It’s Almost Impossible to Believe Paul McCartney Didn’t Write ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ About His Beatles Bandmates
Paul McCartney believed in The Beatles surviving a rough 1969, but things obviously didn’t work out. The band broke up in 1970. He eventually felt optimistic following The Beatles’ split, but one of his Abbey Road songs seems to be miles away from that. He once said he didn’t write “You Never Give Me Your Money” about his Beatles bandmates, but it’s almost impossible to believe Paul was telling the truth.
Paul McCartney once said ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ wasn’t directed at John, George, and Ringo
The Beatles fought about money as much as they argued about artistic differences toward the end of their run. The turmoil of the late 1960s and 1970 was the culmination of years of stress. John Lennon saw The Beatles’ end coming when manager Brian Epstein died in 1967.
Less than two years later, The Beatles owned a company, Apple Corps., that was hemorrhaging money. Paul stood alone when he favored John Eastman to be their manager. John, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr wanted (and got) Allen Klein. John and Paul lost control of their songs when ownership stakes in their Northern Songs company changed hands without them knowing.
Paul channeled his frustration into his songs. Specifically, “You Never Give Me Your Money” from Abbey Road. He claimed wasn’t aimed at his bandmates in 1996, according to You Never Give Me Your Money author Peter Doggett:
“[It wasn’t directed] to the other members of the band. I didn’t really feel like they were to blame. We were kind of all in it together, and it wasn’t really until Allen Klein came in that we got really divisive and started getting our own lawyers and stuff. Because he divided us. It was basically him that divided us.”
Paul McCartney
It’s almost impossible to believe Paul didn’t write “You Never Give Me Your Money” about his Beatles bandmates. He can say what he likes, as he did in 1996, but the evidence stacks up against him.
It’s impossible to believe Paul didn’t write ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ about his Beatles bandmates
You can take him at his word, but it sounds almost impossible to believe Paul didn’t have his bandmates in mind when he wrote “You Never Give Me Your Money.”
First, Paul frequently found musical inspiration right in front of him. He showed his songwriting genius when he wrote the narrative of “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” after hearing a friend’s slang phrase. Paul wrote “Yesterday” in a dream. It’s very difficult to believe he didn’t find songwriting inspiration from all of the bickering and drama of The Beatles’ dissolution.
Plus, Apple Corps. was virtually bankrupt. His bandmates stood against him when choosing a manager who had their best financial interests in mind. Each band member lawyered up, as Macca said. Knowing that, it’s almost impossible to believe Paul didn’t write lyrics such as “You only give me your funny paper” (legal docs) and “See no future / Pay no rent / All the money’s gone / Nowhere to go” as being very specifically about his soon-to-be ex-bandmates. It was Paul and his bandmates that ran out of money. It was The Beatles that had nowhere to go by late 1969.
The most telling lyric might be an easily-missed one — “I never give you my number.” According to Doggett, Paul changed his phone number without telling Klein or his bandmates multiple times as the band slugged it out in boardrooms. Those six words seem like a heavy hint that the song is purely autobiographical.
There’s no getting around the fact the song is all about The Beatles’ financial troubles. Macca said his lyrics targeted Klein, not Ringo, John, and George. But it’s almost impossible to believe Paul didn’t write “You Never Give Me Your Money” without his bandmates in mind.
The Fab Four’s breakup emerged in music form in the following years
Once The Beatles broke up in 1970, the band members soon launched verbal barbs via their solo music.
George landed the first blow with “Wah-Wah” from 1970’s All Things Must Pass album. He went into a shell when he quit The Beatles after one brutal fight in 1969, but he found time to write a rocking song about how John and Paul treated him.
Paul and John tossed lyrical grenades at each other on their solo albums. Macca blatantly blamed John for breaking up The Beatles on “Too Many People” from his Ram album in 1971: “You took your lucky break / And broke it in two.” John responded with “How Do You Sleep” off Imagine later that year. “Those freaks was right when they said you was dead / The one mistake you made was in your head” is a particularly biting line in John’s vitriolic song.
Even Ringo got in on the act. The drummer once said Paul’s solo work disappointed him, and he seemed to call out Macca on “Back Off Boogaloo.” The song appeared on Ringo’s 1974 album Goodnight Vienna, but he released it as a single in 1972.
He can claim anything he wants, but it’s almost impossible to believe Paul McCartney didn’t write “You Never Give Me Your Money” about his Beatles bandmates. The evidence certainly stacks up against him, but he plainly took aim at John on one of his solo songs.
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