Who really cares!

Yoko Ono is considering suing Paul because he flipped the credits around and listed all the songs he and John wrote 2gether with his name 1st.

Paul asked Yoko prior 2 this, if he could permanently change the credits 2 the song "Let It Be" 2 McCartney/Lennon because in reality, John had nothing 2 do with the song. Paul wrote it alone.

Yoko said no... this frustrated Paul, cuz he always wanted to see his name b4 Johns on at least one of their songs.

So, on his greatest hits package of live performances in America, he listed the credits the way he wanted 2.

Ur thoughts?

June7 said:

I'd be interested to see evidence of Yoko Ono's stance on this.

In the end, though, who really cares?

1. The Lennon/McCartney 'label' means nothing: anyone who has any real interest in this, already knows what the respective contributions to the compositions was, so what's Paul McCartney bothered about? It looks like an ego thing from here. Does he think people sit there reading 'Ah - yes, a Lennon/McCartney composition - presumably John was the creative genius behind this one too - whilst Paul rolled a herbal to share?'

2. The Lennon/McCartney label means everything: McCartney should realise that those credits nowadays represent a 'brand' rather than any significance as to who exactly wrote what. So what's he doing messing with the brand?

3. Would he be happy to have his name removed from those songs where he provided no contribution but has been happy to have his name attached for so long?


4. What did he bother asking Yoko Ono for, if he had no intention of taking her answer into account? He could have simply told her that this was what he had intended to do, but he wanted to forewarn her.

5. Yoko Ono sue? What a waste of time, money and life. I'm sure each of them can come up with something more worthwhile to do than putting more money in a lawyer's pocket.

If Yoko does disagree, she should just put a statement in the press declaring that she simply wants to observe what she always understood to be an unwritten agreement between John and Paul which John stood by until his untimely death.
However, as there is technically nothing she can do to uphold that 'agreement' without raking over old coals and wasting both her and Paul's time and money, she has expressed her view to Paul - but beyond that she leaves it to Paul to decide whether he too respects the 'Lennon/McCartney' name as John did.

langebleu said:

I agree. In the meantime, I'm not surprised at McCartney one bit. I love all of the Fab 4, but Paul has always been the self-absorbed bozo of the bunch to me.

Mccartney is an egotistical and insecure piece of crap. No other explanation for what he is doing.

He said on the Larry King show that Yoko Ono does have a say in things like this because he said he asked her if he could change the credits on "yesterday" and she said no. And that there were more hard feelings between them because of it. They had a deal where all the members of the group or the families had a say in stuff like this. If everybody didn't agree, then something would not be done. Mccartney has chosen to go against that. Has he done something illegal? I don't know but it was a low thing to do.

Paul Mccartney:is a Musical genius&a Shrewed Business Man.He is Madd at Yoko&MJ&can't stand having too play second fiddle&still after all of these Years has His Mop-Top in a Bunch.nobody cares because Him&Lennon will always be Considered among the Elite of Composers no matter whose Name is mentioned first.

The whole thing is

I can think of better things 2 do with my billions.


Yeah... billions.

Here's the official word: Read on...

McCartney Switches Beatles Writing Credit

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - Paul McCartney (news) believes the last shall be first. Yoko Ono (news) believes he wants to rewrite history.

McCartney, after 40 years of second billing to his late partner John Lennon, has turned the tables on his Beatles collaborator by reversing the order of the famous Lennon-McCartney songwriting credit.


On Paul's last project, a two-CD live album, the cute Beatle is now top dog.

"Back in the U.S. Live 2002" includes 19 classic Beatles songs billed as written by "Paul McCartney and John Lennon."

The back-and-forth continues a nasty feud between McCartney and Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, who in the past accused the Beatles bassist of "opening a Pandora's box" by changing the credits.

"This is not a divisive thing," insisted McCartney spokesman Geoff Baker in London. "It's not Lennon or McCartney. Even if Paul did 95 percent 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."

Ono's spokesman, Elliott Mintz, disagreed.

"There's no question this is an attempted act of Beatle revisionism," Mintz said Tuesday. "And it does appear to be an attempt to rewrite history."

Mintz said that Ono had no plans to sue McCartney over the swap and was "feeling secure in the fact that the original Lennon-McCartney agreement still stands."

This particular intra-Beatles spat — one of many since the megaband dissolved in 1970 — dates back seven years, although it started with "Yesterday."

When the surviving members of the Fab Four began releasing their acclaimed "Anthology" series in 1995, McCartney approached Ono about flipping the Lennon-McCartney credit for the hit single.

