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Go Home Original Research Into the Hypocrisy of Paul McCartney

THE FAMOUS DOOR JUNE 4, 2010

Original Research Into the Hypocrisy of Paul McCartney

BY DAVID HAJDU

Speaking of aged beknighted idols of the British Invasion who have engaged in dicey songwriting practices, as I started to do in my last post about Mick Jagger, the fact that the Library of Congress has presented Paul McCartney with the Gerswhin Prize led me this week to review Sir Paul's vast output as a composer, and I found something baffling in it.

As background, I should point out that McCartney has been jockeying for some time to reverse the order of the songwriting credits—from "Lennon and McCartney" to "McCartney and Lennon"—for Beatles songs that McCartney wrote solely or mainly on his own. In fact, on his 2002 live CD, Back in the U.S., the credits for all the Beatles tunes read "Paul McCartney and John Lennon." He has made clear, moreover, that he would prefer to have Lennon's name removed entirely from the credit of "Yesterday," because he composed it alone. Vanity aside, there's a principle behind this seemingly petty retroactive maneuvering: that credits should properly reflect the realities of authorship, not just the terms of a publishing agreement. Misrepresentation demeans the creative process by reducing it to mere business.

Looking again at some of McCartney's solo albums and Wings records, I noticed that the songwriting credits on several—including the ostensible McCartney solo masterpiece Band on the Run (the title song of which Dave Grohl performed at the White House tribute to McCartney on Wednesday)—read, simply, "McCartney." No first name. Looking further on the web archive of the Library of Congress, which administers the Gerswhin Prize, I was stunned to find that all the songs on Band on the Run—as well as dozens and dozens of other songs, most of which we think of as Paul McCartney's tunes—were registered to Paul and Linda McCartney. Two first names. Here are just a few titles that Paul claimed that Linda cowrote, providing her formal, legal credit as co-songwriter as well as the right to financial compensation for her work as a collaborator: "My Love," "Bluebird," "Dear Friend," "Jet," "1985," "Letting Go," "You Gave Me the Answer," and "Tomorrow." What, I wonder, did she contribute to those songs? More than her presence as an inspiration, I hope, since John provided as much to Paul during the era of "Yesterday." More on this next week. If you need me in the meantime, I'll be in the archives. 

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I can't bring myself to be too outraged by this. McCartney was giving a shout out to his wife, who by all accounts, he loved. (As it is, she provides some very nice backing vocals on most of Ram, McCartney's best solo album, in my opinion -- and one of the most underrated of all Beatles solo albums). It's certainly self-obsessed for McCartney to have gone on a song credit changing campaign, but by all accounts he had given up on this in recent years. And anyways, I've always felt the best work to come from the Beatles from Sgt. Pepper's onwards tends to originate with McCartney.

- josh_y

June 4, 2010 at 2:22am

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So it's a woman's fault that music was taken down this path. First the fruit, now the music. What other dastardly acts have been committed by them. Behind every man, what does lurk in the shadows. Of course, as a man, I feel much better about myself today knowing that we are not responsible for what the Beatles did to music.

- rayward

June 4, 2010 at 7:30am

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Which person had their reputation boosted more by being credited as a co-songwriter of lots of Paul McCartney songs that were actually written entirely by Paul -- John Lennon, or Linda McCartney? While it may be obvious to you and me that "Here, There, and Everywhere" entirely by Paul song and "Come Together" is entirely by John and it all evens out, many people don't know much about the Beatles' songwriting process. They read songbooks with Beatles hits or casually look at the back of a CD case and assume that "Lennon-McCartney" means the song was cowritten by Lennon and McCartney. I don't know how you can say this hasn't significantly distorted the public's views of Paul's achievements, and John's achievements. Look how many people still think of them as a "songwriting team," when the truth is that they rarely wrote songs together aside from their early period. Do you seriously think anything of the sort has happened with people's views of Linda McCartney? No one thinks she was a songwriting genius -- they see her as a backing member of Paul's band. If she's known for writing anything, it's vegetarian cookbooks, not "Jet" or "Let Me Roll It."

