Taking sides: John Lennon vs Paul McCartney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE3zJgO-0S4

live together in perfect harmony / Side by side on my pyahno keyboard

https://courtneyssoundworld.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/paul_mccartney_ram_john_lennon_imagine_pig.jpg

Paul and the ram look better imo

Amusing stuff from Lennon though

who are the "people," Frederick? Name them.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

People criticize McCartney for corniness on here all the time.

I mean like it hasn't happened in the last HOUR maybe, but "stoner gobbledygook" is probably in the ballpark.

I recall a certain dialogue about "The Long and Winding Road" of recent vintage...

shocking!

I just don't get why people rag on McCartney for his corny sentiments, <b>while ignoring Lennon's violent misogyni.</b> Judge the music, if the lyrics bother you, <b>but the hypocrisy is stupid.</b>

― Frederik B, Monday, July 6, 2015 4:03 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These be the people needing to be identified, Tim. On a site where "Run For Your Life" is probably more discussed/condemnded than all the other songs on Rubber Soul combined....

(oops, some bad html coding there!)

also condemnded .... go home, Vic, you're dunk.

People criticize McCartney for corniness on here all the time.

― timellison, Monday, July 6, 2015

I meant people "ignoring Lennon's violent misogyni."

Fair enough you guys.

ok since no one can appear to call me out by name I'll just step up here.

Has Paul ever apologized for his corniness? Or his egotism?

For Lennon's part, two years after "Run For Your Life"'s casual Elvis quoting he directly called himself out for his misogynistic asshole tendencies on "Getting Better". Lennon gets points for being nakedly self-critical over the course of his career imo, Paul just gets... Paul-ier as he goes on.

but I like them both, they do different things, it's not an either/or thing. But John's dead, he's stopped saying stupid things. Paul still has some stupid things to get off his chest, apparently.

and tbh historically on this site I think Lennon gets bashed plenty for his misogyny, esp in comparison to some of his contemporaries (Mick springs to mind)

john's scathing answer to george's "miss o'dell"

The Esquire piece is up, by the way.

http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/music/8511/paul-mccartney-interview/

Hey guys! Lots of responses since I last checked this thread... what have I missed!?

Oh.

*removes bookmark*

better run for your life if you can, james redd.

Should have put that last post in Italics, implying that Turrican was removing bookmark.

Anyway let me take out my box of refrigerator magnets of Beatles received wisdom and see if I can find any interesting way to arrange them.

I don't really care who was the leader of the Beatles or who did the "most," either during the time they were playing together or after they broke up. I don't even want to argue the musical merits of the four of them. Really there is just something maddening about Paul's public persona. It seems like there is some deficit of self-awareness on his part, lack of grace or wit in dealing with his Beatle past and the other three band members. John must have been an annoying jerk a lot of the time, but it seems like he was just as hard on himself as he was on everybody else, that there was something charming and likable about him, and that he partakes of an artistic persona that we know and love from Alex Chilton and Lou Reed, having whatever the Scouse equivalent of shpilkes is.

It seems that even if one were to try to mount a defense on Macca's behalf nothing would be good enough for him, because he wants to beat John at his own game -"I was avant-garde first!" etc, which is a fool's errand. He missed the class where you learn that the best way to get credit is to give credit.

I have some irl friends that hate Lennon for his misogyny. I don't know what they've read about him because I haven't heard much beyond "He's a piece of shit".

All of the Beatles probably did some horrible stuff when they were on top of the world in 1964 and no one will ever know. Lines of girls waiting outside their hotel rooms. Being in your early 20s and being a rich and famous international rock star, probably not the best time/place to foster healthy relationships of any kind.

At least he seems to have fought for Yoko Ono as a valuable musician in her own right, putting her on Beatles albums, releasing her/their concept art through their label, etc.

mccartney has spent 50 years as, more or less, the most famous person in the world

tbh i think he's done about as well as anyone could in such a situation. plus he wrote some good songs

The year before Lennon died John was on year 4 of being a stay at home dad. Which must have taken some amount of humility.

There were, how do you say, "other factors" at work there besides humility.

I have some irl friends that hate Lennon for his misogyny. I don't know what they've read about him because I haven't heard much beyond "He's a piece of shit".

Like, you know he had a wife before Yoko that he treated like absolute garbage their entire marriage, right?

We keep slipping between "Lennon was a misogynist in life" and "Lennon was a misogynist in song," which, OK, fine, but please be clear.

