THE PARTNERSHIP

Paul McCartney and John Lennon 1966 (photo:Robert Whitaker)

Updated: April 3,2016


The Lennon-McCartney songwriting team is yet the greatest and most successful partnership in the entire history of music.Though many people were in awe of their musicianship and expertise,the partnership that proved to be the most famous tandem in rock music was marred with both personal and business-related problems.

The Beatles' boasts a record breaking 27 number one hits in the US alone and a vast majority of them were Lennon-McCartney compositions.John Lennon and Paul McCartney had been writing songs since their early teens with songs like "I'll Follow The Sun" and "One After 909" dating back to the earliest days when the group was known as the Quarry Men.The two got better and better as the years went by making their songs the youth's anthem in the sixties perhaps even today.

However,its not all fun and laughter for the songwriting duo,their partnership was marred with problems regarding royalties considering that not all the money went into their respective pockets.Paul and John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono continued to be rankled with such,as Paul described their relationship as not being the best of friends.

Indeed,McCartney and Ono got rankled up,with the former stating in an interview on how they had an issue over the song "Yesterday" which was written alone by Paul.According to the contract signed by both John Lennon and Paul McCartney,the two of them will be using the Lennon-McCartney name on each song they will be writing,either as a team or individually.On Yesterday's case,it was written alone by Paul McCartney,though it was still credited as a Lennon-McCartney composition.Fast forward 1995,the then-three surviving Beatles reunited for the first time in 25 years after the much publicized breakup in 1970.The Anthology project is a series of double albums featuring demos,alternate takes of songs the band had recorded including new material.On Anthology,it was decided that the song credits would go by John Lennon and Paul McCartney instead of Lennon-McCartney.And on Yesterday,with its alternate take being featured on the Anthology 2,Paul decided to talk to Yoko about putting Yesterday's credits as written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon,after all,it was a fact that John Lennon had always stated that he has nothing to do with that song.John's widow declined saying that she will never allow it to be changed which made Paul very upset.Linda McCartney even tried to get in-between trying to convince Yoko on the idea,but she was turned down too.So the issues between the McCartneys and the Lennons continued with that one with Paul saying in an interview that Yoko Ono wasn't even around when he wrote it.

Dick James

In 1962,John Lennon and Paul McCartney signed a contract with a music publishing company called Northern Songs.With the fore-mentioned Lennon-McCartney deal,both of them,unfortunately were misled on such financial issues that only 20 percent of the song's earnings would go into their respective pockets,that the half of the share would all go to Dick James-who is the owner of the said music publishing company.Another sad fact is that,George and Ringo would also be given 5 percent each from John and Paul's own share,so it was a matter of resentment for the band that their manager Brian Epstein got them into  bad publishing deals.Both George and Ringo had put up their own music publishing in the mid-sixties with mixed feelings regarding James trying to get even by putting something into them.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney's contract with Northern Songs would've lasted until 1973  though the last remaining three years of it would prove to be unnecessary for the band was no more by April of 1970.Thing is,both Lennon and McCartney would've acquired Northern Songs but Dick James seemed to have double crossed them by selling the company to ATV in 1969 without their knowledge.The giant conglomerate by then have acquired the rights to many if not all Lennon-McCartney tunes for the Beatles.These so-called business problems were even aggravated by the arrival of their new manager Allen Klein whom Paul McCartney strongly opposes.

With McCartney on one side campaigning for his father-in law's firm Eastman & Eastman to be the Beatles' and Apple's legal adviser and John,George and Ringo on the other side backing Klein,the Beatles' career spiralled downwards when Klein and his supporters had beaten the former with McCartney fumingly leaving the band and incited the group's disintegration for him to be able to sue.It was a big mess at the time as Beatles fans sat down and wonder whatever happened to the good times.

Though the Beatles had disbanded in 1970,it wasn't until 1975 when the dissolution was legally finalized,with a court ruling out that a rock band called the Beatles is no longer existing.

