Songwriting Thoughts. I Have One.

It’s interesting that Lennon/McCartney never wrote like that other successful British songwriting duo when it came to words and music. Joe Strummer wrote probably 90% of all the lyrics in The Clash, and Mick Jokes did the same with the music. To the point, famously, that Strummer would churn out lyrics in an old typewriter, rip it out and the paper to Mick who would them set it to music while Joe started immediately typing away at the next song.

But for The Beatles it became de riguer to call John the “Words Guy” and Paul the “Music Guy” even though other than in the very beginning and then later on in the studio when they’d help out on each other’s songs, each of them generally wrote the words AND music to their own songs, whatever each of their more natural proclivities may have been.