A version of this essay appeared in the anthology Rock and Roll Cage Match: Music’s Greatest Rivalries, Decided, Three Rivers Press

I HAD TO PULL OVER and weep.

Let me explain.

I was driving up into the Hollywood Hills on a burnished Sunday afternoon, one of those early fall days when everything in Los Angeles shimmers with hope and desolation. I was on my way to visit my dear friend and his two kids, whose godfather I am. My marriage was falling apart and the local, classic-rock station was playing the “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” medley. Then and there, in a canyon in the Hollywood Hills that used to be the home to hunting lodges where early Hollywood royalty carried out illicit trysts, thus earning it the nickname of Bordello Canyon, I felt the immense weight of knowledge, the knowledge of how even the greatest loves, in this case the love between Paul and John, the love that made the Beatles’ magic, their marriage, can end. And in the end, they were going to have to carry that weight. And yes, I knew that in my case, too, boy, you’re gonna carry that weight… a long time. The weight can be crushing. And in that song, the full weight of ending came down on me. By the time the song suite reached the guitar freak-out that climaxes “The End”, the one in which John, Paul and George air their grievances, plead for understanding, and yes, tell each other that they will always love each other, I was a puddle.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me when a John Lennon song played on the radio. I mean, like anyone with any grasp, I’m always blown away by “Strawberry Fields Forever” which may be the greatest rock and roll composition ever assembled. Even Brian Wilson pulled to the side of the road upon hearing that one for the first time. Only he didn’t start crying, I don’t think. Instead, so the legend goes, he put SMilLE on the shelf, and admitted to himself that the Beatles had gotten to the Promised Land first. Even so, “Strawberry Fields” has never made me weep. But McCartney’s epic cycle of dissolution that closes out Abbey Road, has and did. And will again, I’m sure.

In the long-running Paul versus John debate, there are no winners, only casualties and stupidity. It’s a ridiculous question and, therefore, yields only ridiculous answers, and is, therefore, ultimately meaningless. But it makes for good sport if taken with more than a grain of salt.

In the end, of course, John, Paul, George and Ringo were the Beatles and that lightning in a bottle would have never happened without any of them, despite Lennon joking — when asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world — that “he isn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.” He was referring, of course, to the fact that McCartney was supposedly the best drummer in the Beatles. He was also, supposedly, the best guitar player, piano player, Mellotron innovator (with which he composed the haunting opening passage to “Strawberry Fields”), and, of course, bassist. But does that make Paul the best Beatle? Of course not, virtuosity in and of itself can be as banal as ineptitude if it’s possessed by an empty vessel (e.g., Toto=Grand Funk Railroad). Fortunately, Paul’s virtuosity came with a searing, soaring heart. It also came in a madly ambitious package whose reach often met his grasp that, fortunately, also had a soul as open and wide as his formidable partner’s, the man who is often referred to as the soul of the Beatles. I guess that’s this point on which I beg to differ. See, Paul had soul to spare. It just came across in a less obvious way.

The main difference between the two, for me, is that while John Lennon practiced the art of telling, mostly in plain English (save for a few stream-of-consciousness blasts – goo, goo ga choo), Paul, a practitioner of the art of showing, spoke in metaphors, imagery and, ultimately, in parables. His best songs told stories that had classical narrative arcs, while John, one of the original and best navel gazers, was all about the Id, putting his insides out. Paul, more mature, perhaps, and more empathetic, absorbed everything around him and took the outside in, which is why so many of his songs resonate universally and why he, more than anyone in rock history (including, I’ll say, Bob Dylan) expanded the vocabulary of the form.

***

TAKE FOR INSTANCE,  “Penny Lane” and the aforementioned “Strawberry Fields.” McCartney’s “Penny Lane” is often dismissed as a sentimental ditty while “Strawberry Fields” is considered holy. Hell, a section of Central Park across the street from The Dakota, where Lennon lived and on whose sidewalk he was shot dead, is even named for the song. But a closer look and listen at both songs begs for a reassessment. While the music in “Strawberry Fields” is visceral and even haunting and has the feeling of a breakthrough, that affect is primarily a feat of radical studio engineering – editing and overdubbing that were generations ahead of their time and about which treatises have been written (http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beatles/strawberry-fields.html) – not to mention some well-placed Harrison guitar licks, Paul’s Mellotron, and, primarily, Ringo’s genius drumming. I’ve often thought that if you took Ringo’s backbeat and subtle accents out of that composition, the whole thing would fall apart. I’ve also thought that if you took away the music, which, like most Lennon compositions is at its core a folk/blues number, and simply looked at the lyrics, the whole thing would fall apart, too.