Single sleeve of "The Girl Is Mine"

In 1985,the Lennon-McCartney tunes propped up on US television looking for a right bidder.Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono were once again at the top of their game-aspiring to get the rights to ATV/Northern Songs.But by then,Michael Jackson got in the middle of them and bought the songs at a mere $47 million.McCartney's relationship with Jackson slowly fell out as a result.

Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson,1983(photo:Bettmann/Corbis)

Both Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson have known each other since the late 1970s when Paul was still with his band Wings.The first song which was written by Paul McCartney for Michael Jackson was "Girlfriend" which appeared on Jackson's 1979 album Off The Wall.A Wings version of the song can also be found on the album London Town with McCartney doing falsetto.

Though Jackson is also friends with ex-Beatles George Harrison and Ringo Starr,it was with Paul McCartney whom he had often hang out with and their friendship soon grew into collaborating musically.McCartney and Jackson had a duet on a pop tune called "Say,Say,Say" written by Paul and was featured on his 1983 album Pipes Of Peace,while Jackson returning the favor,wrote a song and had Paul appeared on his album Thriller in a duet called "The Girl Is Mine".Thriller would soon be known as the best selling album of all time which sold over 20 million copies at the day of its release.With each of them appearing on their respective solo albums in the eighties,one would say that McCartney could've felt a little betrayed when he found out that his 'friend' bought  the rights to his very own songs.

McCartney,however,with the help of his father-in-law became  the richest star in rock music.His father-in-law is a known expert on music publishing rights  and certainly made him the billionaire musician he was today.The said inspiration was learned from problems with the Beatles as far back as 1968 and 1969 and Lee Eastman made sure that whatever Paul will write in the future will surely make him rich and his grandchildren and that no publisher guy will ever rip them off again.With his own solo material plus the hits he wrote for his band Wings and having acquired Buddy Holly's back catalogue,Sir Paul became the richest rock star in the planet.

But then,there is still an excess baggage,Jackson still got a hold of most of McCartney's important songs,mostly with the ones he wrote for the Beatles.

A younger Michael Jackson circa Jackson Five(photo:AP)

 Paul McCartney stated in various interviews how he hated it being able to pay for the songs he has written himself everytime he goes out on tour with a number of Beatles tunes on his set lists.

Meanwhile,his friend MJ,no stranger to controversy himself,faced a number of child abuse charges in the early 90s in which the first lawsuit was brought while he was on the Bangkok leg of his Dangerous World Tour.Faced with all the problems,Jackson's career waned in the mid nineties as he stopped touring the US mainland.Despite of all of these,having toured overseas,he still managed to return to the top of the charts in 1995 with a single called "You Are Not Alone",written by soul singer R.Kelly.In that same year,probably to avoid bankruptcy and to be able to further finance his cases,Jackson sold 50% of the Beatles' publishing rights to Sony music in which it was said that MJ garnered an awesome amount of $95 million.

Jackson died unexpectedly in 2009,with the fate of the publishing rights for the Beatles' music still uncertain and nobody knows how much it is worth now in today's money.But thanks to the 1976 US copyright act,Sir Paul McCartney is set to win back the rights of his own songs by 2018 and 2019.

The copyright law stated that the songs written prior to 1978 will automatically be reverted to the property of the songwriter after 56 years.Sir Paul would be 76 years old by then.Now the question is,how would Sony,who now holds half of the rights would react on this? Will they give up their share of the rights and leave it all for Sir Paul? How about Yoko?

As early as November 2015,McCartney had already sent Sony a notice of termination filed under 17 USC section 304 (C), a move to get his songs back by the said reversion years.But a sad fact is that he can only acquire his share of the said copyright in the United States,as Sony still owns the copyright for the rest of the world.

"Not good friends",Paul and Yoko(photo:Getty Images)

(c) Keith Vernon Adagio