{"id":314168,"date":"2025-11-26T05:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T05:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/314168\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T05:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T05:05:11","slug":"paul-mccartney-on-the-song-that-got-him-john-lennons-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/314168\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney on the song that got him John Lennon’s respect"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Beatles Anthology returns to screens this week with a new Episode 9<\/a>, fans will be able to relive the group\u2019s birth and rise from Liverpool to the global stage.<\/p>\n

The key moment in the Beatles\u2019 creation is July 6, 1957, when Paul McCartney and John Lennon<\/a> met. Lennon was 16, and McCartney 15, but the younger musician had more skill on guitar. It was that ability that earned him Lennon\u2019s respect and a spot in his skiffle group, the Quarrymen.<\/p>\n

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And, as McCartney reveals in a 1999 interview, it was all due to one song.<\/p>\n

Best picks for you<\/p>\n

Their fateful meeting took place at St Peter’s Church Hall f\u00eate in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton, where Lennon lived with his Aunt Mimi. McCartney only attended the event because of his mate Ivan Vaughan, who was a friend of Lennon\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe used to be in one of the little skiffle groups that John was in,\u201d McCartney told British TV host Michael Parkinson in a 1999 interview for his BBC talk show, Parkinson. \u201cSo he said you should come along to this thing. You know this group’s playing, and my mate John’s in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Quarrymen were a rough-and-tumble skiffle act consisting of Lennon and a group of musical friends from the Quarry Bank High School. McCartney and Vaughan arrived in time to catch the band’s afternoon set and see Lennon sing \u201cCome Go With Me,\u201d by the Del Vikings. Lennon didn\u2019t know the words and improvised them, which McCartney found both amusing and impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn just looked like he had something,\u201d he told Parkinson. \u201cWhat happened was, they did their first set and then they had a break, and then they were due to do the evening set. So the break was an opportunity for the band to get drunk, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"3ABKTCR\n<\/p>\n

John Lennon and Quarrymen manager Nigel Walley, May 5, 1958. (Image credit: Julian Hamilton\/Mercury Press\/ZUMApress.com)<\/p>\n

By the time Vaughan took McCartney around to meet the band, Lennon had had a few beers, he recalls. When Vaughan explained that McCartney played guitar, Lennon asked him to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of them lent me his guitar and I had to turn it right, because I’m left-handed,\u201d he said. \u201cThey wouldn’t let me change the strings. But because I had a mate who had a right-handed guitar, I’d learned to play upside down. So that was a little bit impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I also knew the words to this song that they all loved,\u201d he continues. \u201cAnd they didn’t know the words. That was enough to get me in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The song was Eddie Cochran\u2019s \u201cTwenty Flight Rock.\u201d Cochran and his band had performed the tune in the 1956 U.S. musical comedy The Girl Can\u2019t Help It, which also featured standout performances by McCartney favorites Fats Domino, Little Richard and Gene Vincent (who would also prove to be a big influence on Jimmy Page<\/a>). But it was Cochran\u2019s \u201cTwenty Flight Rock\u201d that had captured the hearts of young guitarists with its insistent riff and Cochran\u2019s twanging, heavily vibratoed voice.<\/p>\n

Despite the song’s popularity, there was a good reason Lennon and his group didn’t know the lyrics: The tune hadn\u2019t been released yet, not even in America. Cochran recorded it for release after the movie, in May and August 1957, but it still wasn\u2019t issued until the following November. And it wasn\u2019t even released as a single in the U.K.<\/p>\n

The absence of a record didn’t matter at all to the song’s popularity. The Girl Can\u2019t Help It and the musicians it showcased made a huge impact on Liverpool teens, who were enthralled by the performances. Thanks to the film, Little Richard began selling more records in Liverpool than Elvis Presley. It is undoubtedly the reason Richard began touring England, where he found he could play bigger and better venues than in the U.S., where he was usually relegated to dingy clubs.<\/p>\n

Eddie Cochran AI 4K Restored – Twenty Flight Rock (1956) – YouTube
\n\"Eddie<\/p>\n

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As for McCartney, upon seeing the movie he headed out to his local record store to order Cochran’s record, only to learn it wasn\u2019t available. So how did he know the lyrics? He was a huge fan of The Girl Can\u2019t Help It and had apparently seen it several times during its seven-week run at the Scala Cinema on Liverpool\u2019s Lime Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe idolized these people, and we always thought they were given crummy treatment \u2014 until The Girl Can’t Help It,”<\/a> he said in the Beatles\u2019 Anthology book. The film was so important to him that the Beatles took a break from recording “Birthday” for the White Album on September 18, 1968 so they could so go to McCartney’s house to watch the film’s British TV premiere.<\/p>\n

Cochran, in particular, was appealing to musically inclined teens. He was just 19 at the time \u2014 not much older than Lennon or McCartney \u2014 and played a Gretsch 6120 hollowbody electric guitar<\/a>. And, as McCartney explains to Parkinson\u2019s audience, it was his \u201cTwenty Flight Rock\u201d that would bring him and John Lennon together, setting the stage for the creation of the Beatles.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I’ll just do a little bit of it,\u201d McCartney said to Parkinson\u2019s audience. \u201cShow you what got me in the Beatles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul McCartney – Interview & Twenty Flight Rock (Parkinson, 1999, Remastered) – YouTube
\n\"Paul<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

The Beatles Anthology begins streaming with Episodes 1\u20133 on Wednesday, November 26 on Disney+, followed by Episodes 4\u20136 on Thursday, November 27 and Episodes 7\u20139 on Friday, November 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Beatles Anthology returns to screens this week with a new Episode 9, fans will be able…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-314168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}