The Beatles song John Lennon wished he wrote: “It drove him nuts”

Throughout their time in The Beatles, the songwriting split between John Lennon and Paul McCartney saw both write over 100 songs each, despite the writing credits proposing the idea that they worked on their compositions collaboratively. The truth is, both had distinctively different styles that moved in dramatically different directions following the inception of the band, would rarely work together on songs, and didn’t have the chummy professional relationship that much of the world perceived them to have.

Lennon spent a lot of his time being openly critical of McCartney’s songwriting, slandering his bandmate’s work on several occasions during the band’s lifespan, only to become even more brutal in his assessments of the bassist’s songcraft after their breakup. McCartney, on the other hand, was far more respectful of Lennon’s work both during and after The Beatles’ existence, but this goes to show the difference in character and humility between these two opposing figures.

However, for all of the criticism that Lennon slung in McCartney’s direction, especially when it came to his twee 1940s-esque songs, he couldn’t help but concede defeat when the latter wrote something that he deemed to be a masterpiece. There may not be much public evidence of positive reinforcement that Lennon showered on Macca’s songwriting, but there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence from the latter that goes to suggest he had a slight chip on his shoulder about not having had the vision to write some of McCartney’s best material himself.

While Help! may not be the most ambitious record in the band’s catalogue, with its successor, Rubber Soul, being the point where their output showed considerably more adventurousness, the record does still have a number of hits on it that are regarded as being among the band’s greatest works. With ‘Yesterday’, McCartney managed to write a ballad that would end up defining the band’s departure from the rock and roll and 1960s pop-inspired works of their earliest output, and Lennon was envious that it wasn’t his own.

In an interview with Cosmic Magazine, McCartney revealed that his former bandmate was frustrated by this, stating: “The worst thing for John was that he didn’t write ‘Yesterday’”. Even hearing the song was a trigger for his ire, with McCartney continuing by saying that “he would get really quite biffed because you would be in New York and the pianist would go and hum the song. That would annoy him”.

It wasn’t just Paul who noticed this frustration either, and friends of Lennon’s also noticed that he would be frustrated when people credited him with having played a part in writing the track, stating that “it drove him nuts”. It must be frustrating to not have played a role in such a timeless song, but at the same time, it would be better and more mature if he allowed himself to be proud of his bandmate rather than bitter.

He may have been critical of McCartney in ‘How Do You Sleep?’, taken from his debut solo album, but even in that song, he acknowledges that it was the only good thing he offered in his entire career. However, if this cut is one about McCartney, then perhaps ‘Jealous Guy’ is the most fitting song he ever wrote to describe himself.