Talk:Lennon–McCartney

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Analysis[edit]

Some info about their composition style would be nice. There's some stuff about it in the main Beatles article under "Musical style and evolution", and I'm sure there's more to gather. T3RT3L (talk) 17:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Contributions[edit]

A Day in the Life" is the only later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney

What about "I've got a feeling" from let it be? There are plenty examples of songs after Pepper where they each made substantial contributions. For example, on "Obla-Di-Obla-Da" it was Lennon who came up with the piano tune, without which the song would have lacked its chatchyness and, judging from early demos, would probably not appered on the white album--Crestville 19:39, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Input from other members[edit]

Quote"lennon-mccartney was used for songs without contributions from george or ringo" not nesseceraly true-what about elenor rigby,a hard days nights,etc? and surely george and ringo had at least some input on EVERY beatles song

It does say "written by"; the types of contributions you refer to would generally be in the area of arrangement. Jgm 22:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Non Beatles[edit]

The article makes no mention of songs written by Lennon-McCartney for other artists. jnestorius(talk) 01:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct. Feel free to mention them. Some notable artists in that category include Cilla Black and Peter & Gordon. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 07:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another is the Rolling Stones. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.155.94 (talk) 14:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stub[edit]

This article should have much more information, after all John and Paul are the songwriters for the most well known group in the world

DK08 September 17 9:32

Article name[edit]

Shouldn't this article be named "Lennon/McCartney"? That's how I'm used to seeing it. --kingboyk 21:16, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps—I'm not familiar with the subject to comment really. However, the article suggests that the name was written on albums as "Lennon—McCartney". Theshibboleth 00:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I never noticed it before but now that I look, yes, it is usually Lennon/McCartney. 4/27/06

Somebody changed it to Lennon/McCartney so I've moved the page to match. --kingboyk 12:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't this article be titled "McCartney/Lennon"? That's how I usually think of the two. Paul was clearly the more visionary and did the majority of the writing of the melodies. -- CmdrMarmot 11 March 2011

Proposed change[edit]

I propose moving this page to (1)John Lennon and Paul McCartney or (2)Lennon and McCartney.

The current:

  • "Lennon/McCartney" (Lennon divided by McCartney?, Lennon over McCartney), or
  • "Lennon-McCartney" (Lennon minus McCartney?, Lennon to McCartney?, Lennon &mdash ; McCartney?)

neither represent what is said or have any other useful meaning!

Therefore I propose adopting the same approach as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller or Abbott and Costello. However to avoid unnecessarily long wikilinks; most pages can adopt either

  • "[Lennon & McCartney]" (with a redirect) or the
  • "[John Lennon and Paul McCartney|Lennon & McCartney]" (piped) approach.

simonthebold 18:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All in favour raise your hand and say aye(1) or aye(2)!

I'm in favour of keeping it the same. If you check any of the Beatles studio albums they are credited to "Lennon/McCartney" and this is, after all, an article about the songwriting partnership on Lennon/McCartney rather than a biograpy of the two. Now perhaps they intended that to read "Lennon divided by McCartney" - it's possible I suppose, they were on a lot of drugs - but I propose the were using the dash as an instrument of punctuation rather than a mathamatical symbol. By the same token, "Lennon-McCartney" probably means Lennon "hyphen" McCartney, punctuation rather than a mathamatical symbol. Probably gives it away when there's no numbers in the equasion, though I suppose the "o" in Lennon could be a zero.--Crestville 18:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that this article is about the songwriting partnership not the form of typesetting choosen by some faceless EMI employee in 1963. If were going to be pathetic and pedantic we should also have a 'McCartney/Lennnon' article and 'McCartney-Lennon' article etc. etc. for the miriad of variations published around the world since 1962??? or maybe not.
I agree that in the grand scheme of things this is a fairly irrelevant issue, however I think the / (slash) looks ugly!! and that "and" cannot be misinterpreted! simonthebold 18:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's iconic and recognisable. I can see no good reason to change it. And no reason to be so touchy, mate. Removing all the vowels from the word "dickhead" is still pretty damn rude.--Crestville 19:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On all my LP:s (and most CD:s) the song are credited Lennon-McCartney, not Lennon/McCartney. Also sv-wikipedia calls it Lennon-McCartney. It seems like Lennon/McCartney was not inveted as a name until later. 137.163.16.30 (talk) 09:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citations[edit]

