(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sat 11 October 2025 17:45, UK
The entire fallout between John Lennon and Paul McCartney was bound to get ugly.
They were as close to musical brothers as two people could be, and if they didn’t have the best relationship at the end of The Beatles, things were about to go nuclear when both of them completely washed their hands of the group. But even for all of the animosity towards each other, they always found time to extend olive branches towards each other occasionally.
But first, they would have to worry about getting untangled from each other. No one is able to get out of a band that close without a few stragglers poking through the cracks, and a lot of the leftover tunes from their Fab days did end up turning up on their solo projects, like McCartney’s epic ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ or Lennon’s ‘Gimme Some Truth’, which included a little bit of McCartney’s handiwork.
When they got to the new stuff, though, the gloves were officially off. Macca may have indirectly started the tension with ‘Too Many People’, but after the sparring session that gave us ‘How Do You Sleep’ and eventually ‘Dear Friend’, it looked like all the bridges they built together were getting blown to smithereens. Lines were being drawn in the sand, and McCartney figured it was better to build his own band for himself.
And while he looked like a fool to most critics when Wild Life came out, Wings managed to churn out their fair share of classics. ‘My Love’ was a fantastic love song, and ‘Silly Love Songs’ was a cheeky retort back at Lennon for critiquing his lovey-dovey approach, but there’s nothing that could hold a candle to Band on the Run.
McCartney was out to prove every one of his naysayers wrong, and even with only half a band, tunes like ‘Jet’ and ‘Let Me Roll It’ had the kind of flair that his fans had been missing for so many years, even with a nod to Lennon on the latter with the way that he used his old bandmate’s signature echo on his voice.
Paul McCartney performing live. (Credits: Far Out / Kurt Schollenberger / ETH Library)
Given the amount of critics who have spilt ink over the record, Macca wasn’t about to correct everyone on why it was such a classic, saying, “Band on the Run was my one. That was nice, especially after we were trying to be the band after The Beatles. So finally we made it, and we went on tour in America in 1976. So that was really the start of Wings’ success, so it’s really special to me for that reason.” And for all of the critics changing their tune, none changed more than Lennon.
You have to remember that this was one of the most savage critics in the world, and more importantly, one of the most savage BEATLES critics in the world. He would tear any of his old music through the mud and had nothing but poor things to say about McCartney’s previous solo efforts, so to hear him turn everything around was bound to be a revelation when it first came out.
Despite not liking a single project Macca had done, Lennon genuinely warmed up to his old mate, saying, “Band on the Run is a great album. Wings is almost as conceptual a group as Plastic Ono Band. Plastic Ono was a conceptual group, meaning whoever was playing was the band. And Wings keeps changing all the time.”
Perhaps it was a case of Lennon finally coming around to his old partner when he saw him cribbing notes from his work, but it’s not like he couldn’t take a few licks that he thought were great as well. When listening to the instrumental ‘Beef Jerky’ off of Walls and Bridges, there’s a moment where the guitars end up playing the same riff from ‘Let Me Roll It’, only slowed down just a little bit.
It’s useless to think about what the songwriting duo would have been like had they got together to make another record, but it’s not like the seeds weren’t being planted for them to work together again. They each had mutual respect for each other again, but sometimes musical dreams are meant to stay dreams.
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