3 Times the Beatles Beefed With Other Famous Musicians and Bands

More often than not, other musicians through the years have had one-sided feuds with The Beatles more than anything. However, while the Fab Four were together, they did have some choice words for their contemporaries. A few of these might just surprise you. Let’s take a look at just a handful of times The Beatles beefed with other famous bands and musicians, or were the subject of one-sided feuds.

Phil Collins

Phil Collins making it to this list was admittedly a surprise to me when I first heard about it. This story has been told by Collins himself, so there might be some bias there worth taking with a grain of salt. Still, if true, this one’s wild on Paul McCartney’s part, even if it’s one-sided on Collins’ part.

According to Collins, he got to meet Paul McCartney in 2002. He grew up with The Beatles and idolized them. Sadly, after meeting McCartney at an event at Buckingham Palace, his opinion of McCartney changed dramatically.

“I met him [McCartney] when I was working at the Buckingham Palace party back in 2002,” said Collins in an interview with The Sunday Times. “McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of The Beatles, by Hunter Davies, and I said, ‘Hey, Paul, do you mind signing this for me?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Heather, our little Phil’s a bit of a Beatles fan’. And I thought, ‘You f*ck, you f*ck’. Never forgot it. […] He has this thing when he’s talking to you, where he makes you feel, ‘I know this must be hard for you because I’m a Beatle. I’m Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me.’”

Blood, Sweat & Tears

John Lennon didn’t often listen to popular mainstream music after the Fab Four came to an end. There’s nothing wrong with that, certainly. But on occasion, he would check out what was happening on the charts. And in a 1971 interview, he was pretty forthright about a band he didn’t care for: Blood, Sweat & Tears.

“I don’t like the Blood, Sweat & Tears sh*t,” Lennon told Rolling Stone. “I think all that is bullsh*t. […] Rock ‘n’ roll is going like jazz, as far as I can see, and the bullsh*tters are going off into that excellentness which I never believed in and others going off.”

Ouch.

The Hollies

I don’t think I’ve heard this story before, but I have to admit, I was surprised to hear how much vitriol George Harrison had for the band The Hollies.

In an NME interview from around 1965, Harrison very directly called The Hollies’ cover of Harrison’s Beatles contribution, “If I Needed Someone”, “rubbish.”

“It’s called ‘If I Needed Someone’, and they’ve done it as their new single, but their version is not my kind of music,” said Harrison. “I think it’s rubbish the way they’ve done it! They’ve spoilt it. The Hollies are all right musically, but the way they do their records, they sound like session men who’ve just got together in a studio without ever seeing each other before. Technically good, yes. But that’s all.”

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