I have put two page citations in, plus two reference books. It would be nice to see more. --andreasegde 20:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The working partnership[edit]

The Everly Brothers were certainly the inspiration for the Beatles' harmony and musical sound and a great influence on them, but they did not write their own songs - so it didn't make a lot of sense to me to lead with the Everlys in a paragraph about Lennon/McCartney as a songwriting team. (And it didn't really flow properly) I suppose the point being made is that the Everlys' (and Holly) sound influenced L/McC to write songs that sounded like the ones that they sang? So I rearranged the section - see if it makes sense. Feel free to edit, of course.

I also added that Forthlin Road was Macca's home - this may be obvious to British fans, but it would not be known to Americans, so I thought the clarification couldn;t hurt. Tvoz 06:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Two of us[edit]

This section is too abbreviated - I'd expand it myself but I don't remember the details of the film. Is it focused on the two of them as a writing pair? because that's what this article is about - not about their personal relationship. I didn't remove it, but if the film is not largely about their writing collaboration, I'd say it is misplaced in this article, or the paragraph needs to be written a bit differently. Tvoz 06:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A joint credit[edit]

It would seem better to say the only "known" substantial disagreement about authorship - we don't know what other disagreements they may have hashed out privately. And, in the end of the first sentence I took out "which are included here" because I couldn't figure out what it meant - if it should be in, it needs to be clarified. Tvoz 06:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy[edit]

As I noted on Talk: Wings Over America, there's a discrepancy between what is said on that page and what is said on this page regarding who complained about Macca's reversal of credits on that 1976 album - here it says nothing about Yoko, and only that John did not complain as he didn't really give a damn at that moment in time; but on Wings Over America it says that John did not make any comment, but that Yoko did - about that 1976 reversal. I don't know if she did, but if so, the graf in this article needs to be amended. Or that one.

Also unclear to me if the graf about Yoko's 1997 move of giving Lennon solo credit for Give Peace a Chance (which by the way, sounds perfectly right to me, but no one asked me my opinion) is in the right place - did this happen before, during, or after Macca made his "late 1990s" request about changing Yesterday to McCartney/Lennon? Tvoz 06:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]


in general[edit]

I think this piece is good, but could be further expanded, at least by additional references - it's depending on 2 books now, and I would think there are other sources, and probably more to say about this writing team. Tvoz 06:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Post-Beatles Relationship[edit]

I feel that Wikipedia ignores John and Paul's relationship after the break-up, but I don't think the subject has enough substance to warrant an article about it. I imagine it would consist of Paul's lawsuit, his switching the songwriting credit order to "McCartney/Lennon" on the Wings Over America album, John's concession that their choice of a manager was wrong, A Toot and a Snore in '74, and finally the oft-mentioned instance when Paul showed up at John's house with a guitar and John, being too busy for reminiscing, sent him away. I'm probably missing something, so I hesitate to add it to the article, but I really think that this is an important aspect of both men's careers.

