Just reading a book on the Beatles today...

[cobl04]

...and I kinda got the feeling that John Lennon, towards the end, really, really hated Paul McCartney, and actually wrote a song about it?

I mean I knew there was a rift between the band, but I thought that it was more Lennon/McCartney vs Starr/Harrison or that Yoko Ono stuffed it all up. But reading the book it seems to me there's a lot of stuff that Lennon didn't like about McCartney's work. It almost seemed as if McCartney was the only one who had any drive in the last few years....

Anyone care to shed some light on the situation for me?

The book was the 100 best songs by the Beatles, by the way. The top five was A Day in the Life, Strawberry Fields Forever (a bit overrated I thought), Hey Jude, Yesterday and All You Need is Love I think.

The Monkey made the list!!!

 

[Down Under]

You might be referring to the song “How Do You Sleep”.


Lennon wrote this at the height of his feud with Paul McCartney after The Beatles broke up. Each line of the song is an attack on some aspect of McCartney's life or music at the time. For instance, the line "Everything you done was yesterday. Since you gone you're just another day" refers to Paul's song "Yesterday" with the Beatles and his first solo single "Another Day." John felt that Paul's greatest work was behind him.

George Harrison played lead guitar on this too.


The songs lyrics are as follows:

So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head

Oh how do you sleep?
Oh how do you sleep at night?

You live with straights who tell you you was king
Jump when your mama tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you've gone you're just another day

Oh how do you sleep?
Oh how do you sleep at night?

Oh how do you sleep?
Oh how do you sleep at night?

A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon they'll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years

Oh how do you sleep?
Oh how do you sleep at night?

There is also the album artwork that has a dig at Paul.

 

[lazarus]

As a staunch McCartney detractor, I love How Do You Sleep, and laugh at the thought that Harrison wanted to take part in it.

You only need watch the documentary/concert film Let It Be (hard to locate, I understand, but a li'l Bit Torrent goes a long way) to see what kind of an asshole Paul is. While Yoko's presence in the recording studio from The White Album on down may not have been helpful, Paul was notorious for really being overbearing on the others. He was the one who made Ringo walk out of the studio during the White Album sessions, and there's a particularly sad exchange in Let It Be where an exasperated Harrison breaks down from Paul's badgering, and walks out himself.

Paul certainly had a great idea with the Sgt. Pepper's concept, but didn't know when to quit. He thought he could up the ante with Magical Mystery Tour, and it's a bit of a dark stain in the band's peak years. It's telling that with the exception of I Am The Walrus, it's mostly the singles from that period (found on the second half of the CD release) that are remembered fondly, such as Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Hello Goodbye, All You Need Is Love.

The whole Let it Be idea was Paul's, and again, it was a bad one. The band already had enough pressure without having a fucking film crew capturing their every move. These guys couldn't go out in public, and needed the privacy of the studio to stay sane. This film is really what caused the breakup of the band. I'm sure they would have folded up sooner rather than later anyway, but perhaps we may have had another couple albums instead of the cobbled-together and scattershot Let it Be, and the swan song of Abbey Road (recorded after but released before Let it Be), which also was mainly a Paul-dominated production.

Here's a good article about Let it Be that goes into a decent amount of detail:

http://michaelmanning.tv/blog/2006/06/beatles-let-it-be.html

 

[Hank Bulger]

So George Harrison wasn't too happy with him either?

 

[cobl04]

Thanks for that, very interesting!

And that song is brutal!

I just thought out of the band's most turbulent period came agrubably their most best and peaceful song, although apparently John said during the recording, "are we meant to giggle during the solo?"

It's a bit disheartening to hear all this. Did they ever patch things up in the end? Between any of the members? How do Ringo and Paul get along today?

 

[intedomine]

How do you sleep?
How do you last the night and keep the dogs at bay?


Whoops, that's Stone Roses.

Yeah, it's obvious that there was ill-feeling between Lennon & McCartney, and it became explicit after the Beatles split. But it's best not to think about it really. Why think of a most fantastic quartet in a negative light? The Beatles ruled, they still do, that's all that matters...

