Paul vs. John: Who’s the Better Songwriter?

I first heard the Bea­t­les way back when I was a Boy Scout. Our scout­mas­ter had brought some tapes on the cam­pout and he played them in the car as went back and forth to the camp­site and I have to admit that at the time I thought they were just…okay. But, much like This is Spinal Tap, with repeated hear­ings they got bet­ter and more inter­est­ing. I don’t remem­ber now what those first tapes were, prob­a­bly “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “The White Album”, but I don’t know. Maybe it was those, maybe not. Since then though I think that “Revolver” is prob­a­bly their best, and as with most every­thing, every­one has their own opin­ion about the band.

Every­one who’s any­one, on first hear­ing, just knows that John is the bet­ter song­writer.¹ He was much cooler than Paul since Paul had gone on to be in that lame band Wings. Then Paul did “Ebony and Ivory”, which imme­di­ately dis­qual­i­fied him in the cool cat­e­gory. Paul was the pretty one that all of the girls loved while John was the rebel and res­i­dent weirdo. Who would have thought to have a bag in for peace? John. Would Paul have thought about hav­ing a bag in for peace? No of course not, because Paul was the good one.

So time passes and I see the film Imag­ine, star­ring the rebel him­self, and you come away with only one thought: Man, John was a jerk. And not just a small-time jerk. His jerkios­ity could have caused an eclipse. Or sank the Titanic. Or crushed the Third Reich. At one point there is a fan hang­ing around out­side of John’s home, so John goes out to the gate and talks to the guy. He is less than friendly and actu­ally insults the man sev­eral times.

John was a tool. But that shouldn’t dis­count his abil­ity to write cool songs. “The Bal­lad of John and Yoko”? Genius.

And now when I lis­ten to the Bea­t­les albums² I hear the songs that Paul sang and how their much more…singable…than John’s songs. “Eleanor Rigby”, “For No One”, “Let it Be”, Paul is the win­ner on my score­card. John’s got some great ones to his credit, and Paul did sing “Back in the USSR”, which I think is ter­ri­ble and knocks Paul down a few notches, but the same album has “Hap­pi­ness is a Warm Gun” and “Everybody’s Got Some­thing to Hide Except for Me and My Mon­key”, which are awe­some. But they don’t make John the win­ner. John wrote some very strange songs, which I’m sure some peo­ple like, but for me, the wal­rus is Paul.

1. And every­body was cooler than Ringo. [↩]
2. And I own and have heard all of them. Least favorite? “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine” [↩]