Lennon–McCartney

Background

Lennon and McCartney's first musical idols were the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and they learned many of their songs and imitated their sound. Their first compositions were written at McCartney's home (20 Forthlin Road), at Lennon's aunt Mimi's house (251 Menlove Avenue) or at the Liverpool Institute. They often invited friends—including George Harrison, Nigel Walley, Barbara Baker, and Lennon's art school colleagues—to listen to performances of their new songs.

The pair met on 6 July 1957, at a local church fête, where Lennon was playing with his skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Paul, brought along by a mutual friend, Ivan Vaughan, impressed Lennon with his ability on the guitar and his version of Eddie Cochran's '20 Flight Rock'. Soon after, John Lennon asked McCartney if he would join the Quarrymen. McCartney accepted, and there the legacy was born.

Working partnership

In his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said of the partnership,

he provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock 'n' roll. But, of course, when I think of some of my own songs—"In My Life", or some of the early stuff, "This Boy"—I was writing melody with the best of them.

Lennon said the main intention of the Beatles' music was to communicate, and that, to this effect, he and McCartney had a shared purpose. The book Help! 50 Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips Used by the Beatles points out that at least half of all Lennon–McCartney lyrics have the words "you" and/or "your" in the first line.

Although Lennon and McCartney often wrote independently—and many Beatles songs are primarily the work of one or the other—it was rare that a song would be completed without some input from both writers. In many instances, one writer would sketch an idea or a song fragment and take it to the other to finish or improve; in some cases, two incomplete songs or song ideas that each had worked on individually would be combined into a complete song. Often one of the pair would add a middle eight or bridge section to the other's verse and chorus. George Martin attributed the high quality of their songwriting to the friendly rivalry between the two. This approach of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team—with elements of competitiveness and mutual inspiration as well as straightforward collaboration and creative merging of musical ideas—is often cited as a key reason for the Beatles' innovation and popular success.

As time went on, the songs increasingly became the work of one writer or the other, often with the partner offering up only a few words or an alternative chord. "A Day in the Life" is a notable and well-known example of a later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney, where a separate song fragment by McCartney ("Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head ...") was used to flesh out the middle of Lennon's composition ("I read the news today, oh boy ..."). "Hey Jude" is another example of a later McCartney song that had input from Lennon: while auditioning the song for Lennon, when McCartney came to the lyric "the movement you need is on your shoulder," McCartney assured Lennon that he would change the line—which McCartney felt was nonsensical—as soon as he could come up with a better lyric. Lennon advised McCartney to leave that line alone, saying it was one of the strongest in the song.

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership makes up the majority of the Beatles' catalogue. The first two UK studio albums included twelve cover tunes and fifteen Lennon–McCartney songs, with one track ("Don't Bother Me") credited to George Harrison. Their third UK album, A Hard Day's Night (1964), is the only original Beatles album made up entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions. The next album released, Beatles for Sale (1964), included six covers and eight Lennon–McCartney originals. The subsequent release, Help! (1965), had two covers and two Harrison compositions along with ten Lennon–McCartney tracks and was the last Beatles album to feature a cover until Let It Be, which featured an arrangement of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae". All other songs released on studio albums by the band after Help! were original compositions, with George Harrison contributing between one and four songs on each record, Ringo Starr writing two songs ("Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden") and being given joint credit with Lennon and McCartney for a third ("What Goes On"), and a fourth and fifth joint credit on "Flying" and "Dig It" (both songs credited to all four Beatles), and the rest of the catalogue coming from Lennon and McCartney.

Lennon and McCartney gave songs to Starr to sing, and to Harrison before he started writing his own material. As for the songs they kept for themselves, each partner mostly sang his own composition, often with the other providing harmonies, or they shared lead vocal. If each contributed a fragment to make a whole song, he might sing his portion (see "I've Got a Feeling" and "A Day in the Life"). "Every Little Thing" is a rare example of a Lennon–McCartney composition written by one member of the partnership (McCartney) and sung by the other (Lennon).

Joint credit

McCartney and Lennon met in July 1957 as teenagers and began writing songs together; they agreed that all songs written by them (whether individually or jointly) should be credited to both of them. The precise date of the agreement is unknown; however, Lennon spoke in 1980 of an informal agreement between him and McCartney made "when we were fifteen or sixteen". Two songs written (primarily by Lennon) in 1957, "Hello Little Girl" and "One After 909", were credited to the partnership when published in the following decade. The earliest Beatles recording credited to Lennon–McCartney to be officially released is "You'll Be Mine", recorded at home in 1960 and included on Anthology 1 35 years later.

