He's A Literal Boy
Henry Meller reports on a minor slight by Yoko against Paul. No big deal, really. She claims McCartney's songs got covered more than Lennon's because John is a hard singer to copy and he wrote more complex songs while Paul wrote simple June/spoon stuff. (The truth is he got covered more because his songs tend to be more melodic.)
What fascinates me about the piece is how literally Meller took Yoko. The terms "June/moon/spoon" have been used since before Yoko was born to symbolize silly love songs, but Meller feels it necessary to note Paul never actually rhymed "June" with "spoon." In fact, he quotes the entire first verse of "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" to show the closest Paul ever came, which was rhyming "spoon" and "lagoon." This is missing the point completely. A June/spoon rhyme represents mindlessness, while the spoon/lagoon rhyme, in context, suggests mind-altering drugs of some sort.
posted by LAGuy @ 1:09 AM
1 Comments:
It seemed minor to me because it was essentially a sad, old widow explaining how she used to put her husband's uncertainty to rest. Sure, in her opinion John was far superior to Paul, but whose side do you expect her to take?
As AnnArborGuy knows, I greatly admire the songwriting talents of both John and Paul. When it comes down to it, I tend to prefer the Beatles' songs where John was the main writer, but that hardly means I fall into the trap of putting down Paul--he's great, too.
I think John was a brilliant songwriter who was unleashed by rock and roll--it was the idiom that he loved and expressed himself best in. Since it's my favorite style of music, maybe it's why I prefer him. Paul, on the other hand, was a musical genius who could have been a top songwriter any time in the 20th century. If he'd been born a few generations earlier, he'd have been composing great tunes along with Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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