Taking sides: John Lennon vs Paul McCartney

That said, if I had to choose (complete torture) I would go with Sir Paul.

-carlos nyc

For example, I can't think of a more contrived artist ever than Tom Waits, though I love him very much and am genuinely touched by many of his songs, despite the fact that he's obviously playing characters all the time.]

Also, I just listened to Two of Us off of Let it Be...Naked and that put me in a McCartney defending mood.

Of course, the key here is not to look at the lyrics at all. They (although "Eleanor Rigby" is certainly great) are not the main reason why McCartney is a genius. That is because of his way with melody and harmonies, not because of his lyrics.

The winners do get to write the history books. Or in this case, the ones who are still alive.

In what world is Paul the underdog? See also: my very first post on this thread.

Dear friend, what's the time?
Is this really the borderline?
Does it really mean so much to you?
Are you afraid, or is it true?
Dear friend, throw the wine,
I'm in love with a friend of mine.
Really truly, young and newly wed.
Are you a fool, or is it true?

Are you afraid, or is it true?

Anyway, his best Lennon song was of course "Here Today", written after Lennon's death.

McCartney is mostly Beatles "Hey Jude", "Let it Be", and so on

In the case of Lennon, don't forget he wrote "I Am The Walrus", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "A Day In The Life", "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Help" and "I Feel Fine".

by xxxxxxxx Monday, October 25, 2010 at 08:15 PM

John Lennon was beast, he still is and maybe somewhere he really does have a big grin on his face.

Yknow, these days I'm in the George camp

Me too.

The George and John relationship was very interesting. It seemed to come to an end abruptly in 1974 after a dispute about the dissolution of the Beatles. There's a great description from McCartney's Playboy interview:

Then there was the time when we had all arrived for the big
dissolution meeting in the Plaza Hotel in New York. There were
green-baize tables--like the Geneva Conference it was--with millions of
documents laid out for us to sign. George had just come off tour, I'd
flown in specially from England, Ringo had flown in specially, too, I
think, and. . . John wouldn't show up! He wouldn't come from across the
park! George got on the phone, yelled, "Take those fucking shades off and
come over here, you!" John still wouldn't come over. He had a balloon
delivered with a sign saying, LISTEN TO THIS BALLOON. It was all quite
far out.

As Albert Goldman notes -seemingly accurately - the next night John and George were reconciled socially (John attended George's end of tour party), but their personal relationship was at an end.

George has been my favorite for years

LOL, what a dickhead

Paul OTM

The Long and Whining Low Road

Whinge At the Speed of Sound

I saw McCartney live last night. Good show! Highpoint was him playing Blackbird alone. Low-point: Obladi Oblada, obviously...

Fox News strangebo chimes in on comments, calls Paul McCartney our greatest living rock star. McCartney says there has been a lot of revisionism. Yes, Paul, there definitely has been: for example, there are now plenty of people claiming Paul McCartney is better than John Lennon. Given Paul's bottomless need for ego reinforcement he'd probably enjoy the direction this site has gone lately. He's probably here already. Anybody appearing lately named "Maxwell Silver Hummer" or "The Jailer Man & Sailor Sam"?

I don't want to get into solo stuff though. Life is too short to listen to Beatle solo albums. FWIW the example offered: Imagine vs. Let Em In: I'd rather hear Let Em In. Score one for Paul, but

the choice means about as much as whether I'd rather eat a can of Pringles or a bag of Doritos. (Pringles, for now).

Anyway here we go:

http://www.showbiz411.com/2015/07/05/paul-mccartney-reignites-decades-old-feud-with-yoko-ono-recalls-lennon-resentments

warning - this website's load-and-readability is spazztazmish

Maybe they were both good but different.

If only there were a way to decide

I like how paul expects respect for being honest about his egomania

LOL how George and Ringo were all "equal-ish" right there alongside Paul. He must have watched The Beatles Anthology too many times.

Last two posts otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTYXXg9ZZI

scott seward
Posted: July 6, 2015 at 7:48:00 PM
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.

the older i get the truer this feels

― difficult-difficult lemon-difficult (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, July 7, 2015 6:31 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is really unfair to lennon, if paul was a zombie he'd act the same way

"d'ja go to my show at the dome last night? not a fan?" vs "BRAAAAAAAAINS"...it's apples and oranges

Saw McCartney live @Roskilde Festival saturday and it was one of the best shows of my life (highlights include but are nowhere near limited to Obladi-Oblada, Temporary Secretary (I get it now!) and Live & Let Die with flame throwers and fireworks synchronized with the main riff) and also he came off as the nicest guy, very easygoing.