Sounds like a top book, think I might have had a squiz through it once actually. Where did Please Please Me, Tomorrow Never Knows and I'm Only Sleeping finish?

 

[intedomine]

It's a bit disheartening to hear all this. Did they ever patch things up in the end? Between any of the members? How do Ringo and Paul get along today?

That they went and did that wonderful Anthology thing back in '95 indicates that it might not have been as bad as it had been reported.

 

[BVS]

[B

Yeah, it's obvious that there was ill-feeling between Lennon & McCartney, and it became explicit after the Beatles split. But it's best not to think about it really. Why think of a most fantastic quartet in a negative light? The Beatles ruled, they still do, that's all that matters...

[/B]

Well it makes them human, rather than the gods they are often portrayed as...

I can see why Lennon had issues with McCartney, his work just wasn't that good.

 

[U2Man]

Well it makes them human, rather than the gods they are often portrayed as...

I can see why Lennon had issues with McCartney, his work just wasn't that good.

whoever said that gods cannot be assholes? just check some mythology.

anyway i find it hard to believe that paul was a bigger asshole than john could be at times. he had a history of violence before beatles (rumour has it that he took part in making a guy crippled for life during a gang beating), he had a wife a and a kid that he abandoned, he brought yoko into the studio without asking any of the others if they thought it was a good idea, etc. etc.

 

[Down Under]

Photo is the last known photo of John & Paul together in 1974.

Their last recording together is on the bootleg (not great to listen to though) A Toot and a Snore in '74

 

[BVS]

whoever said that gods cannot be assholes? just check some mythology.

anyway i find it hard to believe that paul was a bigger asshole than john could be at times. he had a history of violence before beatles (rumour has it that he took part in making a guy crippled for life during a gang beating), he had a wife a and a kid that he abandoned, he brought yoko into the studio without asking any of the others if they thought it was a good idea, etc. etc.

Where in my post did I say anything about being an asshole?

 

[cobl04]

How do you sleep?
How do you last the night and keep the dogs at bay?


Whoops, that's Stone Roses.

Yeah, it's obvious that there was ill-feeling between Lennon & McCartney, and it became explicit after the Beatles split. But it's best not to think about it really. Why think of a most fantastic quartet in a negative light? The Beatles ruled, they still do, that's all that matters...

Sounds like a top book, think I might have had a squiz through it once actually. Where did Please Please Me, Tomorrow Never Knows and I'm Only Sleeping finish?

Yeah it is a good read, it's called "Here, There and Everywhere The 100 Best Beatles Songs" and it's by Stephen J. Spignesi and Michael Lewis. It has a quote for each song, and introdcutory paragraph, why it made the list, what they think it means, recording notes, quirky facts, etc.

Please Please Me was #71, Tomorrow Never Knows #39 and I'm Only Sleeping #57.

The top ten was A Day in the Life, Strawberry Fields Foreverm Let it Be, Yesterday, All You Need is Love, In My Life, Penny Lane, Revolution (single/Rev 1 and a little of Rev 9) and While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

 

[blueeyedgirl]

There's a passage in the U2 Flanagan book that makes the parallel between the fraught Achtung Baby sessions and the Let It Be sessions that's very apt.

COBL, try to check out the John Lennon biographies written by Ray Coleman if you can find them. Great books that highlight how Lennon was a musical genius, but a flawed human in many ways.

 

[Tarvark]

If you want another side of the story there is a lengthy piece in the New Yorker this month that offers a different shade of events. It suggests that the breakdown was a result of outside strains on Lennon, Starr and Harrison, McCartney straining and often over reaching to keep the band together.

The piece did a good job of illustrating just how torn up Paul was after the break up and how the demise cant be pitted on one factor or agent alone, it was probably inevitable.

 

[lazarus]

I'd advise getting the book Beatlesongs (don't remember the author) instead, as it goes through EVERY track on every album, gives you the musicians who played on each song, what they played, what the songs are about, who wrote what part of each song, and quotes from the band members, recording crew, and various other musicians.

On top of that, you get write ups on the making of each album from the artwork to the sales and Billboard info, etc.

An addictive read, and will make you an instant Beatles expert.