Paul’s New Arrangement Is Flip Side of Lennon-McCartney

Clark & Lewis? Costello & Abbott? Hammerstein & Rodgers? How about McCartney & Lennon?

Messing with the name of a famous partnership can be jarring to the ear, like some semantic pothole on memory lane or, worse, an ungraceful recalculation of history. That’s why a number of Beatles lovers are asking Paul McCartney why, when it comes to the band’s storied songbook, he can’t just let it be.

The concert album by McCartney that hit the charts this month, “Back in the U.S.,” lists 19 Beatles songs written by “Paul McCartney and John Lennon,” a transposition of the classic “Lennon-McCartney” signature line that is instantly recognizable across generations of music fans. The tinkering is part of McCartney’s ongoing attention to legacy maintenance -- he wants more prominent crediting on his defining works, such as “Yesterday” -- but it is a sour subject for some observers, especially considering the death of Lennon 22 years ago this month.

On Friday, an attorney for Yoko Ono, the widow of Lennon, said he is “looking into” legal recourse available to block McCartney’s tinkering. Ono was traveling in Japan and unavailable for comment.

“This was done against her wishes,” said Peter Shukat, Ono’s attorney. “It’s ridiculous, absurd and petty. Paul is hurting his own legacy with this. He and John made an agreement 40 years ago that they would share credit in this way. To change it now, well, John’s not here to argue.”

Geoff Baker, a London-based spokesman for McCartney, said Friday that the entire matter is a tempest in a teapot. Baker points out that it is general knowledge that no one, including Lennon, has ever denied that McCartney was the lone or dominant creator of “Hey Jude,” “The Long and Winding Road” or “Mother Nature’s Son,” and to put his name first on the song credit is nothing more than history housekeeping. Baker also says it is misleading to say the young Lennon and McCartney had an ironclad deal to keep the credit untouchable.

“This is not a divisive thing,” Baker said. “It’s not Lennon or McCartney. Look, even if Paul did 95% or more on these songs, he’s not asking that John’s name be taken off. He just doesn’t think it should be first.”

This is not a new campaign by McCartney, and history suggests there is nothing Ono can do to stop him. In 1976, McCartney’s then-band Wings released a live album that also flipped the familiar “Lennon-McCartney” credit, although another concert album a decade ago saw him use it the traditional way. Since then, though, McCartney’s feud with Ono over the credits has ratcheted and the former Beatle, now 60, has shown an intensified concern about how his name will appear in the history books.

McCartney has made several failed attempts to sway his former bandmates or their families to alter the credits on newly minted Beatles albums, but music law experts say that, on his own releases, he can discard the standard credit line.

Donald S. Passman is author of “All You Need to Know About the Music Business” and an attorney who has represented Janet Jackson, R.E.M., Pink and other music acts. He said omitting Lennon’s name altogether from a Beatles song credit would be cause for legal action by the late star’s estate, but that merely transposing the credit likely does not because it does not seem to misrepresent the true authorship or damage the song as a property.

No song has been more central to the debate than “Yesterday,” the forlorn 1965 hit that has become one of the most popular and oft-recorded songs of the 20th century. No song is more closely associated with McCartney. He has often recounted that when he awoke one morning, the melody was in his head as a whole and complete thing. Not only was it his work solely, the hit recording was made with a string quartet and none of the other Beatles present.

When the song appeared on one of the “Anthology” releases that have mined Beatles music in recent years, McCartney asked Ono if the credits could be transposed. She refused.

Ono recently told Rolling Stone magazine that she warned McCartney that he might be doing himself a disservice in switching the credits.

“If those songs are credited to ‘McCartney-Lennon’ and the rest of the 200 or so are credited to ‘Lennon-McCartney,’ people may think Paul wrote those songs and John wrote the rest,” she said. “When the suggestion was first made by Paul, I said, ‘This is like opening a Pandora’s box, Paul. Don’t do it.’ I still stand by that statement.”

