Were Lennon and McCartney "geniuses" or just a case of two heads better than one?

I have a curious way of determining my “favorite” music acts: Whoever has the most hits I like. It really doesn’t matter what their critical acclaim level is. It just so happens, of course, that it would be the Beatles who are my “favorite” musical act. For me, beginning with A Hard Day’s Night, virtually every song the Beatles recorded was a pop-rock confection. And let’s make no mistake—the Beatles were the greatest pop recording act of the rock era; the Rolling Stones are probably the greatest rock & roll act, even more so than Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry. 

When one examines the Beatles' catalogue, one notices an obvious change in songwriting acumen, from the typical boy-girl relational exposition, to more nuanced (and in John Lennon’s case, personal and political) subject matter and melodies, beginning with Rubber Soul. Another obvious difference in their two distinct periods was that in the first, Lennon was the lead singer on the majority of their hits; at the time he was the oldest and most forceful member—the “leader” of the band. His style of songwriting in the early years also fit in with the typical British Invasion hit-making of the time. 

There is no doubt that Lennon and Paul McCartney in the early years contributed “suggestions” to improve each other’s songs, but in the second half of the Beatles career it was clear that when they largely composed their own individual songs, McCartney’s more straightforward pop style predominated on the single releases. Lennon’s only post-1966 lead vocal on a Beatles’ No.1 hit was 1967’s “All You Need is Love,” which of course is a “pop” song (I'm one of those who thinks that Harrison's "Something" trumped "Come Together"). This might have due to the fact that Lennon was the more “creative” Beatle lyrically, but McCartney was the most inventive musically. 

This brings me to the Atlantic Monthly’s recent cover story on “genius,” which featured Lennon and McCartney on the cover, suggesting that their two minds equated to “genius.” The piece wasn’t very enlightening in establishing this thesis, although one assumes that there was a meeting of the minds in regard to their comparative strengths that cancelled out their weaknesses. The word “genius” is often used to describe people who have superior powers of memory, to be absorb and recall information. Of course this means little unless it is put to use, and having a focused, imaginative mind helps. 

However, in regard to their alleged “genius,” what Lennon brought to the table in their relationship was the aggressiveness and rebellion of the rock-and-roll spirit, while Paul was sweetness and “order.” But rather than a chaotic, clashing mishmash, they managed to find a certain “common ground” that reflected their essential “pop” sensibilities, despite the fact that Lennon often disparaged the term.

Their solo careers, however, make a weak case to call them “geniuses” as individuals, although McCartney still had a knack for writing catchy melodies, although no more so than, say, David Gates of the soft-rock group Bread, or Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees; he likely needed Lennon to “toughen” him up. Lennon, on the other hand, seemed to run out of ideas after his second “official” solo album, Imagine—perhaps due to the fact that he was actually a rather lazy musician and needed McCartney to “push” him. Today, while the Beatles continue to command the respect even of those who are completely ignorant of their music (because of their “reputation”), one notices that very few of their songs that have been covered actually became significant hits. The only cover of a Beatles song (not including “World Without Love” by Peter and Gordon, which the Beatles never recorded themselves), that hit number one was Elton John’s version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” 

That begs the question, how “great” were the Beatles, and were they really “geniuses.” And more to point, what was producer George Martin’s role in making Lennon and McCartney “great”? Many people imagine being “rock stars,” and few actually accomplish true “star” status. Elvis Presley was one of the “giants” of rock and roll, but he didn’t write a single song and wasn’t a notable instrumentalist. But he had a certain “style” and swagger that epitomized the form. Does that make him  a “genius”? Hardly. How about Bob Dylan? In Marin Scorsese’s documentary Don’t Look Back, Joan Baez recalls marveling at some lyrics Dylan had just written and asking him what they meant; Dylan shrugged and replied “I don’t know where this shit comes from.”

Perhaps some manner of “genius” is so “innate” that it is inexplicable. You simply have the capacity to do something that most people are simply not “wired” to do. Dylan certainly could do things that were at the time and are still unique with song lyrics. It is easy to label such “wiring” as “genius.” On the other hand, how do you explain the superior musical accomplishments of Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, both of whom were blind? Can they be called “geniuses” because they could do what even people with sight are unable to do?

Sometimes being a labeled a “genius” is a stroke of genius itself, being a matter of time, place and circumstance. That is certainly the case of the Beatles. Lennon’s personality as a young man could easily have turned him into a common thug, good at little more than alienating friends and enemies alike. McCartney might have just remained a Liverpool homeboy, using his charm to create a modest middle-class existence. George Harrison and Richard Starkey were just a couple of ordinary blokes on the lower-end of the social scale, having missed their good fortune of being sidemen in the greatest pop band in history. No one would be talking about “genius” then.

