Lennon or McCartney

[pain cake]

There's no argument when you consider Lennon's solo material. Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, and Double Fantasy are three of the most important albums of all time. He is arguably the most prolific singer/songwriter of the 20th Century. I would venture to say his poetic sophistication is only matched by Bob Dylan..

-Kickingthehabit

I always held Lennon above Dylan

[ffrankwhite]

There's no argument when you consider Lennon's solo material. Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, and Double Fantasy are three of the most important albums of all time. He is arguably the most prolific singer/songwriter of the 20th Century. I would venture to say his poetic sophistication is only matched by Bob Dylan..

-Kickingthehabit

important in what regard? prolific sing/songwriter? dude, he became famous in 63, stopped touring by 66 broke up the beatles in by 69 was solo from then until when he died in 1980 and a lot of the 70s, by his own admission he wasnt remotely interested in music, he was a house-husband. dont get me wrong when he was on he worked hard but MOST prolific of the 20th century is just plain false dude. post beatles he was positively lazy, musically speaking. what he did were gems, true but most prolific? the ramones were more prolific.

Edited July 3, 2007 by ffrankwhite

[Kickingthehabit]

important in what regard?

You're asking me to write a book. Due to the scope of his material, I'm going to focus entirely on his first solo effort..

Plastic Ono Band was the perfect demonstration of the maturity Lennon experienced while in the process of breaking away from the Beatles. It would be his first solo appearance as a revolutionary songwriter, and although this was exhibited slowly while he was a Beatle, the chord struck home when alone he stood and told the world, "This is me." One of the most remarkable trends he spearheaded was the use of music as a way to get a message across by true, emotional experiences. "Mother" is a perfect example of this; not only do the words touch the song quite differently from its beautiful and peaceful melody, but his voice emits frustration, pain, and sadness. It was perhaps the first time I truly understood how the "imperfect" voice could resonate so strongly with genuine human conviction. The album as a whole reflects trendsetting features; purposely minimalist, it unintentionally prognosticates the turn popular music would soon take..

What I believe to be the best song of the album is quite possibly the truest testament of Lennon - and that is "God". From the beginning, Lennon boldly contests our current perception of God as something sacred, to merely a tool used to intimidate and control people. He goes through a list of things, ideas, and people he refuses to believe in and as it goes on and on, there is a building strength. It finally climaxes when he says "I just believe in me.. Yoko and me.. and that's reality." It's one of the most powerful messages he has given to us. It was the ideology that prompted the rest of his beliefs until the end of his life - and that is - you are in control. Because of this basic belief, he was able to take conventional, untouched yet accepted ideas (like religion, established "role models", etc.) and boldly face them, destroy them, and move them aside to see the real truth. Through "God", he showed that what is true is what is clear and simple - "I just believe in me." This was the first statement he made as a solo musician that paved the way for everything else he introduced to us. He instilled the belief in all of his listeners that we are in control of our lives, our surroundings, our world.. and that we should do everything in our power to pursue what is right and what is true and to let nothing stand in our way. The emotion was undeniable, and the truth was striking..

Plastic Ono Band is very autobiographical and has some of the most gut-wrenching, emotional lyrics and singing ever recorded. Lennon lays on a couch and tears at his childhood, broken dreams, and myths. Some songs are angry and vengeful, yet some are delicate, showing him hurt and frightened of who he is. While I enjoy many of McCartney's whimsical love ballads, conceptually and artistically, he has never matched the soul-purging confessional honesty that Lennon embodied as a solo artist..

-Kickingthehabit

[ffrankwhite]

you've made a lot of points but few relative to your comment about him being prolific. and also in terms of the importance of his solo work in music history, im sorry, its just not true. it plays it part sure, but not enough to warrant "among the most important albums of all time" well how? musically? not really, no great genre busting going on, no instrumental innovations, just good honest music. if you'd've said important to his evolution as an artist i could agree but come on man, tell it like it is.

getting music across by personal expierience is the bedrock of modern songwriting dude, Lennon did not invent that, he engaged in it, the blues, although its a little broader at times, has/had been doing that for years. protest song is something Lennon did not invent, he engaged in it.