Why[edit]

Why isn't there a similar page for the Lennon-Ono partnership? 216.165.96.57 03:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because as a team, Lennon/McCartney were two of the most popular and most accomplished songwriters, musicians, and performers of the last 50+ years, whereas Lennon/Ono weren't? John Cardinal 04:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removed bit on McCartney solo compositions[edit]

Irrelevant to the article. The article is about songs credited to the Lennon/McCartney partnership. Vidor (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something about the change in the order of names[edit]

When the band first started it was credited McCartney Lennon but Brian Epstein changed this as he thought Lennon McCartney sounded better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.162.155.94 (talk) 14:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Jackson owning publishing rights[edit]

Should it be mentioned that the Lennon/McCartney publishing rights are owned by Michael Jackson? It seems fairly appropriate. 90.21.254.204 (talk) 17:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That might get a little messy. I don't think he owns all of their songs, so it could be misleading to say that he owns Lennon/McCartney publishing rights. In any event, if anything is added it needs a source. Ward3001 (talk) 18:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Sony Corp. paid Michael Jackson $95 million in 1995 to merge ATV with Sony and form Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a 50-50 joint venture, so it's probably more correct to say that Jackson now owns half the rights to the Beatles catalog."snopes.com. Some question the reliability of snopes as a source; nonetheless, it raises questions about stating that Jackson owns Lennon/McCartney publishing rights. Ward3001 (talk) 19:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some information is at The Beatles#Song catalogue. --Jerome Potts (talk) 08:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Legality[edit]

Is this legal? I would seem to me that this agreement should be illegal as claiming copyright on a work that one of them did not write could extend copyright based on years after death to when that last supposed author died and not when the only real author. Can someone claim there 1 month old baby was a co-author for this purpose? Zginder 2008-08-30T22:34Z (UTC)

People can assign ownership as they please, but this discussion is really not appropriate here. Talk pages are supposed to be for improving the article, not general discussion of the topic. See WP:TALK. Ward3001 (talk) 22:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"In My Life"[edit]

If McCartney's quote in the section "A Joint Credit" is correctly stated, then he was mistaken about the origin of "In My Life". It could not have been part-based on "Tears Of A Clown" which was written in 1967 - two years after "In My Life". Probably McCartney was mixing it up with "Tracks of my Tears", also by Smokey Robinson and released in 1965, before "In My Life" was written. Maybe the quote should be qualified or explained, as it can't be accurate. 217.43.81.99 (talk) 09:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the quote in Many Years From Now, McCartney was not as specific as the "A joint credit" section indicates. I do think he was confused about the specific Smokey Robinson/Miracles songs that were influences. He said, "I went down to the half-landing, where John had a Mellotron, and I sat there and put together a tune based in my mind on Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Songs like 'You Really Got a Hold on Me' amd 'Tears of a Clown' had really been a big influence. You refer back to something you've loved and try and take the spirit of that and write something new." My suggestion is to use McCartney's actual words there so that we avoid an editor's interpretation of them. It's probably a good idea to mention that "Tears of a Clown" was released a few years after "In My Life". It's possible McCartney meant "Tracks of My Tears", but unless there is a source for that, then it's original research and shouldn't be added. (I say that even though I think it's likely he did confuse the two songs.) — John Cardinal (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New Picture[edit]

Cool new photo on this page - I hope it stays (not that the old one was bad, but this is a great snap of the two working together)... Doc9871 (talk) 06:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested Move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was no move. BencherliteTalk 14:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Lennon/McCartney → The Songwriting Partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney — - The official name is The Songwriting Partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Do I need anymore reasoning? --Krazycev 13 other crap 19:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Come and Get It[edit]

"Come and Get It" was not credited Lennon/McCartney on official releases. Check out the label of the single: http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=815826

Badfinger's releases (as well as the Anthology 3) credit it solely to McCartney.

-- ChrisB (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry... Thought it was. I'll remove it. — John Cardinal (talk) 21:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Cool! Thanks! -- ChrisB (talk) 04:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Section deleted[edit]

I deleted the section on Beatles songs not written by Lennon/McCartney, on the grounds that the information is not relevant to this article, which is about the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership and joint credit. The only way I can see that information all together on one page is if there were some kind of article about "The songs of the Beatles" or whatnot, one which discussed all the songwriting credits for all the songs--John and Paul, Harrison's two songs an album, Ringo's rare contributions, various cover songs appearing on official Beatles releases, etc. I see this section has been a focus of dispute between Doc9871 and Wrapped in Grey. While I very much appreciate the work Doc1971 has put in on another article we've both been involved with I have to say that WiG is correct here. Vidor (talk) 19:33, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Joint credit date[edit]