As it turned out, as solo artists McCartney had the most musical acumen of all of them. Lennon could always play with words (not always sensibly), but his melodies were simple two-note exercises (or just one note, such as “Instant Karma”), while McCartney was a little more musically “creative”; even on slightly embarrassing fluff like “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” he showed that he was rarely without ideas of how to turn trivial ideas into hits, because of a knack for the memorable melody or hook. Nevertheless, McCartney still wasn’t regarded as “substantial” as Lennon, just a purveyor of inoffensive tunes. 

So it was that neither achieved the kind of critical acclaim as solo artists as they did as together with the Beatles. They were no longer “competing” with each to write a better or just as good a song as the other, so the “motivation” was less than it had been; McCartney as much as admitted that he didn’t like those in his band Wings to “suggest” improvements to his songs. Many great songwriting teams—like Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, Elton John/Bernie Taupin and the Brill Building duos—generally featured one contributor who focused on lyrics, and the other at composing music. Lennon and McCartney were never that kind of combination, but with the Beatles they did nevertheless listen to and incorporate improvements to each other’s songs. When they went solo, they didn’t listen to anyone (except maybe John with Yoko).

Besides Dylan, Paul Simon was one of the few solo songwriters whose work is considered “classic.” One may consider the fact that if all the songs that can be solely credited to Lennon or McCartney during their reign with the Beatles and separated into a “solo” career, would their critical reputation still hold, provided all other circumstances were in play? Probably not. McCartney would likely be considered no more “substantial” than, say, Tommy James, and Lennon would in the first instance be seen as not dissimilar to any other of a string of “British Invasion” stars, to eventually turn into a good, but not great, imitator of Dylan. 

Nevertheless, it is an established fact that hundreds of millions of admirers and fans everywhere embraced the Beatles and their music as no other in the rock and roll era, and some would say that not even Elvis Presley can make that claim. And the Beatles were special because they composed all of those number one hits, and it was their fresh creativity and willingness to experiment with new musical ideas that turned rock and roll into an “art” form. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Beatles by themselves could never have reached those heights or even imagined them without the help of George Martin, their producer from the very beginning. There are those who suggest that it was “chaos” that reigned without the professional touch of Martin, who is in fact never mentioned in the Atlantic story. 

Neither Lennon or McCartney could write musical notation (although McCartney learned to later), and the songs were usually just scraps of ideas in which Martin would suggest improvements, while the pair would experiment with different riffs until  a composition was sufficiently “’whole” to commit to tape. This was particularly true at the start, when Lennon and McCartney were still writing typical pop-rock songs common to other British Invasion groups, their principle focus that of creating singles for radio play, and mostly fill-in for albums—although the Beatles’ “filler” tended to be of higher quality that most.

Later, Martin was a facilitator of their ideas, and his extensive experience with other genres (including comedy records) was invaluable to the group. In the book All You Need is Ears, Martin is quoted: "On the one hand, the increasing sophistication of the records meant that I was having a greater and greater influence on the music,” although he admitted that the Beatles took more control of the direction the music was taking.

Martin’s vital contribution to the Beatles’ success cannot be overstated—and it is usually understated. When the Beatles went off on their own for the first and last time in the studio, the infamous Let it Be sessions was the result. The filmed version of the sessions shows a group in throws of break-up, constant arguing, McCartney “directing” a disinterested Lennon and an irritated Harrison. Lennon would later call the sessions “badly recorded shit” that was recorded with “bad feeling.” Although “purists”—including McCartney—disliked Phil Spector’s reworking of the session tapes into a whole album, the fact is that as the dreadful Let it Be-Naked album amply shows, Spector in fact accomplished a miracle in making it listenable. A few months after this mishap, McCartney contacted Martin to produce them again like he had in the past, and these sessions—Abbey Road— turned out to be the “swan song” worthy of the Beatles.

In the exhaustive “The Beatles’ Recording Sessions,” Mark Lewisohn wrote that “George Martin was, as ever, a vital ingredient in the process, always innovative himself, a tireless seeker of new sounds and willing translator of the Beatles’ frequently vague requirements.” Curiously, the Beatle’s rarely acknowledged Martin’s role in shaping their music, and although McCartney saw fit to enlist Martin’s services for his last commercial successes, Tug of War and Pipes of Peace—Martin could be contradictory in his own assessments. 

Martin himself described Lennon and McCartney as “geniuses” as songwriters, at least later on when they stopped touring and spent more time in the studio, beginning with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But in a 1999 interview with the Irish Times, he asserted that his job was to “put a frame around” a song, such as “a rhythm section to do this or that and so on,” as well as deciding what “the thing should sound like, and then shape it in the studio. (The producer) may also be an arranger, in which case he may write the necessary parts”—in fact the producer “shapes the whole lot. It’s like being the director of a film.” This sounds quite a bit more of a contribution than generally acknowledged. 

