John & Paul: Musical Joust

The breakup of The Beatles was just as earth shattering as Sgt. Pepper’s, at least to many fans. The end of the Fab Four’s union has been under critical scrutiny for more than three decades, yet the same flares of drama and mysticism still engulf the entire story. You can blame Epstein’s death, Yoko Ono, growing egos, or one of the many other contributing factors permeating the minds of Beatlemaniacs and you’ll still never be 100% sure. Two things can be for certain: 1. The Beatles are the most popular and influential group in musical history and 2. Lennon-McCartney was the best songwriting duo to ever collaborate.

With a band as notable as The Beatles, especially with such a prolific songwriting duo, a breakup usually isn’t always a heartfelt dissolution. John and Paul, the perfect foils of one another and good friends, catapulted themselves into a feud circa 1970. The media of their era (and media of following generations) made their rivalry a well documented battle complete with bitter quotes, stories tinged with disdain, and a feeling of hostility. As you can imagine, a feud between two brilliant songwriters was bound to spill over in their respective musical works – a musical joust between two creatively charged characters on very high horses.

[MP3] Paul McCartney – Too Many People

McCartney was still smarting from the demise of The Beatles, a band that was more or less managed by Paul in its latter stages. Ram was a commercial hit that came armed with a few songs that took obvious jabs at John. “Too Many People” kicks off the album with a clear knock to John. The lines “Too many people waiting for their lucky break / That was your first mistake / You took your lucky break and broke it in two / Now what can be done for you? / You broke it in two”. The song also makes barbs at John and Yoko’s self-images as important political figures “Too many people preaching practices / Don’t let ‘em tell you what you want to be”.

[MP3] Paul McCartney – Dear Boy

Jumping ahead a few tracks on Ram you’ll find “Dear Boy” immediately bringing their dispute to the forefront with the opening line “I guess you never knew dear boy, what you have found”. Paul, of course, cleverly masked his bitterness as a trivial love song but even the final verse is blatantly obvious: “I hope you never know, dear boy / How much you missed / And even when you fall in love, dear boy / It won’t be half as good as this”. If this doesn’t invoke images of Paul and John scoffing at one another, wait until you hear John’s retaliation composition.

[MP3] John Lennon – How Do You Sleep?

Just looking at the title of the song and knowing of their newborn grudge, one should be able to deduct how harsh this song might be. The ‘might be’ will quickly be replaced with an ‘is’ once you hear John croon spiteful line after spiteful line – almost all of which are an attack on Paul in some regard. Making a reference to the ‘Paul is dead’ hoax, “Those freaks was right when they said you was dead / The one mistake you made was in your head” and criticizing his songwriting, “The only thing you did was yesterday / And since you’re gone, you’re just another day”. Referencing Paul’s only good work being “Yesterday” and that his current work (i.e. solo single “Another Day”) was rubbish; his best work being behind him.

The temperamental feud that lived within stereo speakers was also (appropriately) resolved in the same manner. Paul appeared to shake the childish feud and take the higher road with his song ”Dear Friend” on a Wings’ album. Apology or not, The Beatles weren’t getting back together ever again. The grudge that spilled over into their music became the closest thing to a post-Beatles John and Paul reunion until a toot and a snore in ’74.

“People said, ‘It’s a pity that such a nice thing had to come to such a sticky end. I think that too. It is a pity. I like fairy tales. I’d love it to have had the Beatles go up in a little cloud of smoke and the four of us just find ourselves in magic robes, each holding an envelope with our stuff in it. But you realize that you’re in real life, and you don’t split up a beautiful thing with a beautiful thing.” -Paul McCartney