Getting in early (in more ways than one, keep reading).
Mike is almost certainly the only one besides me who might have been listnening at 6:45 this morning, but if you were you would have heard Dave reading the first part of an email from me that I sent them yesterday:
Hi Dave, Peter, Renee & Greg,
This morning I heard the ad for "Lennon - The Musical", and I was thinking about the whole Lennon vs. McCartney thing. Then you guys played back a call from a Foghead who brought up the Moss Brothers & Dave said of the younger brother, "He was 'The Lennon'." This leads me to believe that Dave & I probably disagree somewhat in our interpretations of Beatle-ology.
It's a common view among rock critics then and now that Lennon was greater than McCartney, and it would seem that Dave is in that camp. I think that there are few, if any, ways that Lennon can be considered superior, and in fact this interpretation is mainly due to two things that have nothing to do with the music: Lennon dying tragically before his time & McCartney being blamed for instigating the Beatles breakup.
He then said. "Mark goes on to make a very strong case for Paul as THE BEATLE. So, we do have some tickets for Lennon: The Musical, and what we need are two Fogheads to call in and debate, one for Paul & one for John."
They then had a very reasonable & non-competitive debate from two guys (of course I called, but no success getting through), and in the end they let them both have tix, and they are going WITH DAVE!. But it's just as well I didn't call in, because the tix are for the Sunday matinee on April 17, which is probably right about the time I'll be in Seattle taking Gaz back to the airport after his gig at the Experience Music Project.
Anyway, as you can see from the remainder of my email, I did NOT claim that Paul was THE BEATLE although I fully understand why Dave, for radio purposes, said so. Here's the rest of what I wrote:
Obviously the cannonization that comes with an early demise (Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, JFK, etc.) is an inherent part of Pop Culture. Dying young is almost always a good career move, and if McCartney had had the good sense to beat Lennon to the Pearly Gates we might not be having this debate.
But then again maybe we would, because it has always seemed, even going back to the late 60's, that the critics preferred Lennon. Partly I think this was because of the working class/middle class dichotomy betwen him & McCartney (especially true in the UK). Partly it was because of his anti-war activism. Based solely on the writing credits of the Beatles songbook, though, it is not that easy to objectively show one was superior to the other, but that interpretation persists. And it persists largely because, in 1970, McCartney shocked the world when he released his first solo album and stated that he intended to focus on his solo career. Recriminations abounded then & I think most people today believe that McCartney acted selfishly to end the Beatles existence. Facts that were not widely known at the time* do not, however, bear this out. As Richie Unterberger writes in the Allmusic Guide: "Although McCartney received much of the blame for the split, it should be remembered that he had done more than any other member to keep the group going since Brian Epstein's death, and that each of the other Beatles had threatened to leave well before McCartney's departure."
If record sales and chart positions post-Beatles are any indicator, McCartney certainly can't be judged inferior to Lennon. Although I will grant you that if they are to be judged by only one song, then probably "Imagine" tops anything single thing McCartney did. I also think that the peculiarities of 'the Me Decade' greatly benefitted Lennon's image more than McCartney's. If Lennon's "Lost Weekend" (during which he left Yoko & spent most of a year & a half in LA whole-heartedly engaged in substance abuse) occurred in any other moral climate it would not have been so easily shrugged off, and it may well have tarnished his reputation permanently. Conversely McCartney might not have been seen as quite so uncool for he unabashed devotion to his own wife.
I think musically, when the Beatles were together, Lennon & McCartney were far greater than the sum of the parts, and each benefitted equally from their collaboration with the other. I feel anyone who does think that Lennon was greater is including many outside factors in their judgment, and if that includes Dave then I must respectfully say, "I disagree, sir."
*Ringo quit for a few days during the White Album sessions, George did likewise in the beginning of the Let It Be sessions, and Lennon threatened to quit more than once, the last time being in late 1969.
Thanks for reading this, feel free to use it if you'd like.
Mark Schroeder