he was wonderful as an artist and inspired many people in many ways but in terms of his solo career and it being "important" to contemporary music in any massive way, its just not there. his passion, talent, bold self expression are undeniable though. BRILLIANT artist. and as far as minimalism, well, no offence but popular music has been based on minimalism, the fact that minimalism became the tenents of certain movements was just as a reaction to the pomp that music evolved towards, but it was never something new. rock n roll is like the first overboard popular music post ww2 and that was always minimalist, that was half of its primal appeal in the first place.

fact is he wasnt overly prolific nor was his solo work "among the most important albums of all time". they reflected a time, a conciousness, him as a person and his evolution sure, but i mean insofar as instigating change in music/the music scene? not really.

i also resent the fact that (not saying you subscribe to this, i just notice its a trend) that confessional honesty is placed on a plateau that somehow deserves more regard that whimsical love songs because their importance in music is equal.

Edited July 3, 2007 by ffrankwhite

[Kickingthehabit]

While his solo career isn't as rich as it could have been, I think you're off the mark with many of your comments..

Lennon was a singer, guitarist, author, and political leader who embodied nonviolence and peace – and he was very influential in each of these areas. Many would say that Lennon was one of the key spokespersons of the generation that came of age in the 1960s, and offered a vision of a world united by zest for living together and not divided by petty differences. His life is almost melodramatic in its amalgamation of intractably defiant acts, creative angst, wild success, wealth, sex, drugs, and, finally, violent death..

Poets and playwrights wrote of insecurity. Pop singers may have (justifiably) felt it. But they certainly didn't sing about it to their fans. Lennon did. "Every now and then I feel so insecure.." he sang in "Help!" He also admitted to jealousy, suicidal depression and - in "Cold Turkey" - heroin addiction. When he undertook primal scream therapy under Dr. Arthur Janov in 1970, he instinctively took painful revelations and turned them into cathartic art for a world raised on denial of emotion..

Lennon had been abandoned by his father before birth - and then again when he was 5. And his mother gave him up to be raised by her sister. Lennon lost his mother again when he was 18, when she was run over by a drunken off-duty policeman. Twelve years later, Lennon philosophized the loss in simply and heart-breakingly stark terms: "Mother.. you had me, but I never had you. I needed you, but you didn't need me." And in the song's stunning coda, Lennon set to music a repeated plea that was primal and universal. "Mama don't go.. Daddy come home." His howls of anguish - quite unheard of before in popular music - were truth at 33 revolutions per minute..

His gut decision to turn his life into art set Lennon apart from McCartney in terms of style. Lennon was a diarist - and McCartney - no less artistically - was a dramatist. Indeed it set Lennon high above the others in his own tree. There were many who joined Lennon or who followed Lennon into the new world of singer/songwriter-dom. But few matched his poetry or honesty. For Lennon, confessional songwriting was much more than just the prominent use of the first-person pronoun - which seemed to be the norm in the self-obsessed 70's..

Today he is most remembered for his 1971 utopian anthem, "Imagine". The song represents his deepest musical foray into the realm of political and economic philosophy. The unpopular War in Vietnam made the song an immediate hit, and it remains the best-loved number in the pacifist hymnal more than thirty years later. A sort of musical What Is To Be Done?, "Imagine" is Lennon's prescription for dragging ourselves out of the bloody trenches of war, at long last to "live as one" in the Brotherhood of Man. The secret is to get rid of the three things that have been putting us at each other's throats: religion, countries, and possessions. Lennon wrote a prescription for political oppression and economic failure, for a society opposite in every important respect from the enticing vision he intended to promote..

Ideas, honesty, passion, humor and brilliant empathetic songs make Lennon prolific in every sense of the word..