Had the Beatles started out with a less competent producer who didn’t bring with him a wealth of experience and creative ideas of his own, would the Beatles be what they would become? Early success brought them confidence in their abilities to experiment and create, and the record company backing to do what they wanted. But it is also clear that without Martin’s guiding hand and musical gifts, the Beatles would have gone in a different direction. They might have remained together as long as their true competitor, the Rolling Stones, but only because they didn’t experience the kind of suffocating adulation that prevented them from leading real lives. Their “genius” lasted only so long as they could stand being with each other.

Ex-football player Didier still only good for taking up space

I was sitting in my barracks room in Fort Lewis, Washington on the evening of October 17, 1983, mulling over the news that I received orders to head back to Germany for another two-year stint in another few weeks. On my television set was Monday Night Football, featuring the defending Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins in an at the time rare appearance by the Green Bay Packers, who behind quarterback Lynn Dickey were actually given a fighting chance to win because of their explosive pass offense. It would be one of the most memorable sports event I ever witnessed, right up there with Game 6 of the 1976 World Series, when Bernie Carbo hit a three-run homerun to tie the game late, and Carlton Fisk hit the game-winning homerun over the Green Monster to propel Boston to a 7-6 win over Cincinnati in extra innings. 

In this game—the highest scoring affair in MNF history—defense was virtually non-existent. Both teams punted but once in the entire game, which must be a record. Eleven touchdowns and six field goals were scored in a game that saw five lead changes in the fourth quarter alone. The sixth was barely avoided when Mark Moseley—one of the last of a dying breed of “conventional” kickers—slid his field goal attempt to the right on the last play of the game to preserve a 48-47 upset victory for Green Bay. The usually by-now bored old guard MNF team actually seemed to be enjoying the game. 

There was one play, however, which generated some “controversy.” With the Packers leading 7-0 early in the first quarter, the Redskin’s marched downfield with relative ease until John Riggins fumbled the ball near the goal line. There was a scrum for the ball, but the replay appeared to show that a Green Bay player recovered the ball. But the play was scored a touchdown for Washington, to the disbelief of Packer defenders. The Redskins second-year tight end, Clint Didier, had emerged from the pile (without the ball) having allegedly “recovered” the football, according to officials, apparently after trying to dive under the Packer player who was on top of it; it was the kind of maddening “judgment” call that we saw in the Seattle Seahawks controversial 14-12 win over Green Bay in 2012.  

That was Didier’s “highlight” real for 1983. Although his name has a ring of familiarity to it, in fact his “game” was rather limited. He caught passes in only 6 games in 1983, catching a total of 9. But at 6-5 he was a hulking figure on the field at the time. His best game was in the Super Bowl that year; however, his five catches were apparently made in “junk” time in 38-9 blow-out loss to Oakland. Didier caught a total of 141 passes in an 8-year career with the Redskins and an inconsequential tenure in Green Bay, where he played in a handful of games before retiring.  

The only thing “special” about Didier was his name and that he took up space at the tight end position; he was useful for standing in people’s way, and apparently that is all he is good for when truth is the issue. The money that Didier “earned” as a football player was used to purchase large tracts of land in Eastern Washington, where he became an alfalfa “farmer”—something that hardly requires much “expertise,” since the plant is a perennial that simply grows and regrows after each cutting, to be harvested as feed for cattle. 

The only “requirement” other than someone to run the bailer and stack them in a barn is water. Rain is a precious commodity in Eastern Washington, a desert-like environment for much of its expanse. Water to irrigate lands such as those of Didier’s must come from somewhere. That somewhere is the canals off the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. The dam was a “New Deal” project during the Great Depression—one of those “make work” ideas that actually had a useful purpose. Without it, far-right so-called “rugged individualist” like Didier would be more like the “weak” who are “eat up the strong,” as he has been quoted as saying.

Up until a few years ago when this Tea Party hypocrite was exposed, Didier received hundreds of thousands of dollars in Department of Agriculture subsidies—another example of how the “strong” actually prey on “weak” taxpayers. Didier’s claim that he and other right-wing “rugged individualist” pay large fees for use of the Grand Coulee water supply has been exposed as another mendacity; only 1..5 percent of the cost of its operation is paid for by the “rugged individualists” who depend upon it for their livelihoods.

In 2010 when Didier was “running” for the U.S. Senate, Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times noted that

“Of all stories we tell ourselves, the one about how we're a merit-based nation of lone wolves has got to be the most enduring. The most intoxicating. And the most baloney…Nowhere is the myth as confused with reality as in rock-ribbed Eastern Washington. The place depends utterly on the government and communal resources for its existence, from the New Deal irrigation system still being paid for by taxpayers elsewhere, to farming subsidies and crop price supports. Yet in their own minds, they are mavericks living off the land…"We don't need the government to come in and try to prop things up," a Lincoln County grain buyer told me as the economy was collapsing in the fall of 2008. As if the local economy weren't already propped up.

