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Paul McCartney and John Lennon were close friends and collaborators for years. While their relationship soured in the years bracketing The Beatles’ break up, they were on much friendlier terms before Lennon’s death. They respected one another, but McCartney said they rarely complimented each other. He could only remember one time when Lennon complimented his music.

Paul McCartney said John Lennon only gave him one compliment

When asked if he and Lennon were complimentary of each other’s work, McCartney said they were, but rarely to each other’s face. They could acknowledge when a song was good, but they wouldn’t tell the other.

“Not openly,” he told 60 Minutes, “but we later admitted, ‘Yeah, you know, Paul’s written a good one there, I’d better get going.’ And I would similarly, ‘That’s a bit good, right, here we go, come on.’ If he’d have written ‘Strawberry Fields,’ I would write ‘Penny Lane.’ He’s remembering his old area in Liverpool, so I’ll remember mine.”

He said that in all their years of knowing each other and working together, Lennon only directly paid him a compliment once.

“I think it was Revolver, but ‘Here, There, and Everywhere’ was one of my songs on it, and John, just when it finishes, [said], ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song,’” McCartney recalled, adding, “I was like ‘Yes! He likes it!’ I remember it to this day. It’s pathetic, really.”

He said he was able to compliment Lennon’s work, but he needed a little liquid courage first.

“I would tell him his stuff was great,” he said. “You’d normally have to be a little bit drunk. It helped.”

Paul McCartney knew John Lennon loved another one of his songs

Lennon liked more of McCartney’s songs, even if he didn’t compliment them. McCartney said Lennon’s admiration of the song “Yesterday” manifested as extreme jealousy.

“The worst thing for John,” McCartney said (per Cosmic Magazine), “was that he didn’t write ‘Yesterday.’ I did, and he would get really quite biffed because you would be in New York and the pianist would go and hum the song. That would annoy him.”

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Others confirmed that Lennon wished he could have written the song.

“‘Yesterday’ drove him crazy,” friend Howard Smith told MOJO Magazine. “People would say, ‘Thank you for writing ‘Yesterday,’ I got married to it, what a beautiful song…’ He was always civil. But it drove him nuts.”

He also said a great deal of hurtful things about his bandmate’s music

While Lennon admired McCartney as a songwriter, he also disparaged some of his work. After The Beatles broke up, Lennon openly belittled McCartney’s music in the press. 

“I mean, he came out with all stuff like I’m like Engelbert Humperdinck,” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “I know he doesn’t really think that.”

McCartney admitted that this made him feel terrible.

“Oh, I hated it,” he recalled. “You can imagine, I sat down and pored over every little paragraph, every little sentence. ‘Does he really think that of me?’ I thought. And at the time, I thought, ‘It’s me. I am. That’s just what I’m like. He’s captured me so well; I’m a turd, you know.’ I sat down and really thought, ‘I’m just nothin’.’”

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