Sir Paul McCartney speaks of frustration after John Lennon’s assassination

THE 73-year-old Beatles star said Lennon being martyred had “elevated him to a James Dean, and beyond”.
It also meant his other bandmates had to deal with “a lot of revisionism” after he was shot, he said.
Speaking in an interview with Esquire magazine, Sir Paul said: “The Beatles split up and we were sort of all equal. George did his record, John did his, I did mine, Ringo did his. It was as we were during the Beatles’ times.
“We were equal. When John got shot, aside from the pure horror of it, the lingering thing was, OK, well now John’s a martyr. A JFK.“So what happened was, I started to get frustrated because people started to say, ‘Well, he was The Beatles.’ And me, George and Ringo would go, ‘Er, hang on. It’s only a year ago we were all equal-ish.’”Detailing his frustrations at the revisionism following Lennon’s assassination, he said: “Yeah, John was the witty one, sure. John did a lot of great work, yeah. And post-Beatles he did more great work, but he also did a lot of not-great work.
“Now the fact that he’s now martyred has elevated him to a James Dean, and beyond. So whilst I didn’t mind that – I agreed with it – I understood that now there was going to be revisionism. It was going to be: John was the one. That was basically the thing.”
And he added: “There was a lot of revisionism: John did this, John did that. I mean, if you just pull out all his great stuff and then stack it up against my not-so-great stuff, it’s an easy case to make.”
In a wide-ranging interview, the Beatles star also spoke of how the band had come at the right time and discussed the disputes he had with Lennon over whose name should could first on the credits.
He said: “We had a meeting with Brian Epstein [manager of the Beatles]. “I arrived late. John and Brian had been talking. ‘We were thinking we ought to call the songs, Lennon and McCartney.’ I said, ‘That’s OK, but what about McCartney and Lennon? If I write it, what about that? It sounds good, too.’
“They said, ‘OK, what we’ll do is we’ll alternate it: Lennon and McCartney, McCartney and Lennon.’ Well, that didn’t happen. And I didn’t mind.”
But Sir Paul said it “became a bit of an issue” for him with certain songs, such as Yesterday, which he wrote.
He said: “The original artwork had ‘Yesterday by John Lennon and Paul McCartney’ and a photo of John above it. And I went, ‘Argh, Come on, lads.’ Anyway they wouldn’t do it [change the names around].
“You know how on your iPad there’s never enough room? So it’s kind of important who comes first,” McCartney explained. “Late at night I was in a hotel room looking online and I happened to see this music book, which has got all the songs in it, and it was Hey Jude by John Lennon and… and the space ran out.
“I tell you what, if John was here he would definitely say that’s OK. Because he didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t anything that worried him. But I’ve given up on it. Suffice to say. In case it seems like I’m trying to do something to John.”