John Lennon Once Called Paul McCartney a ‘Soft-a**’ During a Recording Session
John Lennon and Paul McCartney forged a lifelong bond that began at a young age when they met in Liverpool. The two weren’t afraid to throw jabs at each other like most friends. While they became more mature with The Beatles, sometimes the childish banter would make its way out. McCartney recalled an outtake in a recording session where Lennon once called him a “soft-a**.”
John Lennon called Paul McCartney a ‘soft-a**’ for forgetting his guitar pick
McCartney looked up to Lennon, who considered him to be like an older brother. However, Lennon wasn’t afraid to give him a hard time, even if it did have a friendly context. In an interview with Rolling Stone, McCartney revealed an outtake from a recording session where The Beatles were recording “I Saw Her Standing There”. The “Hey Jude” singer said he couldn’t play because he didn’t have his guitar pick, and Lennon teased him for it.
“We always had this two-track tape recorder running in case we came up with a little jam. ‘Take 36, what was that like?’ But it was actually a chronicle of our dialogue,” McCartney explained. “There’s one bit I particularly liked: We were doing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. I went, “I can’t do it. I haven’t got my plec.” We didn’t call them guitar picks, we called them plectrums. John said, ‘Where is it?’ – this in our thick Liverpool accents. ‘I think I left it in my suitcase.’ John goes, ‘Ah, soft a**.’ ‘Soft a**? I’ll give you a soft a**.’”
The Beatles’ inner Liverpool would make its way into certain songs
The Beatles grew up in working-class households in Liverpool. They didn’t have the same upper-class mannerisms as the wealthier families in London, but they seemed refined with their music and with their appearance. However, since many didn’t know what they meant, Paul McCartney and John Lennon would often sneak Liverpool slang into Beatles songs.
One example of this is in “Sun King” in Abbey Road. The phrase was “Chicka Ferdy,” an immature profanity commonly used in Liverpool.
“There was a thing in Liverpool that us kids used to do, which was instead of saying ‘f-off’, we would say ‘chicka ferdy!’” he shared on his website. “It actually exists in the lyrics of The Beatles’ song ‘Sun King’. In that song, we just kind of made up things, and we were all in on the joke. We were thinking that nobody would know what it meant, and most people would think, ‘Oh, it must be Spanish’ or something. But, we got a little seditious word in there!’”
McCartney and Lennon had a rocky relationship after The Beatles ended
Despite the two being great friends, the end of The Beatles created a rift in their relationship. The two exchanged several public insults at each other, including in songs like John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep” and Paul McCartney’s “Too Many People”. These weren’t friendly jabs, and it seemed to outsiders that the two hated one another. Fortunately, McCartney said the two were able to reconcile before Lennon’s sudden assassination in 1980.
“I feel very blessed we got over it because if we hadn’t, and then John goes and gets killed, I don’t know how I would’ve dealt with that,” McCartney told Howard Stern. “I was very lucky because we sort of got it back together, and it was beautiful. I would ring him or go see him in New York.”