The lyrics relate to a Salvation Army orphanage near Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool that held an annual fair that Lennon would eagerly attend with his aunt Mimi. The visceral nature of the song comes from the combination of abstract lyrical impressions deeply rooted in Lennon’s psyche, which were likely rooted in the early death of his mother, the dreamlike musical accompaniment, and the song’s only tangible/intelligible image: “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The result is an evocative, yet fairly inscrutable piece.

By contrast, “Penny Lane” seems almost simplistic. Its universally accessible melody becomes ingrained in your consciousness immediately. But there is a pained nostalgia lurking beneath the upbeat surface. In “Penny Lane” we find Paul sifting through lingering memories of a simple time and a simple place and while it seems at first to be a celebration, a closer look at the details, the contradictory images therein, shows it to be a much more ambivalent exercise. “Penny Lane” is in his ears and in his eyes, but he knows he’s never going back to where the “banker never wears a Mac (raincoat), in the pouring rain.” Or where there is a fireman with an hourglass and a portrait of the queen in his pocket.

Strip away the music, which could easily stand on its own in its symphonic completeness, study the words, and the effect is devastating. Like a lot of McCartney’s best work, the song tells a story. Not his story, necessarily, but a universal one of loneliness and longing. It’s a story of a day in the life of nowhere men, suspended in time and space, of people left lingering in absence, sorting through the remains of the day. They seem to be waiting for something. What is it? Of course, it’s the same thing that Beckett’s Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for – the thing that will never come: Godot. And you realize that for these people release will only come with death, and even then, none too soon. It’s a heartbreaking piece, despite the melody that makes you whistle for the rest of the day. McCartney is nostalgic for that time and place, but it is a cautionary nostalgia. Other examples of this sort of storytelling quickly come to mind.

Of course, there’s “Yesterday” the stark ode to regret that the precocious McCartney wrote at the tender age of 23, though the words seem fired from the belly of a grizzled bluesman. It’s also the first solo Beatles recording, done with just him and George Martin. The song is pretty much regarded as one of the best, if not the best, best broken-heated ballads in the pop music canon. Again, too, it’s an exercise in brilliant simplicity and succinctness. Nothing about it is tangled or inaccessible, and yet how deeply it probes. How did that happen? Even McCartney doesn’t quite know, saying it came to him, basically, in a dream. It has since become the most covered song of all time. A couple years later, he wrote “Eleanor Rigby.”

One could view “Eleanor Rigby” and “Tomorrow Never Knows” off the landmark Revolver album almost like an earlier parallel to “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields.” As far as I’m concerned, the most mind-blowing song on that album, and one of the most mind-blowing ever, in terms of innovation, is “Tomorrow Never Knows.” It’s total freak affair — with its tape loops, overdubbing, nasty guitar licks, crazy drumming, etc.—a sonic assault heralding a new paradigm of what’s possible with a great band that has mastered the new powers of studio technology. If it came out today, it would still be revolutionary. But it’s revolutionary in terms of style more than substance. I’ll never know what it means beyond the platitudinous exhortation to:

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream,
It is not dying, it is not dying

Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void,
It is shining, it is shining.

Okay, I get it. And…

“Eleanor Rigby”, which McCartney wrote when he was 24, is something else. It is a classic. I’m not sure any pop song has told such a perfect narrative of loneliness and isolation, of dashed dreams and, again, the unrelenting wait for deliverance.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.
Look at him working. Darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there
What does he care?

Once again, the song’s lyrics could be stripped of the music and still stand as compelling narrative. McCartney again proves deft at using relatable imagery in the service of a larger meaning. This ability to juxtapose contradictory images and musical movements to get to a more nuanced and profound level of meaning always seems to have escaped the more straightforward, ego-centric approach of Lennon. John is interested in telling us what to do, how to feel, or, rather, how he feels. McCartney is interested in showing us what people do and how they live. The difference, I believe, is that while John’s best songs are singular and emotive, Paul’s best are universal and emotional. For that reason, they stay with you.