Edited the article to clarify matters regarding when Lennon and McCartney agreed to credit everything they wrote jointly. The article stated that "the pair wrote songs together from 1958 to 1969", and implied that they agreed to credit everything jointly when they were teenagers, but "Cry For a Shadow" was credited to Lennon and Harrison in June 1961. Is there an authoritative source stating specifically when John and Paul agreed on a joint credit? Vidor (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lennon himself in an interview with David Sheff (available online) said: "Paul and I made a deal when we were 15. There was never a legal deal between us, just a deal we made when we decided to write together that we put both our names on it, no matter what."
They were not 15 at the same time; Lennon would have turned 15 in 1955, McCartney in 1957. I guess he just means in Quarrymen days. (Incidentally, this is semi-quoted in the article, but states Lennon saying "15 or 16". This "or 16" is not in the transcript I have seen.) 86.182.192.78 (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation: File:Lennon&mccartney.png[edit]

An admin has determined that File:Lennon&mccartney.png appears to be a copyvio of a photograph by Linda McCartney, and has nominated it for deletion. Having looked at the evidence provided by the admin, I have to say I agree, and I've responded to that effect. If anyone has evidence to the contrary and wishes to contest the deletion, please do so. PL290 (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Replacement of McCartney to Yoko[edit]

Someone change everywhere that say Paul McCartney or McCartney with Yoko Ono or Ono, this must be fixed Back —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.21.211.5 (talk) 22:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Missing buzzwords[edit]

After the amount of time you've been here, Jerome: "Shoot first and ask questions later".  ;> Doc talk 08:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Give Peace a Chance[edit]

Given that this song was published whilst the partnership was still active (with Abbey Road still to follow), the fact that it was credited (as was McCartney's "Goodbye" a few months before) to Lennon–McCartney does not require any particular justification. Hence remove the two statements (Lennon's & MacDonald's) attempting to justify this? In any case, neither statement gives any useful insight into the matter in hand, i.e. why, how, or indeed if, the credit was changed in the '90s (without permission from the credited parties?). The GPAC article also has no secondary sources noting or discussing the credit change. Uniplex (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed per the above: no source for primary fact; secondary facts moot. Uniplex (talk) 11:31, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dissolution[edit]

Lennon/McCartney was officially dissolved at the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. The exact location is not known as May Pang (Lennon's girlfriend and assistant at the time) cannot recall it. Julian Lennon was also present and cannot recall the exact location.

From May Pang's memoirs:

"John, Julian and I left New York the following day to spend Christmas in Florida. On December 29, 1974, the voluminous documents were brought down to John in Florida by one of Apple's lawyers. "Take out your camera," he joked to me. Then he called Harold to go over some final points. When John hung up the phone, he looked wistfully out the window. I could almost see him replaying the entire Beatles experience in his mind. He finally picked up his pen and, in the unlikely backdrop of the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World, ended the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history by simply scrawling John Lennon at the bottom of the page."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-513300/My-lost-weekend-Lennon-May-Pang-breaks-silence-relationship.html#ixzz1fctbk5yB — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.164.181.88 (talk) 03:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a noteworthy (and much reprinted) account for sure, but it doesn't belong in this article's lede. It describes the dissolution of The Beatles, not the songwriting partnership of Lennon–McCartney. Certainly that partnership ended at that same time, but nothing in the source article tells us anything specifically about it – it does not say that the "Lennon–McCartney was officially dissolved", and indeed the words ""Lennon–McCartney" and "songwriting" do not appear even once. It's a wonderfully written paragraph, and it could work nicely in The Beatles, John Lennon, May Pang, Apple Records, even Disney's Polynesian Resort. But there is already plenty to say here about the songwriting partnership. SteveStrummer (talk) 01:52, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