- jaltcoh.blogspot.com

June 4, 2010 at 8:41am

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sorry, edit: While it may be obvious to you and me that "Here, There, and Everywhere" *is* entirely by Paul and "Come Together" is entirely by John ...

- jaltcoh.blogspot.com

June 4, 2010 at 8:42am

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"No one thinks she was a songwriting genius". Now that's an understatement. The woman didn't even know the title to one of Paul's better known songs, "Hey Jude". During a concert she was heard singing "Hey Dude" as part of the backing vocals. It was hilarious. At least she wasn't as horrible a singer as Yoko.

- tnmats

June 4, 2010 at 9:28am

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WOW!! My beloved morning internet edition of my beloved TNR arrived and Saint Marty of Peretz proclaimed : "What’s the Big Deal With the Flotilla Incident?", after which I learned that there was original research on the hypocrisy of Paul...I STOPPED!...Surely this is an event of moment. Surely--this being TNR--a person who really deserves it is going to get it. The intolerance and misogyny of the Apostle Paul, for instance, or something Paul Nitze did or didn't do, or the nefarious opinions of Paul So & So at some hitherto unknown NeoCon Think Tank. But Paul McCartney? Hey guys, why don't you reserve the Abrams Tanks for something of moment. Or if you insist on pummeling hypocrites, how 'bout that other former Beatle, the one who asked US to imagine no possessions. Really, I wonder if you can.

- masmith

June 4, 2010 at 12:05pm

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masmith-- As Elvis Costello once asked, "Was it a millionaire who said 'imagine no possessions?'"

- josh_y

June 4, 2010 at 3:33pm

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Another despicable British bigot.

- jdyer

June 4, 2010 at 6:23pm

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As John Lennon once said, 'All Paul writes are silly love songs'.

- CRS9TNR

June 4, 2010 at 9:36pm

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How about "Let It Be... Naked," McCartney's 2003 attempt to rewrite history by having the original tracks edited, mixed, and mastered the way he claimed they should have sounded all along. Of course if the other Beatles had agreed on that the album would have been released without Phil Spector's overdubs in the first place. Clever Paul, to wait until John Lennon, George Harrison, and original producer George Martin were dead so he could have the last word. Does that bug you as much as it bugs me? It really bugs me.

- dhalsted

June 4, 2010 at 9:54pm

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Strange, short and insubstantial article to get such prominent billing -- 3 paragraphs? Where's the original research? I was going to add, "who cares," but apparently, from the comments above, there are some who do. My apologies to you.

- parnest

June 4, 2010 at 11:30pm

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-- How about "Let It Be... Naked," McCartney's 2003 attempt to rewrite history by having the original tracks edited, mixed, and mastered the way he claimed they should have sounded all along. The Beatles have been very astute at managing their back catalog to maximize revenue. This was more likely 2003s attempt to get some extra spending money.

- ndmackenzie

June 5, 2010 at 2:20pm

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Removing Lennon's credit from the authorship is not just "vanity", it's a question of whether all the bands who cover the track owe money only to Sir Paul, or to Yoko Ono as well -- and I can imagine it stings Sir Paul to have this woman, who hasn't said the nicest things about him, to collect on what was not John's work.

- perseus353

June 6, 2010 at 12:11pm

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And in the end... I don't care. I still love their music, who ever gets credit. The love they made may not be equal to the love they take but their music is still the "gold standard" to my ears. Even some of the silly love songs and imagination.

- tnmats

June 6, 2010 at 7:37pm

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"Another despicable British bigot." WTF? Let it be for crying out loud. We don't need the Middle East and it's misery dragged into everything. It's this kind of attitude that makes a lot of us wish that the entire place would vanish from the face of this Earth.

- tnmats

June 6, 2010 at 7:40pm

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