This has probably been answered dozens of times but I did not find anything while searching.
I was under the impression that the majority of songs credited as written by Lennon & McCartney were written by both. Yet this site has either John or Paul as the author of songs. For example: Glass Onion - Author: John Lennon, Oh! Darling - Author: Paul McCartney, etc.
Can anyone explain this?
By the way, I'm pretty new to The Beatles so forgive me if this is common knowledge.
[...] By the way, I'm pretty new to The Beatles so forgive me if this is common knowledge.
Don't worry, it's only a matter of time! McCartney and Lennon agreed early on to share all songwriting credits, even tho they directly colaborated in only a handful of songs. They liked the idea of being the new Hammerstein/Rodgers, the idea of being a songwriting team, however it seems that a contract never existed. Each song they wrote was under the famous credit Lennon/McCartney (McCartney/Lennon in the case of their first album) tho it was not written by them but only but one of them. If you've got any doubt ... well, we'll be pleased if we could be helpful somehow.
There was definitely a real collaboration. Some people think it's a myth, but after reading books, lots of articles, and interviews... I have to say John and Paul really DID work together on a lot of Beatles songs.
There was definitely a real collaboration. Some people think it's a myth, but after reading books, lots of articles, and interviews... I have to say John and Paul really DID work together on a lot of Beatles songs.
I mean -- A LOT.
I wouldn't say "work together on a lot of Beatles songs" as if they composed them together,... if they only colaborated or helped somehow with bits and little parts, and most of the times in the studio with the others lending a hand too, Sir George -and others friends and girlfriends/wifes- included.
Should those songs be credited to the foursome -or whatever it was in each case- only because a word, a line or a chord were changed by any of them?
Remember that several demos and the released tracks are very differents, but can we say that those songs weren't composed originally by the man who recorded the demo at home, only because they were developed in the recording process in the studio.
I understand that a song should be credited to the person or people who composed it originally (only in the case that the song -demo- is finished up as a whole entity, of course) and the studio team is part of the recording process of a polished released version.
How many songs aproximately do you consider A LOT? thirty? forty?, because their catalogue contains about two hundred!!
P.S. Believe me when I tell you that I've read lots books, articles, interviews, reviews, opinions, listened to radio programms and their catalogue of songs, seen TV docummentaries etc... bad and good ones, of course.
Don't worry, it's only a matter of time! McCartney and Lennon agreed early on to share all songwriting credits, even tho they directly colaborated in only a handful of songs. They liked the idea of being the new Hammerstein/Rodgers, the idea of being a songwriting team, however it seems that a contract never existed. Each song they wrote was under the famous credit Lennon/McCartney (McCartney/Lennon in the case of their first album) tho it was not written by them but only but one of them. If you've got any doubt ... well, we'll be pleased if we could be helpful somehow.
Thanks for the information.
Do you know what songs they actually worked on together? What did each contribute?
I assume that they stopped working with each other after Sgt. Peppers, correct?
I'm getting the Anthology DVD and book for Christmas so hopefully it'll clear up the confusion.
Why don't you help me and we make a complete list with all the info to each song we could add (answering to TheCatInTheHat)? I'm already working on it but I'm very busy till this weekend so...
What I'm saying is that we can put all their songs in a list saying who wrote them and in the cases that were more than one composer say which part(s) was(were) composed by who.
As we post it and correct it everybody can discuss the improvement and collaborate too. It seems a hard work but if you think about the number of songs that were composed by only one of them the list is shorter.
1. I Saw Her Sanding There Actual writer: Paul McCartney, John Lennon
JOHN 1980: "That's Paul doing his usual job of producing what George Martin used to call a 'potboiler.' I helped with a couple of the lyrics."
PAUL 1988: "I wrote it with John. We sagged off school and wrote it on guitars. I remember I had the lyrics, 'Just seventeen/Never been a beauty queen,' which John... it was one of the first times he ever went, 'What? Must change that!' And it became, 'you know what I mean.'"
PAUL circa-1994: "Sometimes we would just start a song from scratch, but one of us would nearly always have a germ of an idea, a title, or a rough little thing they were thinking about and we'd do it. 'I Saw Her Standing There' was my original. I'd started it and I had the first verse, which therefore gave me the tune, the tempo, and the key. It gave you the subject matter, alot of information, and then you had to fill in. So it was co-written... and we finished it that day.
