The songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney has been written about often, but seldom understood. Unlike most composers, neither Lennon nor McCartney could read or write music.
Both composers created music as well as lyrics. Although they sometimes contributed songs to other artists, the music they wrote was intended to be performed by themselves. And, in the beginning, the two were quite pleased to work out song ideas together.
First Meeting and Early Inspirations
Lennon and McCartney first met on July 6, 1957. At the time, McCartney was 15 years old and Lennon was a few months shy of his 17th birthday.
At that time, McCartney was the more musical of the two, as he played several instruments and could tune a guitar. He had even tried writing songs on his own; his first composition was "I Lost My Little Girl." Lennon was more facile with words, however, and his love of puns and shortsightedness sometimes encouraged him to misread words, or to invent lyrics for songs that he could not remember.
Both loved the same types of music, which included, country, blues, rock 'n' roll, and even ballads. They admired the close harmonies of the Everly Brothers, as well as songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller ('Hound Dog,' 'Jailhouse Rock') as well as by Gerry Goffin and Carole King ('Take Good Care of My Baby,' 'Chains').
The Partnership is Formed
In the beginning, Lennon and McCartney tried to imitate the songwriters they admired and the music they liked to listen to. Their goal was not so much to create memorable tunes, but to write songs that would sell. As McCartney recalled, he and Lennon would "sag off" from school, go to his father's house at 20 Forthlin Road, and try to "write a swimming pool."
But inspiration was never straightforward. As Lennon later said about the early songwriting days, "Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's hard. . . . We get a basic idea, because you write a song and you get a sound in your head that you think it's gonna sound like. And it usually turns out different, you know."
As a sign of professionalism, Lennon and McCartney agreed that they would put both their names as writers for any song, no matter who wrote it. McCartney remembers using an old school notebook to write down ideas, and how he would write "Another composition by John Lennon and Paul McCartney" at the top of a page even before starting work on a new song.
After landing a recording contract and a publishing agreement, the two of them kept to their original agreement. As Lennon mused in October 1962, "It's equal shares," to which McCartney replied, "equal shares and royalties and things, so that really we just both write most of the stuff."
The Personal Touch
In the early days, there was no formula or method to how Lennon and McCartney wrote songs. One would strum aimlessly on the guitar until some semblance of a melody was formed, while the other would kick around words to see if anything fit.
One guiding rule was to strike up a conversation with the listener. Lennon and McCartney believed that people were more likely to buy their records if the songs talked to them. As McCartney claimed, "We try to . . . make it personal. . . . When we sing a thing about 'I love you,' it's easier . . . than singing something about the cat that lives on the hill, man. . . . It's a lot easier just to sing about what you feel yourself." For this reason, most of their early songs contained personal pronouns such as you, me, or I: 'Love Me Do,' 'Please Please Me,' 'From Me to You,' 'Thank You Girl,' 'She Loves You,' 'I'll Get You,' and so on.
As McCartney recalled, "So by having these prepositions, whatever you call them, I and ME and YOU in the titles, it makes the songs a little bit more personal. I think that's the only sort of basic message that does run through our songs."
The Songwriting Process
When they started out, Lennon and McCartney acted as tutors and taught one another how to shape songs. As the partnership grew more successful, it was easier to write together and bounce ideas off of one another than to write alone.
In 1963, Lennon recalled that "All the better songs that we have written — the ones that anybody wants to hear — those were co-written." Sometimes the music came first, and other times the words. As Lennon remembered, there was no real process: "Sometimes half the words are written by me and he'll finish them off. We go along a word each, practically."
The Myth of Genius
Neither one bothered writing down what they created at any session. Their rule of thumb was that if they recalled how the song went the following day, then the song had potential; if not, then the song was not worth remembering anyway.
Contrary to myth, not every song they wrote worked. In 1962, McCartney admitted that they had written "over about a hundred songs but we don't use half of them, you know." Sometimes they wrote a song that they thought would be a hit, and then something better came out later: "The B-side of 'She Loves You' ['I'll Get You'] was meant to be the A-side. And the . . . B-Side of 'From Me To You' ['Thank You Girl'] was the A-side, and then we wrote another song after. . . . We got ideas from that, and we recorded it."
Even at an early age, Lennon and McCartney were their own best editors, which would serve them well as their partnership matured throughout the 1960s.
Resources
Lewisohn M. 1988. The Beatles Recording Sessions. London: EMI Records, Ltd.
Norman P. 2008. John Lennon: The Life. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
 |
 |
 |
