60 years ago today, John met Paul. Thank God.
Here (under the cut as it’s a little long) are some extracts from an article on John and Paul’s songwriting partnership, originally published in Beatles Monthly no. 2, September 1963.
LENNON & McCARTNEY (Songwriters) LTD.
IF AT SOME future date - possibly around the year 2014 or 2016 - THE BEATLES ceased to be popular with the disc-purchasing public they’d be quite content to fall back upon a variety of other occupations.
Ringo might turn his attention to motor racing and being to drive himself to fresh glories on tracks which have nothing to do with discs.
George says he fancies himself in the role of a traffic warden because he’d like to stop other wardens parking anywhere in their off-duty hours.
John and Paul, on the other hand, would stick together and write songs from now until Doomsday because it is (a) something at which they are expert (b) something which they treat as a pleasing pastime rather than a job of work.
Back and Front-Room Boys
It is extraordinary to find good song-writers who are also first class performers. Normally hit tunes and clever lyrics are created by back-room boys who make a full-time career of this one segment of the pop business.
I asked John how the tuneful twosome found time to pen pop chart-smashers when they have so much travelling and performing to fit into their bustling lives. “It isn’t a matter of finding time,” he declared “it is simply a question of waiting for ideas to arrive, sometimes this will happen in the van or on a train when we’re halfway between engagements. Once one of us has come up with a few introductory phases or a good theme for the lyrics we can bang the whole thing into shape within an hour.”
Combined Effort
Some people have the impression that Paul writes the music and John puts words to the finished melody. The idea got around because John’s flair for writing off-beat poetry is well known. In fact both boys work on both sides of the song construction job - with lots of discussion and modification taking place between the original idea and the completed product.
“Lyrics are very important,” says John “because there are hundreds of good and bad ways of saying ‘I love you’ in song. Romance is almost always the main subject of our lyrics but we don’t go for those dreary lines about boys wandering around in tears because some bird has left them. Life’s much too hard and fast to dwell on unrequited affection when they’re still at the love-’em-and-leave’em stage. There’s no reason why a pop song should distort everyday facts for the sake of fantasy. It should reflect normal happening in every day language.”
[Extracts from Lennon & McCartney (Songwriters) Ltd, Frederick James, Beatles Monthly No. 2, September 1963]
Pics: John and Paul recording Fool On The Hill on 25th September, 1967. Photos by Shinko Music (?)
