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8.56am
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14 April 2010
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A recent post from @Ron Nasty sparked a thought.
Ron Nasty said
John often came up with lines that made McCartney songs. I always think of I Saw Her Standing There . John objects to Paul’s line, “Never been a beauty queen”, and suggests the more knowing wink of “You know what I mean”. Makes the song. Turns it on its head, and makes it into the classic it is. We’d still be cringing at the “beauty queen” line if not for John saving us from it.
There have been many discussions on how John & Paul helped each other in general. I this would be a great place to discuss how each helped the other make a particular song better. RN’s example above is a perfect one. One of my favorite examples is just a two-sentence blurb from John in discussing the writing of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends ‘:
“That’s Paul with a little help from me. ‘What do you see when you turn out the light/I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine’ is mine.”
What are some of your favorite examples?
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My favourite is Paul, ever the optimist singing “It’s getting better getting better all the time “, and John going “Well, it couldn’t get much worse”. I can almost hear. the nasal, sarcastic voice of his 
(Right, I’ll go fangirl elsewhere). Even Paul gives this as an example of what their songwriting partnership was like.
Another example, while not really contributing, it’s really a nice part on Julia where Paul is sort of egging John on from the booth or wherever. In the same vein, there’s a small anecdote where Paul was having a bad day or something, and John takes him aside and encourages him by saying “You can do it” or something like that. This was in the early days. These aren’t exactly contributions per se to the music, but definitely to the morale.
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27 March 2015
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LoveUlikeGuitars said
there’s a small anecdote where Paul was having a bad day or something, and John takes him aside and encourages him by saying “You can do it” or something like that. This was in the early days. These aren’t exactly contributions per se to the music, but definitely to the morale.
Yeah, that was when they recorded either Long Tall Sally or Kansas City . Paul had difficulty getting into that ‘who gives a f**k’ state of mind which he needed to get those screams right. That’s when John told him he could do it, and he did. I love those anecdotes, where you see how much the other’s approval and/or encouragement played a role in the whole saga.
I can’t really think of any examples of one helping the other write a song right now, but I know there are plenty.
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27 April 2015
Offline There’s this Drive My Car writing session that Paul talks about on the Graham Norton show, where he goes to Kenwood, it was supposed to be Golden Rings, and they were getting nowhere with it, and then they had tea and came up with Drive My Car . (At which point another guest James Corden goes “Yeah, right, tea!” xD). Sounded like quite a team work to me x)
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17 January 2016
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How about Lovely Rita … John’s contributions of background noises. It made the song, in my humble. Also his backing vocals.
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5.44pm
10 August 2011
Offline littledarling “My favourite is Paul, ever the optimist singing “It’s getting better getting better all the time “, and John going “Well, it couldn’t get much worse”. “
Yes, I’ve heard Sir Paul say this a number of times, but quite frankly a) you really have to listen hard to hear it and b) I don’t think it’s particularly brilliant.
“You know what I mean” instead of the beauty queen – that, definitely.
I think a more amusing and equivocal example is Lennon urging McCartney to leave in the “movement is on your shoulder” in “Hey Jude .”
(Has anyone drawn up a list of songs on which McCartney made major contributions to Lennon’s songs?)
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1 May 2011
Offline Into the Sky with Diamonds said
littledarling “My favourite is Paul, ever the optimist singing “It’s getting better getting better all the time “, and John going “Well, it couldn’t get much worse”. “Yes, I’ve heard Sir Paul say this a number of times, but quite frankly a) you really have to listen hard to hear it and b) I don’t think it’s particularly brilliant.
“You know what I mean” instead of the beauty queen – that, definitely.
I think a more amusing and equivocal example is Lennon urging McCartney to leave in the “movement is on your shoulder” in “Hey Jude .”
(Has anyone drawn up a list of songs on which McCartney made major contributions to Lennon’s songs?)
The drums on ‘Ticket To Ride ‘ and tape loops on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows ‘ would be two.
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3.21am
27 March 2015
Offline Not to mention The Ballad Of John And Yoko .
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Offline There is also the amazing aspect of their collaboration where two individual songs (or part of songs) get merged into one..where one has the beginning and the end, but no middle, and the other has no beginning and end, but just a part of it which goes into the other song.. I can think of two examples being Baby You’re A Rich Man and We Can Work It Out (?). Can A Day In The Life be considered as one, too?
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27 March 2015
Offline Definitely. As far as I know, the middle bit is all Paul’s, and he apparently had a hand in the orchestral thing too, though I could be mistaken about that.
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1 May 2011
Offline ‘Don’t Let Me Down ‘ was shaped by Paul and George after John came into the ‘Get Back ‘ sessions with little more than a chorus and a verse.
No idea if it counts but for some reason ‘Every Little Thing ‘ was written largely by Paul but sung by John. Would be interesting to know why Paul didnt sing lead.
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15 February 2015
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meanmistermustard said
No idea if it counts but for some reason ‘Every Little Thing ‘ was written largely by Paul but sung by John. Would be interesting to know why Paul didnt sing lead.
Aye, that’s a rather unusual case for the Fabs. Other bands do that all the time, but I can’t think of another Beatles case where someone other than the main songwriter sang the main lead (unless it was a song written specifically for Ringo or George).
The who-wrote-it-sang-it rule is one of my favourite things about the Beatles. 
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