Lennon-McCartney

The songwriting credit Lennon-McCartney appears on all Beatles songs that were written by John Lennon and/or Paul McCartney, thanks to a mutual agreement they made in the band's early days. As a result, royalties were shared equally between the two. It remains one of the best known songwriting partnerships.

Related Topics:
Songwriting - Beatles - John Lennon - Paul McCartney

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On the Beatles' first album Please Please Me the partnership credit appears as "McCartney-Lennon"; in all later albums Lennon's name comes first.

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A common misconception is that Lennon and McCartney each wrote their own songs and simply credited them to the partnership. While each musician often wrote independently and many Beatles songs are primarily the work of one or the other, it was only rarely that a song would be completed without some input from each of the duo. In many instances, one writer would sketch an idea or a song fragment and bring it to the other to finish or improve. Often one of the pair would add a middle eight or bridge section to the other's verse structure.

Related Topics:
Middle eight - Bridge

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The approach of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team included elements of competetiveness and mutual inspiration as well as straightforward collaboration; for example McCartney was spurred to write the raucous "Helter Skelter" partly in response to Lennon's equally hard-edged "Revolution". The collaborative and creative merging of musical ideas between the pair is often cited as a key reason for the innovativeness and popular success of The Beatles.

Related Topics:
Helter Skelter - Revolution

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The pair wrote songs together as early as 1958 through 1969. As time went on, the songs increasingly became the work of one writer or the other, often with the partner offering up only a few words or an alternate chord. "A Day in the Life" is probably the finest example of a later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney, where a separate song by McCartney was used to flesh out the middle of Lennon's composition.

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In the 1990s and early 2000s, Paul McCartney attempted to have the credits reversed to "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" for a number of songs which he wrote independently, most notably "Yesterday", but this change was opposed by Lennon's estate. In a February 2005 statement, however, McCartney stated that, "...it's something that I don't have a problem with any more."

Related Topics:
1990s - 2000s - Yesterday

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http://www.heathermillsmccartney.com/notep.php

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