paul got damn good at playing guitars upside down, so there would have been no need to re-string the Rickenbacker. When he first got his hands on Stu Sutcliffe’s bass, Stu wouldn’t let him re-string it, because of the expense of bass strings and the probability of a string breaking in the process. He spent months playing an upside-down bass. The vast majority of guitars he picked up were strung for a right-hander, but he could play them. He’d learnt how to do what he wanted upside-down. Every source I have seen has McCartney playing the lead, and George and John on rhythm. Lewisohn, for all the faults on what he left out that was recorded, is usually pretty accurate on who played what when he takes the time to mention it.

vonbontee said
Has anyone seen live footage of the song? Who played the intro at Shea Stadium?

Sorry, vonbontee, but I just think that’s irrelevant. Paul played bass onstage. There is no instance that I’m aware of of Paul playing anything but bass during The Beatles live years. Him playing lead on TTR live would have been physically impossible, because he had a Hofner Violin Bass in his hands. That says nothing to who played lead in the studio. George played the bit that we all accept was Paul perfectly well live, so why wouldn’t he be able to play the bit there’s some question mark over?

There are probably at least five guitar tracks on TTR. John and George are both credited with rhythm. One of those rhythm tracks would be the chord playing underlay that started this thread. As to the “If George was perfectly capable of playing that part himself – and we all know he was – it just makes it more peculiar that he wouldn’t have played it originally in the studio,” we also know George was perfectly capable of playing Paul’s lead at the end live, so why wouldn’t he have done that in the studio? – but we know and accept that’s Paul, even if George could do it just fine. Once you get into overdubbed studio recordings, there is compromise when you perform live. As soon as you accept that what was done in the studio could not be done live, then you end up at the conclusion that what you see live, especially at that time, was the compromise arrived at to get close to the studio recording. Remember, one of the reasons they gave for quitting live, was the fact that they were doing stuff in the studio that they could no longer find a way to do on stage.

I’m not looking at the liner notes, I’m looking at Lewisohn. There are times when Lewisohn says the liner notes are wrong, and are proved wrong by the tapes, so everything I’m saying is from Lewisohn’s hearing of the original tapes.