The Beatle Who Was Actually Meant to Play Lead Guitar in the Band (And Why He Stopped)
Some mental images are inextricable from The Beatles’ legacy, not the least of which include John Lennon holding down rhythm guitar, Ringo Starr smiling and head-wagging behind the kit, Paul McCartney plunking out bass lines on his Hofner viola bass, and George Harrison playing lead guitar. But all that could have looked remarkably different—perhaps excluding Harrison altogether—if it wasn’t for one particularly bad bout of nerves at a show.
Bass players are often also guitar players, and McCartney is no exception. Songs like “Blackbird” and “Yesterday” proved that Sir Paul could work his way around a fretboard years before he would establish Wings, the band in which he played the most guitar. And as one of The Beatles’ principal songwriters, it stands to reason that McCartney might have ended up on lead guitar. At least, that’s what they were planning on in their earliest days of playing out.
As McCartney recalled in a 2025 edition of Anthology, he had a guitar solo on deck during his first gig with The Quarry Men. The young musician planned to take the lead on “Guitar Boogie”, but when the time came for his feature, McCartney’s hands froze. “I got sticky fingers,” he recalled, per Guitar World. “I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’” He said he was “too frightened” and that he never played a guitar solo again until years later.
Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com
