Beatles authorship and collaboration

[Eric Jx]

Here's and interesting graphic that shows each Beatles song with bar graphs depicting authorship and the extent that there was collaboration.

 

I was surprised by the few songs that were listed as using outside collaboration (i.e. Golden Slumbers). Perhaps they are given credit to George Martin? I'm also surprise that no outside collaboration credit was given to Clapton for "While my Guitar" or Preston for the songs that he played on.

 

There are also a few songs that I've always thought of as a strictly John song, that show Paul had a contribution (i.e. Lucy in the sky w/ diamonds).

 

I'm also surprised that no credit was given to Scotty Pippen

 

Click here

[Cygnus64]

Here's and interesting graphic that shows each Beatles song with bar graphs depicting authorship and the extent that there was collaboration.

 

I was surprised by the few songs that were listed as using outside collaboration (i.e. Golden Slumbers).

 

Golden Slumbers is somewhat "borrowed" from two older sources.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Slumbers#Original_ballad_and_poem

[Marzzz]

I would be interested to know how they came up with these statistics- how did the know it was Lennon/McCartney 80/20 on one song or 40/60 on the next?

[Eric Jx]

I would be interested to know how they came up with these statistics- how did the know it was Lennon/McCartney 80/20 on one song or 40/60 on the next?

 

The subtitle states "Based on authorial attributions quantified by William J. Dowdling in the book Beatlesongs"

 

 

 

 

[Marc Paley]

Wow - that is one cool chart !!!

[Fusker]

That is cool. These ratios are generally pieced together through years of interviews. Beatleology I suppose.

[Cygnus64]

I have a good friend who played violin on "She's Leaving Home". I'm a big Beatles fan so I've asked him all about it. He said that they had to record at 10pm or so to avoid fans hanging out. He spoke highly of Lennon and quite highly of McCartney, he said they were very polite and very professional to work with.

 

As for money, he said he got like 50 bucks and never got another cent. The crime of that is that there are no Beatles playing on that song. The entire band is a string quintet (3 violins, one viola and one cello) and a harp, that's it. Lennon and McCartney of course sing, but the band is 6 classical people. I would think McCartney would feel pity and mail each of them another 10 bucks.

[JcSr56]

Cygnus64,

 

McCartney is as tight as a boy scout knot; that's the "main" reason he lost out on control of the Beatle's catalog. At the time the catalog went on sale; Forbe's listed Mac as the 2nd richest entertainer in the world; just shy of being a billionaire.

 

The catalog went for apprx. 40 million. Now I know that Macs money wasn't all available cash, but I find it hard to believe that he couldn't have easily swung the transaction.

 

With all that said; to me, it speaks volumes as to why he probably never thought twice about the studio musicians.

 

Things fair(to me) no better for Lennon. He left Julian $250,000 of an almost 200 million dollar estate.

 

The Beatle's have always been my favorite group, and I guess they always will be, and I think that they may have been left shell shocked, and afraid of money matters, after being ripped off by the suits during their early years.

 

SLH is a beautiful tune.

 

John Sr.

[Joe Muscara]

Getting a little OT, but perhaps the money issue is because they grew up in Liverpool during and after the war. You can probably guess what that can do to a person.

[Eric Jx]

I'm hesitant to call McCartney out as a tightwad just because he didn't go out of his way to lookup a hired-gun violinist and share his wealth with him.

 

By Cygnus64's friend's account, Paul was polite and professional. And he paid the going rate for the studio work. Cygnus64's friend got the bragging rights to tell everyone that he played on one of most influentialalbums every created. What more do you want? Would you really expect anything different?

 

 

[d halfnote]

I'm not sure all that credit is reliable...or even quantifiable.

I won't quibble with any attributions in particular but will point out that I didn't notice George Martin's name in there.

That's a big flaw off the bat.

 

At the start of their career he shaped virtually all their output & as time passed his role may've lessened somewhat but it never disappeared.

He devised many of the vocal harmonies we think they came up with off the top of their heads (even up to "Because" on Abbey Road, played keyboards on many tracks & even devised some guitar solos that are attributed to Harrison.

A song like "I Am the Walrus" certainly owes as much to him as to Lennon's lyric & guitar part.

 

As to the point of paying sessioneers, that was all down to the musicians union rates, paid by EMI (& possibly charged to NEMS or APPLE), never something that the Beatles dealt with themselves.

BTW, they didn't get paid much either. Their income came from the huge amount of records they sold, not any high royalties.

 

[zxcvbnm098]

"I'm also surprise that no outside collaboration credit was given to Clapton for "While my Guitar" or Preston for the songs that he played on."

 

Unless Clapton and Preston assisted with either melody or lyrics, they would not get any credit. My understanding of WMGGW and the Let It Be stuff Preston played on was that they were all completed in terms of song structures. Both guys came in and added their solos and comping, but the tunes were in the can already....