The Timeless Beatles Ballad That Made John Lennon Resent His Shared Credits With Paul McCartney

During their tenure with The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney often shared songwriting credits. While legally, they were equal partners, that didn’t always mean they put in equal amounts of work. Many songs that are credited to the Lennon-McCartney partnership were actually only written by one or the other. There is one Beatles hit in particular that made Lennon resent his split songwriting credit. Find out which song that was below.

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The Beatles song that John Lennon Happily Disowned

One of McCartney’s best efforts with the Beatles is “Yesterday.” It’s a timeless ballad that has transcended the band’s relatively short-lived career. The song, though a solo effort by McCartney, was credited to both members. This split would soon prove to be annoying for Lennon.

Lennon buckled down on the notion that he wasn’t ever jealous of McCartney’s songwriting chops. In fact, he often disparaged Macca’s voice, thinking it was a little trite for his tastes. However, “Yesterday” proved to be a point of contention. Though Lennon said he was fully supportive of this McCartney feat, those around him said otherwise.

“I have had so much accolade for ‘Yesterday,’” Lennon once said, pointing out that fans often mistook the shared credit as shared workload. “That’s Paul’s song, and Paul’s baby. Well done. Beautiful — and I never wished I’d written it.”

Differing Opinions

While that remained Lennon’s formal statement on the matter, McCartney saw things differently. He remembered the success of “Yesterday” annoying Lennon, especially when he was given false credit for it.

“The worst thing for John, was that he didn’t write ‘Yesterday,’” McCartney once said. “I did, and he would get really quite biffed because you would be in New York and the pianist would go and hum the song. That would annoy him.”

McCartney wasn’t the only person who saw this issue unfolding. Others close to Lennon have commented on his annoyance with “Yesterday.”

“‘Yesterday’ drove him crazy,” Beatles-focused journalist Howard Smith added to that point. “People would say, ‘Thank you for writing ‘Yesterday’, I got married to it, what a beautiful song….’ He was always civil. But it drove him nuts.”

“Yesterday” is one of the Beatles’ most successful tracks, and, no matter how hard they tried to avoid it, there was likely a sense of competition between Lennon and McCartney. It’s really no wonder that Lennon would find “Yesterday” to be a sore spot in his career.

(Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)