John Lennon’s regrets about George Harrison and Ringo Starr

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Sun, November 24, 2024 10:09 p.m., United Kingdom

The Beatles spent the 1960s establishing themselves as the greatest band of all time, and it’s a title they’ve held on to ever since. Between them, they wrote some of the most beloved songs of all time, pioneered a series of new studio techniques, and paved the way for popular culture and the music industry as we know it. know today. And along the way, they’ve generated a ton of money from records, merchandise sales, concerts and more.

The question of how to distribute this income is a difficult question. Not only the Fab Four had to be taken into account, but also their manager, Brian Epstein. Before his death in 1967, the manager reportedly took 25 percent of the money, with the rest shared among the band members. But not all Beatles won the same amount of money.

Over the years, Paul McCartney and John Lennon emerged as the group’s primary songwriters, penning the majority of the group’s biggest hits and back catalog. McCartney provided the ideas for classics like “Eight Days a Week,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yellow Submarine,” while Lennon contributed to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Across the Universe” and “Help!”

George Harrison and Ringo Starr occasionally contributed their songwriting talents to the group. Starr wrote “Octopus Garden,” for example, which appeared on the band’s iconic album. Abbey Roadwhile Harrison contributed classics like the shimmering “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” However, their contributions were outweighed by those of their groupmates, who couldn’t resist using pen and paper.

So, Lennon and McCartney wrote many more Beatles songs, and their receipt of royalties reflects this. However, Lennon was never entirely comfortable with the division of income between the group, and he even pushed Harrison and Starr to make the most of their songwriting.

“I always tried…” Lennon said in an interview shared in All We Say: The Last Great Interview With John Lennon and Yoko Ono“It was through me that Ringo and George got a piece of John and Paul’s handwriting.” Lennon later admitted that under the “auspices” of their future manager, Allen Klein, “John and Paul completely own everything Maclen (Music) has released.”

“I always felt bad that George and Ringo didn’t get a cut of the publication,” Lennon admitted, “Not bad enough to do anything about it, but slightly guilty.” The songwriter later admitted that it was thanks to him that Harrison and Starr each got five percent from Maclen. “Not because of Klein or because of Paul,” he clarified, “because of me.”

Starr and Harrison may not have contributed as much to the band’s songwriting as McCartney and Lennon, but that didn’t stop Lennon from feeling regret and remorse over their lesser paychecks. Today, of course, the Beatles’ finances are even more complicated.

Strangely, in the 1980s, Michael Jackson outbid McCartney to buy the Beatles’ music, spending a whopping $47.5 million to do so. This soured relations between the popstar and the former Beatle, but McCartney has since regained control of the group’s publishing rights. In 2017, he worked with Sony to reacquire the songs.

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