'Joint Credit' Section[edit]

This is an important article so I don't feel comfortable just changing it, but there does seem to be a problem in the 'Joint Credit' Section. It states that: "Help!" has been universally recognized as solely a Lennon-penned composition. However, Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the "countermelody", estimating the song as "70–30" to Lennon.[23][24][25] During an interview with Playboy in 1984, McCartney stated that "John and I wrote it at his house in Weybridge for the film".[25] There are a couple of problems with this: 1. There is no reference to back up the claim that the song has been universally recognised as solely a Lennon composition. For such a far reaching statement there should definitely be a reference I think? 2. Even if it is universally recognised, that is completely irrelevant because the list is supposed to show the five instances where Lennon and McCartney disagree, not the instances where the universe disagrees with McCartney? There needs to be a link which shows that Lennon stated he wrote the song alone, but there isn't one even on the Wiki page for the song itself. That isn't to say that it doesn't exist, but surely it needs to be provided for this statement to remain in the article as is? 3. Putting all else aside, clearly if McCartney says he wrote some of the song, and some people must surely believe him, then the song isn't universally recognised as being written by Lennon alone??? FillsHerTease (talk) 04:28, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Other Credits" Section[edit]

I will cite liner notes after each song to verify writers. I will also re-word the first sentence because I can not find information stating that Lennon and McCartney were, indeed, the "primary" writers. I'm assuming that was an assumption by the editor. Though true it may be, I have not found the information to support the claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bgreco9 (talk • contribs) 14:54, 1 August 2016 (UTC) After doing that, I will remove the warning banner , if we are all cool with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bgreco9 (talk • contribs) 14:56, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removing Warning Banner at the top[edit]

I think that the article is close to not needing the banner, what else could/should be done to get it removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bgreco9 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"or McCartney–Lennon"[edit]

The first words of the article are "Lennon--McCartney (or McCartney--Lennon)". Why is this there? The songwriting credits *always* say Lennon--McCartney, and this caption is where the phenomenon stems from. In fact, Paul McCartney has tried to switch the names around for the song *Yesterday*, but was turned down by late John Lennon's wife.

Can this be explained or be removed? Arno Sluismans (talk) 10:43, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The "Please Please Me" LP and single, and the "From Me to You" single showed the writing credit as "McCartney–Lennon". Agreed, this bit of minutiae doesn't belong in the lead sentence where it could be interpreted as being another commonly used name for the subject, which it is not. Piriczki (talk) 12:59, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The 1963 Twist and Shout EP (GEP 8882) also had two songs credited to McCartney-Lennon (Do you want to know a secret / There's a place). Tengilorg (talk) 09:53, 7 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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Orphaned references in Lennon–McCartney[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Lennon–McCartney's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Fontenot/About":

  • From Every Little Thing (Beatles song): Fontenot, Robert (5 January 2015). "The Beatles Songs: 'Every Little Thing' – The history of this classic Beatles song". oldies.about.com. Archived from the original on 22 September 2015. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  • From Ticket to Ride: Fontenot, Robert (10 January 2015). "The Beatles Songs: 'Ticket To Ride' – The history of this classic Beatles song". oldies.about.com. Retrieved 13 April 2016.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 12:01, 26 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Step Inside Love[edit]

The page for "Step Inside Love" says it's by Lennon-McCartney, but here it's listed as Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey. One or the other should probably be changed. 47.152.252.100 (talk) 20:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a reference to the improvised "Los Paranois" on Anthology 3 which is a medley with "Step Inside Love." I've made that clear. Thanks. P-K3 (talk) 23:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lennon's Solo Releases[edit]

The article states that "Give Peace A Chance" was Lennon's third solo release, and therefore the fact it was still a joint credit is unusual, but this was in fact his first solo release, made even before Abbey Road (I think pointing this out as a weirdness being wrong is done above).

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