2. Misery Actual writer: Paul McCartney, John Lennon
JOHN 1980: "It was kind of a John song, more than a Paul song... but it was written together."
PAUL 1988: "John and I were a songwriting team, and what songwriting teams did in those days was wrote for everyone. 'Misery' was for Helen Shapiro, and she turned it down. It may not have been that successful for her because it's rather a downbeat song... 'the world is treating me bad, misery.' It was quite pessimistic. And in the end Kenny Lynch did it. Kenny used to come out on tour with us, and he used to sing it. That was one of his minor hits."
3. Anna (Go To Him) Credits: Arthur Alexander
4. Chains Credits: Gerry Goffin / Carol King
5. Boys Credits: Luther Dixon - Wes Farrell
6. Ask Me Why Actual writer: Paul McCartney, John Lennon
(I haven't got much info about this song)
7. Please Please Me Actual writer: John Lennon (100%)
8. Love Me Do Actual writer: Paul McCartney, John Lennon
JOHN 1972: "Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was sixteen, or even earlier. I think I had something to do with the middle."
JOHN 1980: "'Love Me Do' is Paul's song. He had the song around in Hamburg even, way, way before we were songwriters."
PAUL 1988: "'Love Me Do' was us trying to do the blues. It came out whiter because it always does. We're white, and we were just young Liverpool musicians. We didn't have the finesse to be able to actually sound black. But 'Love Me Do' was probably the first bluesy thing we tried to do."
PAUL circa-1994: "George Martin said, 'Can anyone play a harmonica? It would be rather nice. Couldn't think of some sort of bluesy thing, could you John?' John played a chromatic harmonica... I actually had one too but he'd been clever-- he learned to play it. John expected to be in jail one day and he'd be the guy who played the harmonica. The lyric crossed over the harmonica solo, so I suddenly got thrown the big open line, 'Love me do,' where everything stopped. Until that session John had always done it. I didn't even know how to sing it... I can still hear the nervousness in my voice."
9. P.S. I Love You Actual writer: Paul McCartney, John Lennon(?)
JOHN 1980: "That's Paul's song. He was trying to write a 'Soldier Boy' like the Shirelles. He wrote that in Germany, or when we were going to and from Hamburg. I might have contributed something. I can't remember anything in particular. It was mainly his song."
PAUL circa-1994: "A theme song based on a letter... It was pretty much mine. I don't think John had much of a hand in it. There are certain themes that are easier than others to hang a song on, and a letter is one of them... It's not based in reality, nor did I write it to my girlfriend from Hamburg, which some people think."
10. Baby It's You Credits: Mack David /Burt Bacharach /Barney Williams
11. Do You Want To Know A Secret Actual writer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney(?)
JOHN 1980: "Well, I can't say I wrote it 'for' George. My mother was always... she was a good comedienne and a singer. Not professional, but she used to get up in pubs and things like that. She had a good voice. She could do Kay Starr. She used to do this little tune when I was one or two years old... she was still living with me then. The tune was from a Disney movie: (sings) 'Do you want to know a secret? Promise not to tell? You are standing by a wishing well.' So, I had this sort of thing in my head, and I wrote it and just gave it to George to sing. I thought it would be a good vehicle for him, because it had only three notes and he wasn't the best singer in the world. He has improved a lot since then; but in those days, his ability was very poor."
PAUL 1984: "A song we really wrote for George to sing. Before he wrote his own stuff, John and I wrote things for him and Ringo to do."
GEORGE 1994: "'Do You Want To Know A Secret' was my song on the album. I didn't like the vocal on it. I didn't know how to sing."
12. A Taste Of Honey Credits:Ric Marlow - Bobby Scott
13. There's A Place Actual writer: John Lennon(100%)
14. Twist And Shout Credits: Burt Rusell - Phil Medley
SINGLES:
From Me To You Actual writer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
PAUL 1964: "'From Me To You.' It could be done as an old Ragtime tune... especially the middle-eight. And so, we're not writing the tunes in any particular idiom. In five years time, we may arrange the tunes differently. (jokingly) But we'll probably write the same old rubbish!!"
JOHN 1980: "We were writing it in a car, I think... and I think the first line was mine. I mean, I know it was mine. (humms melody) And then after that we just took it from there. We were just writing the next single. It was far bluesier than that when we wrote it. The notes, today.. you could rearrange it pretty funky."