Of course, now Didier and those like him would “oppose” building of the dam, because it costs money to build such things, and we should not be spending any of their money on things that are useful to more people than themselves, such as providing affordable electricity. Didier, who is now running for a U.S. House seat, has vowed to “fight” for the elimination of the Departments of Education and Energy, Social Security, Medicare and anything else that helps “the weak”—probably his own mother, if she is still alive. Naturally, “Obamacare” is in his gun sights, and one wonders if this is merely “figurative,” since this idiot has given away guns to fellow “freedom fighters” as a political campaign gimmick. Didier has also called for moving the troops leaving Afghanistan to the U.S.-Mexican border—and to do what, exactly? Shoot children?

The fact is that Didier and the far-right so-called “libertarians” are the kind of people who simply cannot see beyond their own backyards. They are nothing without all the people they disparage. Society cannot function unless there are people who make, buy or sell. Money, wherever it comes from and ends-up, is used to support the economy and the maintenance of civilization. Even people on public support (that includes retirees on Social Security) spend money on things that give other people jobs in which to earn a living. What did we see when the Bush administration gave the rich trillions of dollars in tax cuts? Were jobs created? No, they used it to make them more rich or blow it on schemes that backfired in 2008. Money needs to be in hands of people who actually need it and will use it to maintain the economy. 

But Tea Party extremists like Didier see a much less complex world, where you “live off the land”—like Didier believes—or just be a “hard-working American,” preferably a “real” American, that is to say a “white” one. These animalistic bigots are only about themselves, and everyone else be damned, and that is what makes them dangerous to the maintenance of civilization. Like that fumbled football, Didier claims a world that is not his to take.

Microsoft shift only proves that "change" doesn't necessarily mean "progress"

When I worked for a temp agency, I was once sent for a week to the Microsoft campus in Redmond, to help a contractor move cabinets from one office and reinstall them in another building. Microsoft employees sure had life good, I could see: Refrigerators stocked with free soft drinks (I relieved them of a few dozen cans during my stay), and mall-sized lunch rooms with a huge selection of comestibles at dollar store prices. There were software shops where Microsoft products were sold at a fraction of retail value—practically free, given the money employees were paid, which of course, didn’t “trickle down” to temp workers like me.

After Microsoft went “public” in the 1980s, thousands of people who held sufficient stock in the company became millionaires in the next decade or so. I admit that initially I was one of those Apple snobs; my first experience with computers was in college, using the original one-piece Mac; I recall occasionally going to the computer lab just to play Asteroids on the tiny screen. After I graduated, I could only afford to use electronic keyboard devices that had tiny LCD screens that could fit a couple of sentences at a time. That changed when I acquired my first credit card, and that led to a frustrating period of buying and selling Macs, largely due to the fact that it was difficult to judge whether a particular model—specially a “low-end” model—could run software more than a year old, and Apple always kept the specifications of future products a state secret. Also a problem was the relative dearth of available software compared to Windows.

Things have changed since Apple switched to Intel processors, but that came too late for me, as I abandoned the Mac in 1998 after piling-up considerable debt replacing the latest now defunct machine (particularly after the introduction of the so-called PowerPC). It was always easier to judge the capability of an 86x Intel processor, and there was plenty of interesting software available (I have to admit that I mourn the loss of the After Dark screensavers, especially the Star Trek and Looney Tunes versions). I also have noted that Apple hardware continues to lag behind that of PCs, especially the latter which have Blue-ray drives, which require more memory and processor speed—and thus are more powerful for other applications. I’ve never regretted this switch.

Things have changed for Microsoft, however. It still makes a profit every quarter, but it has moved sharply away from making software programs and games for the PC platform. It is quite a shock for me not to see any software stores anywhere—just as it is that music and DVD-only retail stores have disappeared, thanks to digital downloads and the lack of interest by the latest generations in past cultural history, which in my opinion demonstrated far more creative talent than what is evident today. People are now tied to their “smart phones” as if it they are part of their anatomy, with no interest in learning anything beyond what is immediately available at their finger-tips. Doing actual “work”—like I’m doing here—is for “old school” types for whom the “real world” has passed by.

In these changing times, Microsoft has “redefined” itself away from being a PC software-oriented company, a sad state of affairs indeed. Although most of the recently announced 18,000 layoffs in Microsoft’s future is being born by “redundant” labor in the Nokia phone division, it nevertheless testifies to the fact that the company can no longer afford to be “generous” with its mass of employees. Given my stated attitude toward “smart” devices and their limited capabilities to do “real” work, I see nothing “positive” about this development—especially if it means even less attention to the PC.