John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s relationship has been a subject of fascination for years. The pair were prolific when they worked together and continued to push one another to write better music after The Beatles split. While they were friends and Lennon was closer to McCartney than most people in his life, they had a rocky relationship. A friend of The Beatles recalled Lennon’s cruelty towards one of McCartney’s more generous traits.
John Lennon disliked one of Paul McCartney’s qualities
While writing about The Beatles, Hunter Davies got to know the band well. He considered McCartney a very likable person.
“Paul was the easiest to talk to,” Davies wrote in the book The Beatles: The Authorized Biography. “He had such energy and such keenness and, unlike John, enjoyed being liked, at least most of the time. I don’t see this as a criticism.”
Unlike Davies, Lennon detested McCartney’s eagerness to be liked.
“John himself could be very cruel about Paul’s puppy dog eagerness to please,” Davies wrote. “The irony was, and still is, that John’s awfulness to people, his rudeness and cruelty, made people like him more, whereas Paul’s genuine niceness made many people suspicious, accusing him of being calculating.”
He believed McCartney dealt with some level of insecurity that made him want people to like him. This made it all the more difficult when people like Lennon criticized him.
“Paul does look ahead, seeing what might happen, working out the effect of certain actions, but he often ends up tying himself in knots, not necessarily getting what he thought he wanted,” Davies wrote. “I think there is some insecurity in Paul’s nature, which makes him try so hard, work so hard. It also means he can be easily hurt by criticism, which was something that just washed over John.”
Paul McCartney felt John Lennon didn’t trust him
As Davies noted, people often felt suspicious of McCartney’s kindness. McCartney said Lennon never seemed to fully trust him.
“He always suspected me,” McCartney said. “He accused me of scheming to buy over Northern Songs without telling him. I was thinking of something to invest in, and Peter Brown said what about Northern Songs, invest in yourself, so I bought a few shares, about 1,000 I think. John went mad, suspecting some plot. Then he bought some. He was always thinking I was cunning and devious. That’s my reputation, someone’s who’s charming, but a clever lad.”
McCartney didn’t just pick up on this from Lennon, though. He said it happened to him all the time.
“It happened the other day at Ringo’s wedding,” he said. “I was saying to Cilla [Black] that I liked Bobby [her husband]. That’s all I said. Bobby’s a nice bloke. Ah, but what do you really think, Paul? You don’t mean that, do you, you’re getting at something? I was being absolutely straight. But she couldn’t believe it. No one ever does. They think I’m calculating all the time.”
They were still very close
Though Lennon had the capacity for cruelty, those who knew him said he trusted McCartney. They were extremely close for years.
“Paul was one of the three people John was closest to,” Cynthia wrote in her book John. “Although he had plenty of cronies, he only really let his guard down with Paul, me, and Stuart Sutcliffe.”