PAUL circa-1994: "The thing I liked about 'From Me To You' was it had a very complete middle. It went to a surprising place. The opening chord of the middle section of that song heralded a new batch for me. That was a pivotal song. Our songwriting lifted a little with that song. It was very much co-written."
Thank You Girl Actual writer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
JOHN 1980: "'Thank You Girl' was one of our efforts at writing a single that didn't work. So it became a B-side or an album track."
PAUL 1988: "We knew that if we wrote a song called, 'Thank You Girl' that alot of the girls who wrote us fan letters would take it as a genuine thank you. So alot of our songs were directly addressed to the fans."
She Loves You Actual writer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
JOHN 1963: "We wrote that two days before we recorded it, actually."
PAUL 1963: "John and I wrote it together. We were in a van up in Newcastle somewhere, and we'd just gone over to our hotel. I originally got an idea of doing one of those answering songs, where a couple of us sing about 'she loves you' ...and the other one sort of says the 'yes, yes' bit. You know, 'yeah yeah' answering whoever is saying it. But we decided that was a crummy idea anyway. But we had the idea to write a song called 'She Loves You' then. And we just sat up in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it, you know."
JOHN 1963: "'Yeah.' That's sort of the main catch phrase from 'She Loves You.' We'd written the song, and then suddenly realized we needed more... so we added 'yeah, yeah, yeah' and it caught on."
JOHN 1980: "It was written together (with Paul) and I don't remember how. I remember it was Paul's idea-- instead of singing 'I love you' again, we'd have a third party. The 'Woooo' was taken from the Isley Brothers 'Twist And Shout,' which we stuck into everything."
PAUL 1982: "Occasionally, we'd overrule George Martin, like on 'She Loves You,' we end on a sixth chord, a very jazzy sort of thing. And he said, 'Oh, you can't do that! A sixth chord? It's too jazzy.' We just said, 'No, it's a great hook, we've got to do it.'"
PAUL 1988: "We rehearsed the end bit of 'She Loves You' and took it to George. And he just laughed and said, 'Well, you can't do the end of course... that sixth... it's too like the Andrew Sisters.' We just said, 'Alright, we'll try it without,' and we tried it and it wasn't as good. Then he conceded, 'You're right, I guess.' But we were both very flexible. We would listen to George's ideas too, because he was a producer and a musician, and he obviously knew what he was talking about. There was good to-and-fro. We loved that bit, and we rehearsed it alot. John and I wrote that in a hotel room, on twin beds during an afternoon off-- I mean, God bless their little cotton socks, those boys WORKED! Here I am talking about an afternoon off, and we're sitting there writing! We just loved it so much. It wasn't work."
I'll Get You Actual writer: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
JOHN 1963: "The B-side of 'She Loves You' was meant to be the A-side."
PAUL 1963: "If we write one song, then we can get going after that and get more ideas. We wrote 'I'll Get You,' which is the B-side, first. And then 'She Loves You' came after that. You know-- We got ideas from that. Then we recorded it."
JOHN 1980: "That was Paul and me trying to write a song... and it didn't work out."
PAUL circa-1994: "It's got an interesting chord in it-- 'It's not easy/ To pre-TEND...' That was nicked from a song called 'All My Trials' which is on an album I had by Joan Baez."
It's Lennon... Ssarah's list has some mistakes (Dig It is a groupal effort and credited to them tho was began by John) but I only mentioned it as a guide to begin with. I'm very sorry but I can't post any info till at least December 25th, ... I'm too busy these days, ... I'd not even checked In Blue Hawaii's info
Theres a difference in collaborating and actually sitting down together to write a tune from scratch. The latter, i believe was only done a few times in the early days. On the other hand, there aren't many Lennon/McCartney songs that do not bear the others influence - even as little as a couple of words.
Eg:
She Loves You/I Wanna Hold Your Hand - 50/50
Michelle - Paul song, but John helped with the idea of the middle 8. Same as with We Can Work it Out.
In My Life - John song, but Paul helped to structure it melodically
A Day in the Life - John and Paul songs spliced together
Theres a difference in collaborating and actually sitting down together to write a tune from scratch. The latter, i believe was only done a few times in the early days. On the other hand, there aren't many Lennon/McCartney songs that do not bear the others influence - even as little as a couple of words.
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