Paul McCartney said it was very annoying that his song “Maybe I’m Amazed” got “caught in the publishing net” of The Beatles‘ Lennon-McCartney credit. The song wasn’t a Beatles song, but it was released as such.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon thought of themselves as Lennon-McCartney from the beginning
In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul explained that he and John Lennon thought of themselves as Lennon -McCartney from the beginning of their songwriting partnership. They started writing songs together in the late 1950s.
Paul wrote, “It was because we’d heard of Gilbert and Sullivan, Rodgers and Hammerstein. Lennon and McCartney That’s good. There are two of us, and we can fall into that pattern.”
The songwriting partners put their names next to their first songs in a school exercise notebook. “‘Love Me Do‘ came from around that period, as did ‘One After 909,’” Paul wrote. “That might have been as far back as 1957. About 10 or 15 years ago, I found that school exercise book. I put it in my bookcase.” However, Paul admitted that he’s since lost the “first Lennon and McCartney manuscript.”
For most of The Beatles’ lifetime, Paul and John were happy to share the publishing credit for their songs. They usually helped each other on most of them anyway. However, once the group split, both singer-songwriters wanted out of the contractual agreement. Paul didn’t want his early solo songs like “Maybe I’m Amazed” to be Lennon-McCartney tunes.
Paul McCartney was annoyed that ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ was a Lennon-McCartney song
In The Lyrics, Paul explained that though he wrote “Maybe I’m Amazed” immediately after The Beatles’ split, it was “somehow included under the Lennon-McCartney rubric, where it doesn’t belong.”
The McCartney tune was one of Paul’s first solo songs, but because of their contractual agreement, it got “caught in the publishing net. That was very annoying,” Paul added.
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Paul eventually got out of that deal.
The ‘Yesterday’ singer sued his fellow bandmates to get out of their contractual partnership
Paul filed a lawsuit against the other three Beatles in London’s High Court of Justice for the dissolution of the group’s contractual partnership on Dec. 31, 1970.
Paul claimed The Beatles’ finances were in turmoil. Also, The Beatles had stopped working together. By appointing Allen Klein as their manager, the other Beatles had breached their partnership.
Paul wanted a dissolution because Klein attempted to postpone McCartney. There was also the altering of “The Long and Winding Road” without his permission and Klein’s transfer of the Let It Be film rights from Apple to United Artists without his approval.
The rest of the band gave affidavits saying that there was no reason The Beatles could not continue. Ultimately, the courts sided with Paul, and they appointed a receiver. Then, John, George, and Ringo realized Klein could not settle the lawsuit with Paul. They filed their own lawsuit against Klein for mismanagement in 1973. Klein countersued Apple for $19 million.
The Beatles eventually settled with Klein in 1977, paying him a fraction of what he initially wanted. Sadly, Lennon-McCartney died with The Beatles. At least the result was four great solo careers from each of the Fab Four.
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