He signed a 17-year-old Norwegian girl on the arm so she could make a tattoo out of it.

oh yeah he also finished with

Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End

omg

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2015/festivalpladsen-roskilde-denmark-73f6b645.html

he also did this one how's that for reconciliation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwp5mpJO2NA
I'll have to take my Tug of War out of the "for sale" bin and check it out, had no idea it had any quality material on it

many of my friends were crying, it's quite an emotional experience to see a Beatle live

and how beautiful is the verse melody of My Valentine? very beautiful is what it is! would maybe have been more appropriate for folkish/psych lyrics but nevertheless beautiful https://youtu.be/f4dzzv81X9w

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/disturbing-footage-john-lennon-mocking-6480508

I distinctly remember Lennon himself mentioning in later interviews that visits with disabled fans brought out his worst side.

This just in: "John Lennon had a dark side."

http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/2aa5f46c9e7a75b887446df3894be03c48897191_m.jpg

"John Lennon was just a complete c***! You don't take the p*** out of disabled ppl (sic)"

Wise words.

That footage is in the Anthology -- Lennon does it at that Australia show, and at the Washington, DC show.

I distinctly remember Lennon himself mentioning in later interviews that visits with disabled fans brought out his worst side.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, September 20, 2015 1:03 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These visits were also talked about in the Anthology; Derek Taylor called the situation "nightmarish" as the caretakers of the disabled fans were blatantly exploiting their charges as a means of meeting the Beatles (and it's implied these disabled fans were not being well cared-for). I think Paul said that John's mockery was the only way he could deal with it. Which doesn't excuse it, obviously, but this isn't new/news, and it seems far crueler without context.

Seems like most people never made it past "Imagine" on their John Lennon Greatest Hits CDs.

i saw Paul McCartney live in Duluth, GA recently (they named a street after him down the road from Cash Money Bonus Blvd) and it was a life changing show. i really feel bad for writing shit about him in ILX here and there plz forgive me Paul. it was a magical show at a relatively small venue (we had cheap seats but i could still see him on stage) and he played a lot of new stuff in between the old stuff. at one point he joked about it, how the crowd would go wild after all the Beatles songs and then it was much quieter for his newer stuff. lol. Blackbird was a very emotional moment, and he paused to talk about civil rights, and how he wrote this song in support of that. behind him for the acoustic portion there was a Southern style old house i got the feeling he was also trying to pay tribute to his musical roots. visually it was pretty cool and at one point he stood on part of the stage that lifted up and projected underneath was blackbirds flying over a sunrise and waterfalls and all kinds of stuff. he did Temporary Secretary

he paid a lot of cool tributes to the fallen Beatles. he did Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite with a crazy lazer show and really gaudy Cirque Di Solei style high end production psychedelia. he did We Can Work It Out with an accordion player. his band was very small, just 4 other guys, and one of them switched between keys and other instruments during the course of the show. it is funny, it was in a stadium but it felt very diy very garage rock. all the Beatles songs were very short, most under 3 minutes, so it was cool to hear a set that fast paced in a live concert hall setting. of course there was room for guitar solos and jams and sometimes they would pick up a song they just finished and jam for a bit. pretty cool. he really loves playing music! you can tell!

for Temporary Secretary he had this kraftwerk style vector graphics and for Live and Let Die there was a Metallica-style stage show that would explode whenever he sang "Die" and it was as loud as indoor fireworks i lolled every time. it was cool to hear him tell stories, even if you have heard the one about Jimi Hendrix playing Sgt. Pepper a million times, to hear the person who was there talk about running into "Mick and Keith" it was fucking awesome and yes this is a huge part of the live show, seeing the Beatle tell these famous stories, for he is this living legend, who has lived this amazing life, and seen so much, and is a great storyteller.

he did Something on ukulele, and told a story of first doing this for George while they were hanging out at the Harrison's estate and it was really beautiful, it segued into a full band section at one point that was cool. he did one encore that included a rad Birthday. his voice was impressive throughout, only being a little weak during the high points of Maybe I'm Amazed, giving the performance a sense of self reflective nostalgia or wisdom or something else human and profound. at the end of the show he invited two groups of fans onstage to get autographs and introduce themselves. one girl showed up with a poster that told her parents she was coming out, and it was a very emotional moment, and Paul said some words in support and thanked her for coming to the show. then a family went onstage wearing matching Sgt. Pepper costumes that the mother had sewn (she told him she was a seamstress) and Paul singed them and thanked them for coming. the husband's name was Hank which was kind of eerie for me because my grandfather just passed this year and his name was Hank. it was very weird because they were a 4 piece family and i had gone to the show with my mom and two brothers. it really felt like an out of body experience.

his band was very small, just 4 other guys

this is pretty cool

I think he's had this band longer than the Beatles and Wings combined. He really stuck with what works (and his drummer, Abe Laboriel, Jr., is phenomenal).

Yeah, I'll have to double check but I think he's had this particular live band since at least Driving Rain ... Abe Laboriel, Jr. does indeed rule!

a family went onstage wearing matching Sgt. Pepper costumes that the mother had sewn (she told him she was a seamstress) and Paul singed them

what a dick

Seriously. Dude can't even put his spliff down for a second.

