As I understand it John offered this song as a Beatles single but Paul refused it. Was Paul right or wrong?
As I see it:
Right. Paul, of all people, knew what made Beatle music successful, and that wasn’t in-your-face personal accounts of the horrors of drug addiction. Beatle songs were seldom so direct. He’d let John have his way with Rev 9 and The Ballad of J&Y (neither of which are held in any high regard) but this was too much. (Besides, it’s not a particularly good song.)
The rabid politicising of the band (for that would surely follow if John was given a free reign) would have been a disaster. It's poor performance in the charts proved him right.

Wrong. Paul should have seen that John was changing and tried to accommodate him. He should have taken the risk. It might even (though Paul could not know this) have deflected John away from POB if felt he could truly express himself in The B’s. George had done his Indian thing, why couldn’t John do his personal thing. Was Paul playing it too safe?

My own thoughts : Paul should have gone with it. The band needed a shot in the arm and taking a risk might have been what the band needed. He should have seen that John was changing and been more accomodating. But I realise hindsight is a wonderful thing, and Paul could not know then that things were so close to falling apart.
Though I don't like the song much at all. At least Paul might have talked him out of the over-done ending.

I think Paul was right refusing the song. First of all, its not a very good song and it didn't do well  in John's solo career. If it was good song like Revolution then it wouldn't be that big of a problem. Cold Turkey could have been a B side to Maybe I'm Amazed and perhaps it would have been a decent B-side single. I would hope that if it was released as a beatles song that Paul and John would have a screaming session instead of that annoying moaning. Paul and John were great screamers.

Paul was right. True, the band needed a shot in the arm, but in that vision, a song like Instant Karma should have been a better choice. Cold Turkey is not a very good song imo.

If Paul had accepted, Lennon would then have asked for something more outrageous.
He gave in over Rev 9 and The Ballad of John and Yoko (even putting Yoko on the photo with the group) and all Lennon could do later was badmouth him for being too egoistic.
For Lennon, the Beatles was over and he wanted out whatever Paul did or said.

John's version on Live in New York is much better & a brilliant performance.
I like the song but it is hard to listen at times!

Paul was right.

I can't see the Beatles singing CT. I mean, sure Geroge did his calm and peaceful Indian stuff but CT is quite very the contrary. I mean, if people raised a whole havoc about Lucy in the Sky being about drugs, can you imagine what they would have said to CT?

Quoted from Bobber

a song like Instant Karma should have been a better choice.

I agree.

I like CT apart from the screams in the end... but it certainly protreys the message.

I dont really know if Paul was right or wrong. I can take the song or leave it. Its not great by any means, but my question is, when did Paul become the say all do all with all the song selections? I'm just saying that if John wanted the song bad enough, i'm sure it would have showed up on a Beatle album.

Maybe John knew it too.

Quoted from tkitna

I dont really know if Paul was right or wrong. I can take the song or leave it. Its not great by any means, but my question is, when did Paul become the say all do all with all the song selections? I'm just saying that if John wanted the song bad enough, i'm sure it would have showed up on a Beatle album.

Maybe John knew it too.

I did ponder that a bit. At my most cynical I had John deliberately offering a song he knew Paul would turn down, then accepting that decision, all to give himself a way out.

I am with the majority here, I don't think it would have been a very good song for The Beatles. John was turning the corner at that point and getting controversial. In a way, I don't think it mattered because John was ready to go I think.

Quoted from Kevin

I did ponder that a bit. At my most cynical I had John deliberately offering a song he knew Paul would turn down, then accepting that decision, all to give himself a way out.

Very clever. Of course, we all do things like that in life. It's very hard to tell an old friend, "Get lost." It's much easier if you make it easy for them to want to get lost...

I think they should have released Cold Turkey/Come And Get It , as a double A side that would have been a cracking single ?

DaveRam

It's a shame they didn't give it a crack, then we'd have had a version on Anthology. Still, it's very much a Lennon song, and not a Beatles song. I'm not sure that George would have been very happy about doing it.

Forgive me if my brain isn't working too well today, but wasn't it a little late for Lennon to be offering a song to The Beatles. CT came out in October, by which time The Beatles, to all intents and purposes were finished. I think, given the timing, he may well have offered it knowing it would be rejected.

It would have been OK as an album track but Lennon wanted it as a single.
He even wanted You Know My Name as a single!
I'm sure he was just trying to justify leaving the group.

Cold Turkey, quite frankly, just wasn't a Beatle song. Cold Turkey was a very individual John song, and I'm glad that John did it by himself, so therefore I'm glad Paul said no.

Paul, I hate to admit it, was right this time.

C. T. was, excuse the term, "too harsh" (lyrically), if judged by "beatle-esque" standards. After the subsequent furor over the Mansonian-associated "Helter Skelter", "Blackbird" and "Piggies", the Fab needed to steer away from subjects that might've diminished their sterling reputation among mainstream record-buyers during the later years. John's "Revolution" flew (thankfully) under the radar scope, so to throw a Cold Turkey into the mix around that time might've proven disastrous during that conservative Nixonian period. Personally, I think it's one of Lennon's most revealing and powerful performances...but it needed to come out when it did--the Plastic Ono Band years.