In one of John Lennon‘s final interviews with David Sheff, months before his death in December of 1980, he revealed a song Paul McCartney had written for the Beatles that he wished he had penned, including one of his favorites, “Here, There and Everywhere,” from the band’s 1966 album Revolver.
“I remember John saying, ‘You know, I probably like that better than any of my songs on the tape,’” recalled McCartney in The Beatles Anthology from 2002. “Coming from John, that was high praise indeed.”
Lennon also praised McCartney’s “Hey Jude,” a song he had written to comfort Lennon’s son Julian during his parents’ divorce. “That’s his best song,” said Lennon in a 1972 interview with Hit Parader. “‘Hey Jude’ is a damn good set of lyrics, and I made no contribution to that.”
The third McCartney song by the Beatles, their Abbey Road track “Oh! Darling,” was one Lennon said sounded like something he would have written. Lennon also said he would have given the song stronger vocals than McCartney, who even admitted that his singing was “lukewarm” on the track.
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“‘Oh! Darling’ was a great one of Paul’s, that he didn’t sing too well,” said Lennon. “I always thought that I could’ve done it better—it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell. He’s going to sing it. If he’d had any sense, he should have let me sing it.”
With a mutual respect for one another’s lyrical nuances, Lennon also mentioned another earlier Beatles song, written by Paul, that he wished he had written, along with a 1970s disco classic.
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“All My Loving,” The Beatles (1963)
Paul McCartney first wrote the Beatles’ 1963 single “All My Loving” as a poem while shaving, and turned it into a song later. “It was the first song [where] I’d ever written the words first,” said McCartney in Barry Miles’ 1997 book Many Years from Now. “I never wrote words first; it was always some kind of accompaniment. I’ve hardly ever done it since either.”
McCartney finished writing the words to “All My Loving” while the band was on a tour bus headed to a gig. “I had in my mind a little country and western song,” said McCartney. “We played the Moss Empire circuit a lot, and there were always these nice big empty backstage areas. The places have all become bingo halls now. We arrived at the gig and I remember being in one of these big backstage areas and there was a piano there so I’d got my instrument.”
He added, “I didn’t have a guitar; it was probably with our road manager, and I remember working the tune out to it on the piano. It was a good show song, it worked well live.”
Released on the band’s second album, With the Beatles, it was another Beatles’ song that Lennon begrudingly gave McCartney credit for in a 1980 interview with Playboy. “‘All My Loving’ is Paul, I regret to say,” said Lennon. “Because it’s a damn fine piece of work. But I play a pretty mean guitar in back.”
“Rock Your Baby,” George McCrae (1974)
Written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC and the Sunshine Band, George McCrae’s debut single “Rock Your Baby” became a disco hit in 1974. Once released, “Rock Your Baby” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for two weeks; it also topped the R&B chart and spent three weeks at the top of the UK chart.
“Rock Your Baby” was also another song Lennon would have liked to have had a songwriting credit on. The song even inspired his “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” from his 1974 album Walls and Bridges.
“I’d give my eyetooth to have written that,” Lennon told Spin of McCrae’s hit in 1975. “I am too literal to write ‘Rock Your Baby.’ I wish I could. I’m too intellectual, even though I’m not really an intellectual.”
Photo: Rowland Scherman/Getty Images
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