Amidst the barrage of quick-fire rounds and journalistic hot takes, perhaps the easiest go-to question is “Paul McCartney or John Lennon?”. Dramatising the rift between the two, to determine what sort of characters their fans attract, and ultimately, to undercut the entire legacy of their shared partnership.
Of course, by the end of the 1960s, things had turned somewhat sour between the pair. McCartney leaned further into his playful sensibilities, penning songs like ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ while Lennon was ready to dedicate his art to philanthropy. Their tastes were changing, and so their collaboration was dissolving, and two paths were forged for Beatles fans to choose between.
In the salaciousness of this competitive discourse, it seems as though people have forgotten the genuine artistic kinship that existed between them. Theirs was a melodic shorthand, pushing each other to further greatness to ultimately create one of the most iconic discographies in all of music. So when they eventually parted ways, they would have undoubtedly kept one eye on one another, seeing what melodic corners they were respectively exploring.
While they traded subtle diss tracks with one another, questioning creative moments, there were some songs thast were simply too good to slander. One such song was McCartney’s hit ‘Coming Up’.
“I heard a story from a guy who recorded with John in New York,” McCartney explained, “And he said that John would sometimes get lazy. But then he’d hear a song of mine where he thought, ‘Oh, shit, Paul’s putting it in, Paul’s working!’ Apparently, ‘Coming Up’ was the one song that got John recording again. I think John just thought, ‘Uh oh, I had better get working, too’. I thought that was a nice story.”
Those with a more cynical predisposition, desperate to believe that Lennon sneered at anything quite like ‘Coming Up’ will be sad to know it’s an anecdote that Lennon himself corroborated. Chirpy as the melody may be, he was admittedly a fan of the song.
“Somebody asked me what I thought of Paul’s last album, and I made some remark like I thought he was depressed and sad,” Lennon told David Sheff in 1980, “But then I realised I hadn’t listened to the whole damn thing. I head one track, the hit, ‘Coming Up’, which I thought was a good piece of work.”
While it was released a whole decade after the breakup of The Beatles, and has an album cover and music video that showcases McCartney sporting a suitably 1980s haircut, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a byproduct of a distant future, not applicable to the greatness of The Beatles.
Its new wave sensibilities could have perfectly suited the optimistic side of a Fab Four record, and is packed with the necessary colour to contribute to their album. Every fibre of this song incites a sense of collaborative joy, be it the overlapping guitars or harmonic ad-libs in the chorus; it feels tailor-made for the sort of joyful jam sessions that The Beatles prided themselves on.
