Although the songs where credited Lennon-McCartney / McCartney-Lennon, one of them usually contributed more than the other.
Many books, interviews, articles & not at least the artwork itself have helped us get a sense of who was the “mastermind” behind each song. Most of them where collaborations.. but usually one of them was more to “blame”.
John Lennon or Paul McCartney, who’s the better songwriter? McCartney’s 20 best Beatles songs
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
Ok, so it is about the songs, is it? Not John’s cockiness and dry wit, not Paul’s technical skill, not the fact that death is the best career step a musician can have. (John Lennon would have laughed and agreed, so shut the fuck up. ) The fact is that John Lennon’s death put a blanket over Paul McCartney’s reputation and legacy (especially his work in The Beatles) and he will not be taken seriously until they meet in rock’n roll heaven. It is only about the songs? yeah right…
Yes, I am saying that Paul suffered in critical regard because he didn’t get murdered. But…
June 1: The Beatles released Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967
“A decisive moment in the history of Western civilisation” – Kenneth Tynan, The Times
“Sgt Pepper is one of the most important steps in our career. It had to be just right. We tried, and I think succeeded in achieving what we set out to do.” – John Lennon
The opening track:
We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top boys approach. We were not boys, we were men. It was all gone, all that boy shit, all that screaming, we didn’t want any more, plus, we’d now got turned on to pot and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers. There was now more to it; not only had John and I been writing, George had been writing, we’d been in films, John had written books, so it was natural that we should become artists.
– Paul McCartney
I love Sgt. Pepper and it will always be in my top 5 Beatles album, sometimes at number 5 sometimes at the top spot. It’s a great Beatles album, and it’s one of the best album in Rock history. It is laid out as a concept album, but the idea held for two songs, the coda, and the album’s sleeve design.
The Beatles songs now did not sound practiced or rehearsed, and the reason for this is that they weren’t. They were studio snippets put together in sections and pieces. I think that’s the reason that the outtakes from the Sgt. Pepper sessions are so uninspiring, so unfinished. There are several bootlegs with alternative versions, and for Beatles-nerds they are of course something to seek out. That said, I think the best Sgt.Pepper outtakes are presented on Anthology 2, and, yes, they are put together in the same way as the original album, each song constructed from different takes and sound bites.
I’m guessing it would be a difficult record to play live.
I believe that this album represent a shift in popular music, we look at pop/rock music before and after Sgt. Pepper. Almost everything on the album was new. And it still sounds new and fresh.
Happy birthday, Sgt. Pepper!
The Making of Sgt. Pepper documentary made for the 25 year anniversary :
“I wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we’re putting it out for dinner.”
– John Lennon
“Everybody was going on about karma … But it occurred to me that karma is instant as well as it influences your past life or your future life … I’m fascinated by commercials, as an art form … So the idea of instant karma was like the idea of instant coffee: presenting something in a new form.”
– John Lennon (Playboy Magazine, 1980)
“It was excellent. Lennon was characteristically simple and direct, but this time on a song with one of those magically catchy refrains.”
– Bob Woffinden (NME)
“Instant Karma!” – sometimes referred to as “Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)” – is a song written by English musician John Lennon, released as a single on Apple Records in February 1970. In the UK, the single was credited to “Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band”. The song reached the top five in the British and American singles charts, competing with the Beatles’ “Let It Be” in America, where it became the first solo single by a member of the band to sell a million copies.
“It was great, ’cause I wrote it in the morning on the piano, like I said many times, and I went to the office and I sang it. I thought, ‘Hell, let’s do it,’ and we booked the studio. And Phil came in, he said, ‘How do you want it?’ I said, ‘You know, 1950 but now.’ And he said ‘Right,’ and boom, I did it in just about three goes. He played it back, and there it was. I said, ‘A bit more bass,’ that’s all. And off we went. See, Phil doesn’t fuss about with fuckin’ stereo or all the bullshit. Just ‘Did it sound alright? Let’s have it.’ It doesn’t matter whether something’s prominent or not prominent. If it sounds good to you as a layman or as a human, take it. Don’t bother whether this is like that or the quality of this. That suits me fine.”
– John Lennon (1970)
“Instant Karma!” was written, recorded and released within a period of ten days, making it one of the fastest-released songs in pop music history.
“That Madison Square Gardens gig was the best music I enjoyed playing since the Cavern or even Hamburg… It was just the same kinda feeling when The Beatles used to really get into it”
– John Lennon
John Lennon Live in New York City 1972
Two concerts took place, in the afternoon and evening of 30 August 1972 . John Lennon Live In New York City was released simultaneously as an album and video in 1986, with different performances from the two shows on each.
The Concerts were held to raise money for children with mental challenges at friend Geraldo Rivera’s request. Rivera introduces Lennon and Ono at the beginning of the album, and he is referenced in Lennon’s impromptu revised lyrics in the opening song, “New York City.”
The benefit concerts, billed as One to One, also featured other performers in addition to Lennon, including Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Melanie Safka and Sha-Na-Na, although their performances are not included on this album, nor on the simultaneous video release.
Live in New York City captures John Lennon’s last full-length concert performance, coming right after the release of Some Time in New York City, which was a commercial failure in the United States. Perhaps as a result, Lennon’s stage talk, while humorous, is self-deprecating and slightly nervous in tone. Backing Lennon and Ono were Elephant’s Memory, who had served as Lennon and Ono’s backing band on Some Time in New York City. Although the material Lennon performed was largely drawn from his three most recent albums of the period (John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Imagine and Some Time in New York City), he also included in the set list his Beatles hit “Come Together” and paid tribute to Elvis Presley with “Hound Dog” before leading the audience in a sing along of “Give Peace a Chance”. “Come Together”, originally in the key of D minor, was performed in E minor.