-Kickingthehabit

[ffrankwhite]

political leader? oh spare me! why, because he sang a song for john sinclair? i mean, dont get me wrong, his activism was great but to call him a political leader is just outright fantasy. he gave his opinion, he wasnt the leader of any political movement or organisation, thats just plain ridiculous. he had a chance to, with jerry rubin and abbie hoffman but the moment any danger presented itself vis-a-vis the whole plan of following Nixons presidential campaign and having these like counter culture little mini festivals in town, but john ran a mile from that, he thought he would get killed! he was aligned with people like Bobby Seale and the black panthers and he donated money to various places but he wasnt a political leader in any sense. an activist maybe, and thats a maybe. sure i guess the bed ins, advertising for peace, but these were just the gestures of a wealthy man and they might have had a lot of positive effect to youth culture they really didnt make a lot of political difference dude, they just didnt. he embodied a lot, very symbolic, iconic but...political leader? thats just wrong.

to say that generations have spokespersons is very silly, things just dont work like that, its just history book romanticism, life isnt like that. terms like that work in terms of symbolism but to get really literal about it and assign a lot of importance to those kinds of convenient generalisation that helps sell a lot of books and records and the like but, in reality its not something that has a lot of substance to it. the public, indeed, vast chunks of the "generations" turned on John numerous times, its just history books work bettter with titles chapter and categories, he werent no spokesman, he was a rocker.

Lennon didnt conciously sing help with that in mind, that was something he later spoke of in interviews, revisionism or introspective analysis? you decide. George Harrison pointed this out on a couple of occasions. blues artists have spoken of jealously, rage, depression and drug addiction and more since before Lennon, this is fact and i could cite a million and one examples. even country music in touches.

Imagine, to my mind, is not a prescription for anything. much like revolutions "out-in" indesicion, this song, to me, appears to be saying hey, imagine this in as unpolitical a way as possible. like hey, heres an idea. to assign terms like "prescription" to it make it sound a very sterile like, like a drill seargants bark as opposed to a dreamers dream.

Prolific means to create your product in abundance, which he JUST DIDNT DO, not as a solo artist, you seem to not understand what prolific means, please look it up and im not being rude, you seem to be confusing it with something else. if you'd've said as an artist in general, with his books in his own write and spaniard in the works, his solo work, his conceptual art, the movies with yoko, his painting work, in that sense, as an artist on the WHOLE he was prolific but originally, this discussion was about him as a solo artist and you made the prolific comment in regards to that and that is what i was responding to.

[JeanGenie]

Thats a hard choice I really love Lennon and I wouldn't wanna live without his songs but I prefer Macca over him. I think Macca is a better songwriter although he tends to write cheesey lyrics. Lennon has the "famous dead" advantage though. Just very few songs of his solo work compare to his work in the beatles. same goes for macca. Anyways Macca with his wide range of musical styles is the best songwriter ever..

Edited July 3, 2007 by JeanGenie

[Bucketslash]

I'm probably gonna get shot, but I'm more of a harrison kinda guy......

No matter how good lennon and mccartney's songs were off each album(with the exception of don't bother me), harrison always had the highlights off each album. This is arguable on maybe let it be, (having to take on across the universe and the long and winding road) but otheriswe, on the white album, you can't beat while my guitar gently weeps, savoy truffle, among the rest. Something knocks off all the mccartney/lennon love songs in thier discography, and has the best solo harrison harrison ever played(why?because he didn't have john or paul telling him what to do). Like wise in his solo career, he had the first numberne hit out of all the beatles, had a solo career that wasn't plagued by yoko ono or suffering from weak lyrics(sorry paul, but saying "bip-bop" while origonal, isn't so great in retrospect), he had, All Things Must Pass,a monster of a triple album, (which, when stripped of the phil spector production, is even more of a masterpiece), living in the material world(again, an excellent follow up) a flurry of albums that were never downright aweful(coughwildlifewtfiswrongwithyoupaulcough), and then the killer Cloud 9, with the last #1 hit by a beatle, I Got My Mind Set On You. He had basically the world's first great carity concert, and when his signature slide work was added to "free as a bird" it sounded like a true triumphant return of the masters of music. Now, anyone who wants to argue this with me, first off, compare brainwashed to double fantasy. Or, if you like, nennon's milk and honey. Either way, much better work by harrison.

Now between john and Paul, it's paul.

