This weekend, Paul McCartney wowed fans worldwide with a dazzling title slot at Glastonbury Festival 2023. The set included a moment where the former Beatles had a virtual duet with his friend John Lennon, who was murdered on December 8, 1980.
While the star’s snapshots came from their rooftop concert at Apple Corps HQ, shortly after they got mad at each other.
McCartney and Lennon became arch rivals after the Beatles ended in 1970. There were a number of factors that caused this.
For example, McCartney didn’t like where the band’s song rights were headed. So he later admitted that he “had no choice” but to sue the Beatles for keeping his music private.
There have also been allegations that McCartney was not a big fan of Lennon’s new wife, Yoko Ono. He later denied these reports.
Either way, he didn’t wait to start writing some scathing comments about Lennon and his life. In 1971, McCartney released his second solo album, Ram, with his wife Linda McCartney.
McCartney penned the song “Too Many People” which featured a great ballad by Lennon and his wife. While it does not name or shame any person or event specifically, the poison is right there.
The frustration can be drawn from the song’s first sentence: “People are looking for a piece of the cake.” This was easily a reference to the many people who tried to get involved with the Beatles during their later years.
Then he became personal towards Lennon and Ono in the chorus. “That was your first mistake/You took your lucky break and broke it in two,” McCartney said, referring to Ono. Another line refers to Lennon’s “evangelism practices.”
McCartney later admitted that these were attacks on his ex-boyfriend Lennon.
READ MORE: Paul McCartney Took George Harrison’s Single On The Beatles’ Pistol Blow
“There was nothing else about them,” McCartney added. Then he revealed, “Oh, there was ‘You took your lucky break and you broke it in two.'”
But Lennon would not have taken these insults sitting still. He also wrote some hard hit responses to McCartney.
He wrote the song “How do you sleep?” For his 1971 album Imagine. In the song, he took some pointed punches at McCartney that weren’t as slanted as his group.
At the track, he said, “So Sergeant Pepper surprised you / You better see through that mother’s eyes / Those freaks were right when they said you were dead.”
Lennon also claimed in the song that McCartney’s only contribution to the Beatles was his hit song Yesterday.
He wrote: “You live with the uprights who tell you you’re a king / Jump when your mother tells you anything / The only thing you did was yesterday / And since you’re gone you’re just another day.”
Despite their bickering, McCartney and Lennon eventually reconciled and reunited as friends, before the latter was murdered in New York City in 1980.
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