i am in love with john lennon...again, so just try and shoot me down haha.....or john lennon vs paul macartney

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cant help it, a friend gave me a comp cd and i have been without my cds for so long ( long story ) as soon as i heard the songs again i just felt soooooooooo happy.

paul just never made the grade for me, too twee somehow though i dont deny his musical talent.

― donna (donna), Friday, 4 October 2002 21:25 (twenty-three years ago)

see, dont even care if i spell his name right.
or did i?
irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant

― donna (donna), Friday, 4 October 2002 21:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Regarding McCartney: Honey Pie, Lady Madonna, and all his other post-67 crap (most of it non-Beatles stuff) is inexcusable!!

― Smartass Jim, Friday, 4 October 2002 21:45 (twenty-three years ago)

actually i dont mind lady madonna if only because it brings memories flooding back of my childhood.

― donna (donna), Friday, 4 October 2002 23:03 (twenty-three years ago)

apart from that yep you are exactly right.

― donna (donna), Friday, 4 October 2002 23:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Lennon's solo work isn't all it's cracked up to be but McCartney's solo work is so dreadful that even mediocre stuff like "Mind Games" seems better by comparison.

McCartney's problem may be that he's a little TOO talented - while Lennon was always seeking out interesting partners that would challenge him (McCartney, Ono, George Martin), Paul either does it all himself or hires the blandest, most unthreatening people to work with, and the results are correspondingly dull.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 5 October 2002 04:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Ahem, "Jet"

― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 5 October 2002 07:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Having just decided that the Beatles ARE terrific I'm finding McCartney's stuff does it for me much more than Lennon's, which seems more self-obsessed.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:06 (twenty-three years ago)

all the more interesting then.

― donna (donna), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:28 (twenty-three years ago)

"self-obsessed"

Ahem, "Silly Love Songs".

― James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:32 (twenty-three years ago)

lennon is smarter lyrically, more interesting vocally, and simply cooler.
well, he was.

― donna (donna), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't really care about the post-Beatles work. I think there's more I like of Paul's than John's but they both seem pretty awful. Self-obsession isn't interesting to me at all, sorry. Lennon's vocals also seem characterless compared to Paul's, for the most part.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:44 (twenty-three years ago)

pauls vocals are kind of boring to me, i prefer johns more raw outpourings.
and i dont think there is actually much ( if any ) self-obsession in lennons work, plenty of thinking, yes.
compared to the cutesy-pie style of pauls stuff it is definately more interesting.

― donna (donna), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:53 (twenty-three years ago)

some ilm sage — pinefox? me? — once pointed out that on every mccartney "solo" LP, however poor, there was one GREBT song (or moment)

he is certainly immensely wearisome when talking about music and songwriting on TV: viz on the jools holland history of the piano programme (i was waiting for buffy, ppl!!)

tom i too am inclined — who'd have tht it? — to be bored with the basic lennon rox/macca sux line, but have you ever heard "oh yoko" and"oh my love" on imagine?

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 5 October 2002 08:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I think John's are more 'international' - I'm fascinated though by the quite strong regional accent and clean pronunciation in some of Paul's songs; it's what got me back into the Beatles actually.

I don't see his songs as cutesy really, maybe I'm listening to the wrong (right) ones. But I like how he's often writing as an observer not as the "I" of the song.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 5 October 2002 09:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I used to own two Lennon solo recs - Plastic Ono (which I thought was awful) and Imagine which I think I was too harsh on - not the song but the record as a whole. "Oh Yoko" has "In the middle of a shave I call your name" which is adorable! Don't remember the other.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 5 October 2002 09:04 (twenty-three years ago)

oh, is this a standard line? the lennon/mccartney one?
i must have been surrounded by mccartney-lovers for too long.
tom you posted as i typed, and yes lennon did write as the I in his songs, but i like that. is that what you meant by self-obsessed?

― donna (donna), Saturday, 5 October 2002 09:08 (twenty-three years ago)

"oh my love" has the most beautiful melody he ever wrote i think: i assume he was trying to write something "japanese"-sounding, given the actual shape of the tune (minor and augumented seconds blah blah)

it goes straight into "how do you sleep", which despite its bad-boy rep as second-person hostility is fairly lame, and not just bcz it's a triumph of flatulently projected self-hatred ("you lived with straights who tell you, you was king/jump when your mamma tell you anything": haha does the name JULIA LENNON mean anything to you john?) (also ringo's zomboid drumming deliberately sucks energy out of the arragement, which is already proto-oasis

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 5 October 2002 09:21 (twenty-three years ago)

imagine as a whole is heroically self-pitying: i'd forgotten (of course lennon-mccartney was one of the great public relationship bust-ups, lovers-turned-hatas trying to prove they'd never needed each other and it was all the other's fault the brilliant thing was spoiled and anyway it never meant anything and yadda yadda)

i don't really like "oh yoko" any more, i just discovered

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 5 October 2002 09:33 (twenty-three years ago)

hey it's weird hearing an LP i played a *LOT* 20 years ago then pretty much not at all for 20 years: also i am shocked by the realisation that i had internalised john'n'yoko as my ideal of the perfect relationship!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!delete¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!now¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 5 October 2002 09:41 (twenty-three years ago)

A Mark S psychodrama come to life!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 5 October 2002 13:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm unconvinced that either would have had commercially successful careers had they released any of their post-Beatles works without previously having been Beatles.

