Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the gas that fueled The Beatles’ engine. The pair were awful to former bandmate Stuart Sutcliffe, and they didn’t necessarily end their relationship with drummer Pete Best on good terms. Still, John and Paul’s individual and combined songwriting talents helped propel the Fab Four to international fame. Their relationship soured by the time The Beatles broke up, but Paul praised John by saying he was like The Beatles’ “little Elvis” decades after they played their final note together. There might not have been any higher praise than that.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney proved to be a fine songwriting team
The Beatles hit the charts in England in late 1962. The United States was a little behind the times, and the Fab Four didn’t land on the Billboard charts until 1964. Regardless, John and Paul were responsible for nearly all of the band’s hit songs.
Paul and John still led the way through groundbreaking albums such as Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the good times didn’t last. Paul was the only Beatle with the courage to defy John, which he did more frequently later in the band’s career. They viciously fought like brothers, and John never hesitated to lay into Paul’s “granny music.” The bickering continued even after The Beatles broke up, with each taking shots at the other on their solo records.
Still, Paul and John moved past their differences and even talked about breadmaking during one of their last conversations. In what might be one of his biggest compliments, Paul called John The Beatles’ “little Elvis” several years after John’s death.
Paul idolized John and praised him by saying he was The Beatles’ ‘own little Elvis’
Any compliments from John to Paul or vice versa became scarce during the Fab Four’s final act. That doesn’t mean Macca didn’t think the world of his friend and bandmate.
Early American rock ‘n’ roll stars such as Elvis Presley influenced and inspired the Fab Four’s music, especially the earliest songs. John said an Elvis tune inspired “She Loves You.” So when Paul praised John by calling him the Elvis of The Beatles’ in 1987, it was a high honor (via You Never Give Me You Money author Peter Doggett):
“I always idolized him. ‘We always did, the group. I don’t know if the others will tell you that, but he was our idol. He was like our own little Elvis, always someone for us to look up to.”
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Paul McCartney praises John Lennon as the Elvis of The Beatles
According to Doggett, Paul said he lived for the rare occasions when John approved of what he or the other Beatles did. “He was older, and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest. So whenever he did praise any of us, it was great praise indeed because he didn’t dish it out much. If ever you got a speck of it, a crumb, you were quite grateful.”
Elvis helped usher in the rock ‘n’ roll era. The Fab Four took his torch as they changed nearly everything about popular music. Paul praising John as the Elvis of The Beatles is about the biggest compliment he could give. Unfortunately, it came several years after John’s senseless murder.
Meeting Elvis was a downer for The Beatles
They were two of the biggest musical artists of the era, but Elvis and The Beatles met only once, in 1965. The King didn’t want to meet them, and once they got to his house, neither did the Fab Four.
John insulted Elvis to his face. George Harrison mostly stayed outside while the meeting happened, and the endless sycophants and hangers-on made Ringo Starr angry.
Elvis later covered “Hey Jude,” but he also told President Richard Nixon that The Beatles were anti-American.
They say never to meet your heroes since it might be a letdown. It was when the Fab Four met Elvis Presley. Still, Paul McCartney praising John Lennon as The Beatles’ Elvis was about the highest compliment he could give his friend.
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