The Paul McCartney Song That Pushed John Lennon to Write His Great 'Hard Day's Night' Tracks
When Paul McCartney looks back at his days in The Beatles, he’ll note the friendly rivalry he and John Lennon had when it came to songwriting. In Paul’s mind, the “amazing competition” he and John had pushed the two to produce their best work in the peak Fab Four years.
“It was a great way for us to keep each other on our toes,” Paul told Uncut in 2004. “I’d write ‘Yesterday’ and John would go away and write ‘Norwegian Wood.’ If he wrote ‘Strawberry Fields’, it was like he’d upped the ante, so I had to come up with something as good as ‘Penny Lane.’”
It didn’t start out that way. Before Paul and John began writing on their own, they often worked together “face to face” and “eyeball to eyeball.” That’s how we got early hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You.”
Most Beatles writers see the competition really kicking off in 1964, around the time the pair composed songs for A Hard Day’s Night. After Paul won the A-side of a single with “Can’t Buy Me Love,” John went on a tear that made him the driving force on the band’s next record.
Source: cheatsheet.com
