Two of Us, III

Yesterday I pointed out Slate's Part 1 of the discussion re: the collective genius of John and Paul; today's Part 2 brings up a point I've always thought to be more true than some magical, mystery explanation: sheer competition between young dudes:

But the joint credit also served as balm on the cuts of a constant, intense—though often joyful—competition. "Imagine two people pulling on a rope," said George Martin, "smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond." 

According to the conventional wisdom, their drift apart had begun. But the increased distance sometimes functioned like the space between boxers in a ring—giving more room for a powerful shot. "He'd write 'Strawberry fields,' I'd go away and write 'Penny Lane,' " McCartney said. "If I'd write 'I'm Down,' he'd go away and write something similar to that. To compete with each other. But it was very friendly competition because we were both going to share in the rewards anyway."

Friendly, but with a sharp edge. "I would bring in a song and you could sort of see John stiffen a bit," Paul said. "Next day he'd bring in a song and I'd sort of stiffen. And it was like, 'Oh, you're going to do that, are you? Right. You wait till I come up with something tomorrow.' "

Also, it's nice to see it acknowledged that despite being the "pussy, mawkish one," a myth I constantly seek to dispel, it was Paul who first dipped his toes into London's avant-garde scene of the day: 

The favorite back-and-forth—who was the real genius in the pair?—looks to set one on a pedestal. But when we look closely at the back and forth, that debate's most cherished assumptions come into question—for example, that John charged ahead with the musical avant-garde while Paul nurtured traditional elements of melody and symmetry.

But in some ways, it was Paul who forged the frontier and John who raced to catch and exceed him. From 1966 to '68, John lived a weird, sleepy, deeply interior life. He spent days on end dropping acid and watching television. Paul, meanwhile, threw himself into the London art world and its "happenings"—performances that blurred the boundary between artist and audience. In 1965, their music publisher Dick James gave them each a Brenell Mark 5 tape recorder. While John used his to record rough demos, Paul, immersed in the experimental work of composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, jiggered the machine to disable the erase head and make tape loops of layered sounds. He brought these to the Beatles sessions to create the sound for "Tomorrow Never Knows," the famous "John" song.

In 1966, a far-out artist named Yoko Ono moved to London from New York City. Paul not only met her first; he had helped create the India Gallery where she and Lennon met. Though it took several years to ripen, Lennon eventually threw himself into the relationship—he literally asked people to consider them JohnandYoko. (Yoko made for the third person, following Pete Shotton and Paul McCartney, with whom he collapsed his name.)

 Xmastime back in August:

It's also of note that it was McCartney, who spent a lot of time before Revolver dicking around with tape loops he made from tapes of such avant-garde stuff as Stockhausen while Lennon laid on his couch getting fat in wedded suburban bliss, which led to the innovative, psychedelic hypersonic musical leap the album provided. Mythology will have you believe Lennon sat around coming up with weird, trippy stuff while McCartney whistled How Much for the Doggie in the Window? over and over.

Like Mickey Mantle, there is no moment of the Beatles' career that is not fascinating. It has everything.