Ono, the guardian of the Lennon legacy since her husband's 1980 murder by a deranged fan, turned him down. She and her attorney did not return calls seeking comment.

"It actually is one of the reasons we're not the best of friends," McCartney confessed in an interview with Reader's Digest last year.

No one disputes that McCartney wrote "Yesterday" by himself, or that he was the only Beatle in the studio for its recording. The tale of McCartney's waking up one morning with the tune in his head is part of Beatles' lore, as is its working title: "Scrambled Eggs."

Music historians suggest McCartney, now 60, has become worried about his place in history — as if half-ownership of rock 'n' roll's most-revered writing credit was nothing.

It's also a strange thing for McCartney to focus on: songwriting pairs such as Jagger and Richards, Leiber and Stoller, and Rodgers and Hammerstein have lived with their respective slots and the resulting music.

Yet this is not the first time there's been a posthumous feud between the one-time bandmates. When the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, McCartney boycotted over financial disputes.

"I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion," McCartney said at the time.

George Harrison, Ringo Starr (news), John's two sons, Julian and Sean, and Ono wound up accepting for the band.

And though he's a multimillionaire many times over — a spring tour of the United States grossed $53 million — it still irks McCartney that part of his songwriting profits go to Ono.

"At one point, Yoko earned more from `Yesterday' than I did," McCartney complained in a May 2001 interview. "It doesn't compute, especially when it's the only song that none of the Beatles had anything to do with."

mistermaxxx said:

Bingo.

Mccartney obviously disagrees with about the name situation. Because the fact that he has changed the order of the names proves that whose name is first DOES matter. It matters to him. What a sad person he is. How does he live with a head that big?

June7 said:

Thanks for the AP source.

>Mccartney obviously disagrees with about the name situation. Because the fact that he has changed the order of the names proves that whose name is first DOES matter. It matters to him. What a sad person he is. How does he live with a head that big?<

Then how do you explain Yoko Ono receiving more royalties than Paul for "Yesterday," a song that Paul wrote completely alone.

I'd be mad too.

jtgillia said

Maybe you'd be mad, but you have to wonder how that even came about, and what it has got to do with his name coming first or second. It's interesting that Paul is quoted as saying that:

'"At one point, Yoko earned more from `Yesterday' than I did'

implying that this is no longer the case. So why raise it as an issue if it's in the past and in any event switching his name to the front of the credit will not earn him a penny more?

Moreover, this could be down to many things e.g. the deal negotiated by Yoko on behalf of the estate for an agent to collect royalty payments was a better one at a particular time than the one that Paul had managed to negotiate with his agent.
.
[This message was edited Wed Dec 18 16:55:20 PST 2002 by langebleu]

not sure if anyone answered this (there's a lot of text to slog through on this thread) but at the time Paul asked Yoko if he could change it on some of the songs (not just Let It Be), she said no. He wanted to do it, because there is some technicality about the way they are listed as far as publishing rights go. Something about control and use and licensing power and the person who's listed first.

But... what's listed on a record sleeve means absolutely NOTHING in a legal sense, as far as I know. They're notoriously incorrect.

oh come on, it usually was based on whatever they wrote, they sang.. like in Day In A Life.. John sang the part he wrote, and Paul sang the part he wrote... I believe that Paul wrote the "body" of the songs he chose to re-arrange the wording.

It doesnt matter, but its rediculous when Yoko gets paid more money/benifits of Yesterday than the man who wrote it.. (whose Paul McCartney)

Yoko gets what she deserves as the surviving widow of John Lennon. She inherited his share, period.

I think that it just irks Paul that he has 2 go 2 bat with Yoko anytime he wants 2 change anything having 2 do with the Beatles' catalogue. 2 bad...

What about Michael Jackson... the songs r listed under the ATV catalogue thru Sony. At this point, Paul should b glad he's getting something, since he failed 2 make a successful bid on his own material.

I'm truly tired of his needless whining... he should go 4 a swim in his millions, and then maybe he'll realize that things aren't so bad 4 him... the real world has problems, he obviously doesn't.

June7 said:[quote)

I'm truly tired of his needless whining... he should go 4 a swim in his millions, and then maybe he'll realize that things aren't so bad 4 him... the real world has problems, he obviously doesn't.

[/quote]


I agree! I love Paul but come on,it's hard to sympathize with a BILLIONAIRE.He should sit back,enjoy his millions and feel confident that his place in pop music history is secure.