***

NOT THAT IT’S GOSPEL or anything, but Rolling Stone magazine’s top 500 rock songs of all time has four Beatles’ tunes in its top 20. They are, in descending order, “Hey Jude” (which even Lennon loved, though he thought McCartney was singing about he and Yoko and the strains their relationship was having on the band), “Yesterday”, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “Let It Be.” Leaving out “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, which was a true collaboration, written by Lennon and McCartney “eyeball to eyeball” as Lennon put it, they are all strictly McCartney compositions.

The three songs make for an interesting study. Two of them are fortifying gifts that have become part of the pop firmament for their ability to touch deep chords within anyone who has experienced loss and sadness, the other just a plain lament with no consolation other than knowing we’ve all been there. But, oh, how we’ve been there. There are exceptions, of course, to the universality rule. John’s “In My Life” and “Norwegian Wood” come immediately to mind. But those are modest affairs, though they benefit from their modestly. And, again, they come from the inside out, whereas Paul takes the outside in. I’d also argue that neither of those Lennon compositions reach the grand scale of songs like “Yesterday” or “Eleanor Rigby” or “Hey Jude.” Paul swung for the fences and when he connected, he really connected.

There are plenty of other arguments to make in this ridiculous postulate. Wasn’t “Helter Skelter” the hardest rock song ever recorded when it came out? Wasn’t it really the first punk-rock song, or maybe even the first heavy-metal song? I remember reading somewhere that Paul McCartney was taken aback by The Who’s “My Generation” and decided he was going to write a song that was even harder than that one. He might have succeeded. Paul has one of the greatest growl’s in rock and roll. You can hear it  in “Helter Skelter” and, of course, in “Hey Jude” — Judey, Judey, Judey, owwwww. All this from the “light” side of the Lennon-McCartney partnership. And, of course, there’s Sergeant Pepper. Not my favorite Beatles’ record, by any means, but it is a testament to his vision, ambition, and, well, it has some of the sickest bass playing ever laid down. The spots where the album bogs down, songs like “For The Benefit of Mister Kite” and the plodding nonsense of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” were primarily Lennon’s doing (of course, so was, for the most part, the standout track “A Day In The Life.”) All in all, though, nothing like Sergeant Pepper had ever been done before, and it was primarily Paul’s doing.

A good marriage, though, is a case of the sum being greater than its parts, and clearly a listen to either John or Paul’s solo work argues that they were better together than apart. John pushed Paul, to whom everything seemed to come so easily, to dig a little deeper. Paul added musical genius to John’s rather rudimentary palette. Paul kept striving even post Beatles and he has had some shining moments – “Jet,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” most of the Band On The Run album. John seems to have gotten lazy without Paul, who was known as a bit of a dick for the way he pressed the other band members.

Having said all that, it could be argued that Lennon was the more important cultural figure. His greatest art, in the final analysis, may not have been his music, but his life. His politics, his courage and his willingness to be controversial may have made him the more important human being. Maybe. But that’s an entirely different argument and one that is, likely, as ridiculous as this one. As for who was the more important Beatle, well, let’s get go back to “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields” for a moment.

There was a bit of controversy when the two singles came out. Lennon wasn’t happy that his magnum opus was relegated to the B-side, while “Penny Lane” took the A-side. Penny Lane reached number one in the US and UK, while “Strawberry Fields” took number #8 and #2 on the respective charts. This wasn’t the first or last dispute Lennon and McCartney (or Lennon and Brian Epstein) would have about which of their songs should take which side of the single and such indignities prompted Lennon to remark after the Beatle’s breakup that, “I got sick and tired of being Paul’s backup band.”

On another day, I’m sure I’d argue the exact opposite. But for now, I’m going to put on Abbey Road and allow Paul to help me carry that weight.

(A version of this essay appeared in the anthology Rock and Roll Cage Match: Music’s Greatest Rivalries, Decided, Three Rivers Press)