Still feel like there is something slightly lamentable about Macca's shtick which boils down to "I'm sorry my mum didn't pass away in as dramatic a fashion as John's and I can't wear my heart on my sleeve and beat my breast in an atavistic fashion, I am well aware that I come off as of the stiff upper lip Music Hall tradition but I am still an artist do u see, Mr. Apollo not Mr. Dionysus but why should that matter, can Mr. Dionysus do a Little Richard Oooh-wooh like I can? Never in the history of art! Shut up! The beauty is still on duty."

beatles only really had superpowers when they were together. black majik! john gave it a go for a bit. look where it got him!

And in the digital age, McCartney feels even more slighted by the fact that Lennon never had to read the comments.

hard to deny his ebullience during this final interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaTy3kSxyoo

Blowing my mind that Paul still has the same bass he's had since 1963. That's some good luck for a travelling musician!

Peter Frampton's got him beat, sort of.

If that's Lennon's final interview, the last two minutes are incredibly spooky--wow.

There's a bit in the first half hour in which he discusses "How Do You Sleep."

You listened to that whole two hour long thing in under twenty minutes, phil? Wow

scott otm The Beatles was all four or the magic didn't work

Is it just me, or are John interviews n times more interesting than Paul interviews. I mean, you've got to take everything with a grain of salt and realize that despite the confessional artist stance not everything is revealed and what is revealed is not 100% unvarnished truth, but at least the guy is trying to communicate something, it is not just undiluted defensiveness.

Would argue that a few Ringo solo singles involving George and/or John came closest to capturing Beatles magic. Perhaps stakes were low enough for John and George to let their guard down.

Good anecdotes on Bowie ("Meeting him doesn't really give you a clue [about who he is] cuz you never know who he's going to be") producing Pussycats, and Phil Spector's increasing paranoia during the R&R sessions.

Am engaging in some kind of thought experiment in which Iggy Pop goes through a malfunctioning transporter beam and is split, seemingly irrevocably, into Iggy and Jim. Jim starts an unending whinge about how his contribution has been overlooked and Iggy has been hogging all the credit.

there will always be a part of me that thinks if i was hypothetically stuck in an elevator with paul he would be funny and probably really nice and if i was stuck in an elevator with john he would just look at me like he wanted to kill me and it would be really awkward. but i don't know why i feel like that.

all this "lennon was a misogynist" stuff sort of writes off the last 10 years of his life, doesn't it? lennon said in interviews that he regretted ever writing songs like "run for your life," wrote pro-feminist songs, insisted in the face of near-universal derision that yoko ono was an important and innovative artist (which is true), and spent the last five years of his life as a househusband. not that this excuses his earlier treatment of cynthia and other ppl, but the "lennon was an asshole" line i hear from so many people these days is just one side of the story.

Yup

You listened to that whole two hour long thing in under twenty minutes, phil? Wow

I'm a speed listener...I was just curious how Lennon's final interview would end, what his last words would be, so I skipped to the end. This is the final question:

"One final question to you: what about your private life, and your own sense of security these days? David Bowie, I think, has recently said that the great thing about New York is that he can walk down the street, and people, instead of rushing up and ripping his clothes off, will just walk past him and say, 'Hi, David, how are you?'" Is it the same for John and Yoko?"

"I'm sorry my mum didn't pass away in as dramatic a fashion as John's and I can't wear my heart on my sleeve and beat my breast in an atavistic fashion, I am well aware that I come off as of the stiff upper lip Music Hall tradition but I am still an artist do u see, Mr. Apollo not Mr. Dionysus but why should that matter, can Mr. Dionysus do a Little Richard Oooh-wooh like I can? Never in the history of art! Shut up! The beauty is still on duty."

I've probably read or heard parts or the entirety of hundreds of interviews with the guy over the years and must say that there has not been one instance where he's ever come off as anything remotely like this. Half way through the Esquire piece but it is exactly what I expected.

He doesn't come off like this on the surface at all, no, this was just an imaginative recreation to uncover what lies beneath.

I mean the great offensive quote that started this whole thread revival, as reported in a sensationalistic manner in that Daily Mail article, was "Did it frustrate you?" He answered the question by saying that, yes, there were some instances where he found it frustrating.

Where does "He wants to beat John at his own game" come from? From the Barry Miles book? That was the first kind of revisionism I was aware of but it was like twenty five years after the Beatles and it seemed to me like that whole thing was quite tactful.