However, some other compositions from the band's early years are not credited to the partnership. "In Spite of All the Danger", a 1958 composition that the band (then the Quarrymen) paid to record to disc, is attributed to McCartney and George Harrison. "Cayenne", recorded at the same time as "You'll Be Mine", is a solo McCartney composition. "Cry for a Shadow", recorded during the Beatles' sessions with Tony Sheridan in June 1961, was written by Lennon and Harrison.

By 1962, the joint credit agreement was in effect. From the time of the Beatles' first A&R audition in January that year, until Lennon's announcement in September 1969 that he was leaving the band, virtually all songs by McCartney or Lennon were published with joint credit. The only exceptions were a handful of the McCartney compositions released by other artists (viz. "Woman" by Peter and Gordon in 1966, "Cat Call" by Chris Barber in 1967, and "Penina" by Carlos Mendes in 1969).

After the partnership had ended, Lennon and McCartney each gave account of their individual contribution to each jointly credited song. In only five known cases is there a substantial difference between their recollections:

Lennon–McCartney vs McCartney–Lennon

In October 1962, the Beatles released their first single in the UK, "Love Me Do", credited to "Lennon–McCartney". However, on their next three releases the following year (viz. the single "Please Please Me", the Please Please Me LP, and the single "From Me to You"), the credit was given as "McCartney–Lennon". With the "She Loves You" single, released in August 1963, the credit reverted to "Lennon–McCartney", and all subsequent official Beatles singles and albums list "Lennon–McCartney" (UK) or "J. Lennon/​P. McCartney" (US) as the author of songs written by the two.

In 1976 McCartney's band Wings released their live album Wings over America with songwriting credits for five Beatles songs reversed to place McCartney's name first. Neither Lennon nor Yoko Ono publicly "voiced a word of disapproval about it". Many years after Lennon's death however, in the late 1990s, McCartney and Ono became involved in a dispute over the credit order. McCartney's 2002 live album, Back in the U.S., also used the credit "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" for all of the Beatles songs. When Ono objected to McCartney's request for the reversed credit to be used for the 1965 song "Yesterday", McCartney said that he and Lennon had agreed in the past that the credits could be reversed, if either of them wanted to, on any future releases. Later, however, he relented, saying, "I'm happy with the way it is and always has been. Lennon and McCartney is still the rock 'n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of—in the order it has always been." An in-depth analysis of the legal issues is the subject of a 66-page Pepperdine Law Review article from 2006.

Legacy

Lennon–McCartney, and other British Invasion songwriters, changed the music industry because they were bands that wrote and performed their own music. This practice would make obsolete the songwriters that dominated the music industry. Ellie Greenwich, a professional songwriter, said, “When the Beatles and the entire British Invasion came in, we were all ready to say, ‘Look, it’s been nice, there’s no more room for us… It’s now the self-contained group- males, certain type of material. What do we do?(Betrock 1982: 173)” The Lennon-McCartney partnership also proved inspirational as the blueprint to which future band partnerships would follow; such as Chris Bell and Alex Chilton of Big Star.

Other credits

A number of songs written primarily by the duo and recorded by the Beatles were credited as follows:

The German-language versions of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" were also credited to additional songwriters for assisting with the translation: "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" was credited to Lennon–McCartney–Nicolas–Hellmer and "Sie Liebt Dich" was credited to Lennon–McCartney–Nicolas–Montague.

Non-Beatles songs

Several songs credited to Lennon–McCartney were originally released by artists other than the Beatles, especially those managed by Brian Epstein. Recording a Lennon–McCartney song helped launch new artists' careers. Many of the recordings below were included on the 1979 compilation album The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away. Beatles versions of some of these were recorded; some were not released until after their split, on compilations such as Live at the BBC (1993) and The Beatles Anthology (1995–96).

Note that several songs released during this period were credited solely to Paul McCartney:

Unreleased songs

The following compositions are believed to have been written by Lennon and McCartney, but never officially released by The Beatles or :D any other artist. Many have appeared on Beatles bootlegs; a notable exception being "Carnival of Light". The list of unreleased songs includes some of the earliest Lennon–McCartney joint works dating back to The Quarrymen, the group which evolved into the Beatles. Several of these songs were revisited during the Get Back sessions of early 1969.