Paul had, not only a better voice, a better sense of melodicism,(live and let die, carry that weight, jet, even small songs like venus and mars), and when he was into it, wrote better words, (mull of kintire, the long and winding road, too many people, back seat of my car). Paul had Ram, he had mccartney(underrated here), he'd been having a late career renissance(compare lennon's rock n' roll to run devil run, it's an easy win for mccartney), he had a near phenomenon with band on the run. Mull of kintire in and of itself proves paul can be political like lennon. Mccartney was even the bigger man, willing to come to lennon to work first. And again, Mccartney has never been plauged by Yoko Ono("Kiss kiss kiss")

[shades]

Frank put it best a few pages back.

John wrote to write something and sang to sing something.

Paul was thinking ahead, making sure the melody, the beat, the kind of things that make a song catchy and memorable were there.

John by himself would have been Dylan like anarchy,

Paul by himself, and was, too much pop music.

Put them together with some good smoke and they were the Beatles man.

The White Album is top ten for sure.

JMO

Edited July 3, 2007 by shades

[GnR lives on]

Lennon.... and there's a few very simple reasons i need to name

Working class here

Jealous guy

Imagine

Instant Karma

Give peace a chance

enough said...

[Bucketslash]

Listen to What The Man Said

Let Me Roll It

Band On The Run

Back Seat Of My Car

Maybe I'm Amazed

nuff said!

[DCGNR]

Listen to What The Man Said

Let Me Roll It

Band On The Run

Back Seat Of My Car

Maybe I'm Amazed

nuff said!

Watching the Wheels, Mind Games, Instant Karma, Jealous Guy, Nobody Told Me, - Eat that!

[UYIllusion]

I just can't get past McCartney's candy-ass songs like Silly Love Songs and A Wonderful Christmas Time. Band on the Run was the only solo song I really like from Paul's post-Beatles material. They were obviously better together than apart, but if I could only choose one, it would be Lennon.

[Rebel Yell]

I like "Silly Love Songs" more than I like "How Do You Sleep?"

Edited July 3, 2007 by Rebel Yell

[Zint]

Paul stated it best...

(paraphrased)

"I would come up with a line like "I've got to admit it's getting better",and John would immediately be the antithesis,he snarled out the next line "it couldn't get much worse".

B)

John....all the way.

[ffrankwhite]

Paul stated it best...

(paraphrased)

"I would come up with a line like "I've got to admit it's getting better",and John would immediately be the antithesis,he snarled out the next line "it couldn't get much worse".

B)

John....all the way.

another Paul quote is "i dont like the way he's been made into Martin Luther Lennon" i forget the rest of the quote but it wasnt acerbic or anything, just stating a fact. i actually love john lennon to bits and i've read almost everything there is to read on or by him and seen hours upon hours of film on him and...people shouldn't be idealised. i mean, kickingthehabit is talking about "the embodiment of non violence" for the people that knew him in his early days, he was the most violent member of the beatles. he would kick your fucking ass, he wasnt like St Francis of Asissi like people make him out to be. an incident occured shortly after John Lennon came back from a holiday in Spain with their manager Brian Epstein who was a homosexual. John was at a party and started attacking this guy, like really kicking his fucking ass. afterwards john was purported to have been saying "yeah, he called me a poof, so i bashed his fuckin ribs in" a quote which was quickly supressed by the beatles machine, i.e. the suits. but John was frequently violent in numerous occasions, his wife Cynthia Powell talks of being slapped by him many times, he even admitted it, this is a working class english boy of the 50s we're talking about. i just wish people would not have these misconceptions of people and then base these huge rambling politicised opinions on very little actual information. this is the guy who said in an interview in reference to his son that he was "born out of a bottle of whiskey on a saturday night" which, although in Johns mind he probably meant to say well a lot of kids are born in similar situations to that and a lot of fathers do the noble, can i take your hand in marriage thing but...he's a fuckin intelligent man, is that really a nice thing to say, something to allow to go into print, knowing that your sons going to grow up to read it??? he abandoned Cynthia and let her...just like that. with like 50 or 500,000 bucks and thats it, bearing in mind he was her world, they got together in school and were together ever since. i mean, ok, he was a GREAT guy with a million good qualities, but people have a tendenacy to paint this uber-humanist picture of him when, the beauty of these rock n roll heroes is they're human, like me and you and prone to do all sorts of shit. and when i read "embodiment of non violence" it just cracked me up because its not the reality of it.