Martin Lewis, a well-known Beatles historian who worked on the marketing of “Anthology,” said, “It’s been a battle for years, and in the case of ‘Anthology Vol. 2’ in 1996, the spat caused delays while they argued and we had to reprint the packaging. It was very disappointing.”

Lewis, a fixture at Beatles conventions around the country, said the bickering is a sore spot for fans. The Beatles remain a potent force in music -- their “1” collection of top hits was among the best-selling albums of 2000 and McCartney’s 2002 U.S. tour was both a critical triumph and the top-grossing road act of the year -- and the message of their lyrics runs counter to the family feuds.

“They had Godlike talent but they still have human foibles, like insecurity and vanity,” Lewis said. “The fans want them to live up to the philosophies of their songs. What is incontestable here is that Paul McCartney is one of the greatest songwriters. In 100 years, people will know that he wrote ‘Yesterday.’ ”

The future of “Yesterday” and the public opinion of 2102 are exactly what McCartney is worried about, says Glenn Gass, a music historian who teaches a course on the Beatles at Indiana University. He believes McCartney is fearful that, for the ages, second billing will make him seem a junior partner in the Beatles.

“He is too paranoid that, in future centuries, they will read ‘Lennon-McCartney’ and assume he was lesser,” Gass said. “To do this, though, it’s like messing with a sacred trust. This only cheapens him and distracts from his true greatness.”

Some in the songwriting community scratch their heads at McCartney’s actions and any dust-ups it has caused. Take Mike Stoller, of the prolific songwriting tandem Leiber & Stoller, whose memorable hits include “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock” and “Poison Ivy.” Because Stoller is another famous partner with the trailing credit -- the Paul position, if you will -- he has been hearing too much about the controversy.

“I think it’s silly in all directions,” Stoller said. “It’s silly to change the order and silly to make a to-do about it.”

For the record, how did Stoller end up with the second spot in the songbooks? “We just tried it both ways,” he said, “and this was the way it sounded better.”

That very same rhythmic reason, Lewis said, is the most often cited reason that two gifted young men from Liverpool decided their handiwork would be listed as the work of “Lennon-McCartney.” That agreement in the early 1960s had another important element: The shared credit would appear on songs no matter what the level of collaboration, even if one member had done nothing at all.

There are early exceptions. On their first British album, “Please Please Me,” for instance, the “McCartney-Lennon” permutation appeared on the sleeve. But from mid-1963 on, ‘Lennon-McCartney’ was the standard, as shown by the title of a 1965 television special they hosted: “The Music of Lennon & McCartney.”

It was later that McCartney grew rueful of the credit, said Chris Carter, host of the Los Angeles radio show “Breakfast with the Beatles” and an interviewer of McCartney on the new “Back in the U.S.” concert DVD.

“I think it became a thorn in his side,” Carter said.

McCartney has spent considerable energy in recent years on building the historical record of the Beatles and himself. Besides the sprawling “Anthologies” project, he has published his lyrics in poetry form, toiled on a retrospective of Wings that led to an album, a film and a book, and he is now preparing to rework the Beatles’ swan song, the “Let It Be” album, which drifted away from his vision.

“Paul has reached an age where he is thinking of history,” Lewis said. “A lot of it has to do with the fact that John Lennon, after his death, was mythologized, eulogized and canonized. Paul feels he has to rehabilitate his image in comparison. And it’s a real shame, because he has nothing to prove to anyone.”

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Playing it backward:

Paul McCartney’s new concert album, “Back in the U.S.,” was released in late November. Nineteen Beatles songs on the CD feature a revision of the classic “Lennon-McCartney” signature, instead using the credit “Paul McCartney and John Lennon.” The songs are:

Hello Goodbye

All My Loving

Getting Better

Blackbird

We Can Work It Out

Mother Nature’s Son

Carry That Weight

The Fool on the Hill

Eleanor Rigby

Here, There and Everywhere

Back in the USSR

Can’t Buy Me Love

Let It Be

Hey Jude

The Long and Winding Road

Lady Madonna

I Saw Her Standing There

Yesterday

Sgt. Pepper/The End