― matt riedl (veal), Sunday, 6 October 2002 15:11 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm unconvinced that the theory of relativity would have caught on had einstein not had a background in physics

― the actual mr. jones (actual), Sunday, 6 October 2002 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

See also new "Collector's Edition" of A Hard Day's Night DVD, which despite invented personas for John and Paul, still makes them out to foils for each other. IMO, for solo recordings they were no longer foils, but two sides of a very lackluster coin; John's being the side with the grungy, mean face, and Paul's the side the shiny, fake-eclectic building. Why fake? because in the 70s, he replaced making tape loops and going to dinner with his "London crowd" with sitting at home on his farm, and pretending he had a "band".

― dleone (dleone), Sunday, 6 October 2002 15:50 (twenty-three years ago)

i like lady madonna

― ron (ron), Sunday, 6 October 2002 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't believe in Lennon. I just believe in me - Oh! Yoko and me.

― Fiery Flying Roller, Sunday, 6 October 2002 20:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Lennon vs. Mc Cartney = Gore vs. Bush

― Ashley Andel, Monday, 7 October 2002 21:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Post-Beatles McCartney highlights: Band on the Run, Coming Up (title?), Pipes of Peace, On the Wings of a Nightingale (performed by the Everly Brothers but he wrote it)

Post-Beatles Lennon highlights: Mind Games (dumb lyrics, but love the hazy ocean of mellotron), (Just Like) Starting Over, Woman, Fame (performed by Bowie but he co-wrote it)

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 7 October 2002 21:59 (twenty-three years ago)

POWER TO THE PEOPLE, RIGHT ON!

I think that, yes, Lennon's solo output is much better than McCartney's. I find that I skip over more of McCartney's songs when I'm listening to the Beatles, but I still like some of them, and appreciate his singing and bass playing on the songs I do like (regardless of who wrote them).

Actually, I only own one Lennon solo album, which is a bit odd, but I'm not one of those completist-type Beatles fans.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 7 October 2002 22:48 (twenty-three years ago)

"Every Night" off his first solo album is the solo McCartney style and ethos down pat: he really needn't have repeated himself, because he achieved a kind of perfection with that song, I think. Ditto
"Waterfalls", another song that made wading through the crap worthwhile. "With A Little Luck" is terribly bland but it does have a classic piece of phraseology that no other pop writer would have touched (the "willow / inclement weather" analogy), and that's probably the saving grace of whatever album it came from.

Tom is OTM about the bluntness of Paul's voice: his use of the British "t" on "Till There Was You" in '63 is URGENT and KEY.

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 03:27 (twenty-three years ago)

i am not a musicologist, nor am i a music critic or writer for magazines etc. i dont have any of my old cds with me anymore and i have a hopeless memory so i cant even quote songs or albums.
BUT.......i like lennons voice much more than mcartneys even though i know pauls is the more 'sweetly melodic' of the two.
i like lennons lyrical style more than pauls, it appeals more to my head.
listening to john lennon brings me joy.
no amount of discussion over talent / lyrical ability / choice of production / personality,etc etc will change that.
but i have found this whole thread to be so interesting anyway, and thanks everyone for posting i have actually learned a lot.

― donna (donna), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 03:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I remember being REALLY impressed by "Wanderlust" off Tug of War (last listened like four years ago) but the rest of the album was a bit eh.

John's "New York City" (from his flop third LP Sometime in NYC) is also a great, rousing, unfairly ignored Chuck Berry-esque rocker. (dumb lyrics, but they're no worse than those for "Ballad of J & Y")

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 03:43 (twenty-three years ago)

a case against McCartney: his website endlessly spams me with info about his ongoing "career", current US tour etc which I am completely not interested in, and ignored my request to be removed from the list.

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 17:42 (twenty-three years ago)

what were you doing in that list in the first place?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 8 October 2002 18:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Of course today would have been Lennon's birthday(62).
An interesting way to compare would be to take the 10 years post Beatles before John died...I reckon Paul has a more consistent strike rate of good songs...a 3cd McCartney box set from this period would be way more consistently listenable than a Lennon one. Make it a 15 track best of though and Lennon would suddenly be close to being ahead in terms of truly great songs.

I'm a sucker for a great melody though hence my McCartney leanings. As Ian MacDonald describes them in 'Revolution In The Head', Lennon's melodies tend to be horizontal whereas McCartney's are more vertical and this applies to the solo stuff as much as the Beatles.

― mms (mms), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 09:57 (twenty-three years ago)

that's why i like "oh my love": it's much more vertical than lennon usually is

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 09:58 (twenty-three years ago)

b-but what abt diagonal melodies?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 10:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Julio - aeons ago I went to his website out of curiosity (this was before it had been officially launched or anything) and without having chosen to do it or anything, I was mysteriously told I had been added to the mailing list. it is a captive circle. McCartney is a COCKFARMER if that is the level he will sink to to get people interested in his pathetic "career" (trying to think what was his last album that had at least one Proper Pop Hit on it - probably Pipes of Peace)

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 19:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean, that was the last era he had any sort of relevance to the charts: since then he has been just someone in the background (and "Spies Like Us" was the most pathetic attempt to go 80s ever)

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 19:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Jeez that's really naughty of them.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 9 October 2002 19:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark I debated this with McDonald one time. Acknowledged that his horizontal/vertical analysis was good descriptive criticism, but thought he tended to imply the vertical was superior, which I wasn't going to buy (on grounds it would rank, inter alia, Tony Hatch above Dylan). He denied this, saying he preferred Lennon to McCartney. I'm sure it's true but you'd never guess from his book.

― ArfArf, Wednesday, 9 October 2002 19:49 (twenty-three years ago)

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