[DCGNR]

When you're famous and you die pre-maturely, you get deified. It's that simple. I don't recall too many people referring to Cobain as a damn genius untill he blew his teeth out the back of his head. Go figure.

[ffrankwhite]

When you're famous and you die pre-maturely, you get deified. It's that simple. I don't recall too many people referring to Cobain as a damn genius untill he blew his teeth out the back of his head. Go figure.

that true, but more too. they're just people. they all are. elvis, lennon, cobain. read up about em, look into it, they have beautiful qualities and sentiments and your identifying with those qualities and sentiments subconciously appeal to you because somewhere inside they bring to light an affinity to them but, just like you and i, they had abhorrant qualities and anyone with both feet on the ground can see that and dont elevate these people to something they're not. they're not perfect and not totally flawed, they're perfectly flawed, just like any of us. maybe we're all a little genius. i just wish people knew a little more about the people they glorify before writing these discourses on their divinity and not just respond to that drunk little feeling music gives you.

Edited July 4, 2007 by ffrankwhite

[Bucketslash]

Listen to What The Man Said

Let Me Roll It

Band On The Run

Back Seat Of My Car

Maybe I'm Amazed

nuff said!

Watching the Wheels, Mind Games, Instant Karma, Jealous Guy, Nobody Told Me, - Eat that!

instant karma?from the man who ran off from his wife and kid?irony

btw,

Mull of Kintire

Too Many People

Jet

No More Lonely Nights

Helter Skelter-whoever said john lennon was the hard rocking beatle was full of it

[Sweet Raptured Light]

I like Lennon better because most of McCartney's song are really simular, even his new song Dance tonight sounds a lot like some of his old songs.

[Painkiller545]

what gets me

Across the universe - John Lennon

Hey Jude - Paul McCartney

[Midnight Rambler]

They both definately did their best stuff while workin in the beatles. U cant have one without the other. As far as their solo stuff, i loved pauls first solo album, mcartney, thats awsome, but lennons got the edge in the solo department. Paul wote great songs, but he never wrote anything like working class hero or women is the black person of the world.

EDIT: black person of the world? lol. That actually sounds racist, where as the actual title of the song doesnt.

who'd you think wrote blackbird and what do you think its about? and blackbird is actually a better song both melodically and lyrically in my opinion. Woman Is The...is cool too but it kind of bashes you over the head with its lyrics where as Blackbird is very subtle.

did you just use the word nig ga whiteboy??? thats it, we're taking this shit outside!!! we'll take a michael jackson album with us, to REALLY confuse the issue

lol.

[Mutant Rose]

I won't pick between these two because of the old apple and oranges analogy. Sometimes I want Wings, or some of Pauls other Solo work. His last album shows he still has it. On the otherhand sometimes nothing will do, but to hold my Grandson and dance to Beautiful Boy, or Imagine. However the best work of the Beatles is never unwelcome. It always makes me smile and for those 3-5 minutes just glory in being alive. I and many others believe there work together is some of the best musical work of any genre ever. However I can not help, but wonder what people would say if Lennon was still alive. If he had a full body of solo work to compare to Paul's. Like it or not the death of someone like Lennon,Cobain, Presley,Kennedy or Gandi dies, WAIT I KNOW YOU ARE FREAKING OUT BUT LET ME FINISH, all their good qualities are magnified and their weakness are held up and people say oh look he was poor, or an addict or whatever and look what he still accomplished.....

I compare musical genisus with humanitarian and piolitical leaders, because music touches people like nothing else. We feel a connection to musicians because their craft touches us deeply in an almost religious, definatly spiritual way. The music we love helps us define who we are. So it is no suprise that we look up to and search for good qualities in those who make that music. It is always hard to reconcile the perfect music and the feelings it invokes with the less than perfect people who make it.

[luciusfunk]

I love both, but I think I have to go with Paul on this one.

[to the moon]

Lennon if thats your cup of tea.

Paul is more of an ignorant mans music, often simple.

His new song makes me upset.

Lennon is a deeper man, his songs probably not as catchy or fun as Paul's but still i'd rather listen to "Working Class Hero" long before i listen to that new song where Paul walks through a house playing that goofy guitar with the ghosts running around.