Paul McCartney Explained How His Songwriting Relationship With John Lennon Really Started

The Paul McCartney and John Lennon songwriting relationship was one of the most successful we’ve ever seen. They attached their names to dozens of Beatles hits, and even some songs they gave up on became successes. They had been bandmates for years, but Paul explained how “I Saw Her Standing There” really started their long-standing partnership.

‘I Saw Her Standing There’ started the Paul McCartney-John Lennon relationship, according to Paul

Paul began writing songs almost as soon as he picked up an instrument. He never recorded one of his first tunes, but he took a stab at songwriting long before The Beatles existed. The juices started flowing once John and Paul joined forces, but Macca explained how the partnership didn’t truly start until they worked on “I Saw Her Standing There.”

His opening line, the first words Paul sang on the first album, Please Please Me, didn’t hold water. What became “Well she was just 17 / You know I mean” started as “Well she was just 17 / Never been a beauty queen.” 

They were bandmates in the Quarrymen before they developed into The Beatles. Yet Paul said John’s help with the lyrics truly ignited their songwriting partnership (via YouTube):  

“When John and I were getting together, we kind of showing each other what we’d written, and this was one I said to him, ‘I have this idea.’ I started off with it, and we finished it together, so it was a very early Lennon and McCartney song. Having a collaborator, one thing’s great — if you get stuck with something, you can just say, ‘What do you think of this?’ and you can kick it around together. [Paul explains the first line]. That started our songwriting partnership.”

Paul McCartney

The uptempo and rather raucous “I Saw Her Standing There” exemplified the early beat music ethos. It also started what became a fruitful duo. John’s lyrical help get the song out of the station, but he didn’t think highly of the tune.

John didn’t think too highly of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’

John’s ambitions to be a serious artist didn’t always mesh with the pop hits The Beatles churned out in their early days. So it’s not surprising he didn’t speak highly of “I Saw Her Standing There” later in his music career.

In the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon described the song as nothing more than a potboiler. That is, a song written with the sole purpose of making money. 

“That’s Paul doing his usual good job of producing what George Martin used to call a ‘potboiler,’” John said. “I helped with a couple of the lyrics.” 

The interesting thing about John’s comment is that “I Saw Her Standing There” probably wasn’t a huge money maker for the Fab Four.

How the song and ‘Please Please Me’ fared on the charts

Paul said his partnership with John started with “I Saw Her Standing There,” and John said they wrote the song just to make money. Yet that never really happened.

One of the best Please Please Me songs spent 11 weeks on the Billboard chart in early 1964 (nearly a year after the album came out). It never rose higher than No. 14. The Fab Four certainly made some money, but it wasn’t a financial windfall. “I Saw Her Standing There” peaked at No. 90 in England — in 2010, per the Official Charts Company. The income from that was a mere pittance to a billionaire like Paul.

Album sales for Please Please Me were the bigger cash cow for The Beatles. The record reached No. 1 in England within six weeks, stayed in the top spot for 30 consecutive weeks, and spent nearly a year and a half on the charts, per the Official Charts Company. The album didn’t see a U.S. release until years later and topped out at 155 on the Billboard 200 in 2010.

Paul McCartney’s songwriting relationship with John Lennon really began with “I Saw Her Standing There.” Macca appreciated the help, but John didn’t regard it highly in his later years. Still, the tune has significance as the start of The Beatles duo’s brilliance.

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