But the thing is, it's SO very inaccurate to say that John Lennon WAS the Beatles that it's just beyond ridiculous. There is so much proof that this idea is nonsense that it hardly begs mention. I mean, for starters, it should be enough of an indication that such claims are total hogwash that the most recorded song of ALL TIME, Yesterday (1965), was solely a McCartney composition.
In the early days, John and Paul used to write together in an extremely close collaborative manner. John said in a Playboy Magazine interview in 1980:
"We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, 'Oh you-u-u/ got that something...' And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!' I said, 'Do that again!' In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that—both playing into each other's noses."
As time progressed and they began to write more and more separately, we still observe that their contributions to the albums were more or less even, the differences being marked in style.
In terms of their UK number #1 hits, Paul wrote I believe six on his own, whereas John wrote five (the rest are generally believed to be collaborations).
There is really no way it could be possible to claim that Lennon was any more important to the Beatles' success than McCartney.
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