"You only give me your funny paper..."

I stopped reading Rolling Stone's current cover story "Why The Beatles Broke Up" by Mikal Gilmore after the following asinine statement:

"Though Lennon is more commonly regarded as the Beatles' true genius (which is inarguable: he wrote the bulk of their masterpieces and until the last couple years of their career, wrote the best tracks on their albums), it is also fair to say that without McCartney, the Beatles would not have mattered in history with such ingenuity and durability."

Well, I'll be glad to argue such a tired, uninformed opinion. First off, I hold Beatles-era John Lennon as an artist second to none. To me, that is inarguable. That said, Paul McCartney is every bit his equal during that period (and post break-up, he leaves his 3 former bandmates in the dust, but I'll save that for another blog).

To claim that Lennon wrote "the bulk of their masterpieces" is lazy journalism, to be sure. Songs like And I Love Her, Things We Said Today, Here, There And Everywhere, For No One, Penny Lane, Mother Nature's Son and You Never Give Me Your Money to name but a few rank right up there amongst The Beatles best. All were written with little or no help from John Lennon.

Of course it works both ways - classic Lennon tracks like Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields Forever, Julia and Come Together were written with little or no help from Macca...unless one counts Paul's input during the recording process (ie: his futuristic idea of using homemade tape loops on Tomorrow Never Knows...Paul's mellotron opening on Strawberry Fields...McCartney's total rearrangement of Come Together, slowing it down from a fast, Chuck Berry inspired rocker).

The beauty of McCartney and Lennon is they were more alike than different...both staggering geniuses together in one band (I can't think of another band that has a one/two punch the equal of that). Both inspired and fed off each other to the point that the lines between them eventually blurred. For every ballad like John's Goodnight or Paul's The Long And Winding Road, there's rocker's like John's I Want You (She's So Heavy) or Paul's manic Helter Skelter. Trying to label one a craftsman and the other natural genius is ignorant, and it ends up shortchanging the vast spectrum of talent both men exhibited.

Rolling Stone magazine's publisher Jann Wenner has long been a staunch John & Yoko supporter, so this latest cover story is just another in a long list of anti-McCartney nonsense. He's the same Jann Wenner who kept McCartney out of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame as a solo artist years after Lennon had been inducted. Finally bowing to pressure, he relented, but not until Paul's wife of nearly 30 years was dead and gone. As Stella McCartney's shirt read at the induction (Paul's date that night) - "About fucking time!"

It's impossible to fight a ghost, but that's the position McCartney has found himself in time and again since 1980. The artistry of both Lennon and McCartney deserve much better than hack critiques as found in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Buyer beware...

Currently listening to: Album Number One by Gary Walker And The Rain (1968)