Ha! Hasn't he knocked that on the head now?

I assumed he never stopped being a 'round-the-clock stoner, and may even still grow his own. Did he make noises about giving it up?

Heather made him quit iirc

Ah, didn't know that.

I think people - although not McCartney fans or music geeks - often forget just how huge of a stoner the guy was. The guy could probably have out-smoked the entirety of the average touring funk band at one point.

Yeah, I mean, he basically had the farm in Scotland for the sole purpose of growing weed, didn't he?

"They were sent to us by fans! We just planted them and uh... they came up that way!"

... and writing "Mull of Kintyre". (xp)

Thanks Westboro Baptist Church for the warm welcome! #OneOnOne pic.twitter.com/KZmycxMgq9

— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) July 20, 2017

Hah!!

My friend who DJs pre-show for Macca was out there, in his white suit and waving a rainbow flag.

cool! he did a great job! it was a nice mix of Love-style remixes and classic 60s souls covers of Beatles material

xpost hah he played Let Me Roll It early in the set i bet it was a nod to the stoners in the audience

for Temporary Secretary he had this kraftwerk style vector graphics and for Live and Let Die there was a Metallica-style stage show that would explode whenever he sang "Die" and it was as loud as indoor fireworks i lolled every time. it was cool to hear him tell stories, even if you have heard the one about Jimi Hendrix playing Sgt. Pepper a million times, to hear the person who was there talk about running into "Mick and Keith" it was fucking awesome and yes this is a huge part of the live show, seeing the Beatle tell these famous stories, for he is this living legend, who has lived this amazing life, and seen so much, and is a great storyteller.

he did Something on ukulele, and told a story of first doing this for George while they were hanging out at the Harrison's estate and it was really beautiful, it segued into a full band section at one point that was cool. he did one encore that included a rad Birthday. his voice was impressive throughout, only being a little weak during the high points of Maybe I'm Amazed, giving the performance a sense of self reflective nostalgia or wisdom or something else human and profound. at the end of the show he invited two groups of fans onstage to get autographs and introduce themselves. one girl showed up with a poster that told her parents she was coming out, and it was a very emotional moment, and Paul said some words in support and thanked her for coming to the show. then a family went onstage wearing matching Sgt. Pepper costumes that the mother had sewn (she told him she was a seamstress) and Paul singed them and thanked them for coming. the husband's name was Hank which was kind of eerie for me because my grandfather just passed this year and his name was Hank. it was very weird because they were a 4 piece family and i had gone to the show with my mom and two brothers. it really felt like an out of body experience.

paul did the ukulele thing with "something" when i saw him at coachella back in, i think, 2009. it was gorgeous and moving and one of the concert experiences that really has stuck w/ me through all these years.

apart from the half-assed lyrics, you can tell Drive My Car is a McCartney composition from the discrepancy between the mediocre melody and the all-time bass line

lmao

Yeah fuck that guy

How Do You Sleep? studio video

wow that's pretty awesome

yeah! a few months ago for the solo poll i was trying to hunt down any footage i could find of those sessions, so it's really cool to see this now. klaus voormann looks like he's falling asleep, ha!

i'm guessing this bit from the accompanying article - "What you do have on "How Do You Sleep? (takes 5 & 6)" is a brilliant slide guitar performance from the former Beatle George Harrison" - is referring to something on the boxset, not the video, because george looks like he's still trying to figure it out a bit

yeah I don't think that was the final take used on the released recording

Great video, thanks for sharing. They love cigarettes and Dr Pepper

still waiting for McCartney to die (preferably in a public and horrible accident) so I can celebrate and piss off all the fucking awful hippies in my town who unironically listen to his worst Beatles tracks to this day

I hate him so much, more than any other musician I can think of except for the guys in Foreigner and Toto, and even they aren't as fucking annoying

so, yeah, Lennon.

absolute proof that we live in a world with no God is shown by the fact that Bowie died before McCartney

actually it proves the opposite, god clearly prefers to hear music live

sleeve calm down

Yeah great take !
And Klaus V certainly hadn’t smoked only Gitanes...
As for McCartney haters, they shouldn’t wish for his death because when that day comes, he and his music will be inescapable in all medias for a little while !

still waiting for McCartney to die (preferably in a public and horrible accident) so I can celebrate and piss off all the fucking awful hippies in my town who unironically listen to his worst Beatles tracks to this day

I hate him so much, more than any other musician I can think of except for the guys in Foreigner and Toto, and even they aren't as fucking annoying

so, yeah, Lennon.

― sleeve, Saturday, September 22, 2018 2:33 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know we all enjoy our internet hyperbole but please fuck off with wishing death on anyone because you don't like their music

man those sessions rule, good jammin from all