Expert: Chalk - 6/17/2005

Question
Was 13 when the Beatles made their American premiere on the Ed Sullivan Show in '64 and was immediately smitten with their music and style, which has never waned over the last 40 plus years. I saw your profile and thought you might be the best one among the Beatle experts listed here to pose this question.
Regarding the number of hit songs they produced in the 6 plus years they remained together: How much would you say their M.O. had more to do with a mutual exchange and blending of ideas, musical dialogue, etc. (particularly between John and Paul); or do you think in most instances it had more to do with the sperm of an idea originating in the mind of one, with the other lads adding onto it later?

Answer
Hi, Bob,

I'm trying to work out what M.O. means (or am I just stupid?!?).

There's no either/or here - it's combination of everything that you cite. It's well known that Paul would have an initial idea and John would come up with the Bridge. You can hear this on certain songs where John's voice is clearly 'in the lead' in the Bridge.

I've always felt that Paul was the inventor of little personalities like "Eleanor Rigby" & "Rocky Raccoon", but I guess John did some of that too. "Polythene Pam" is an example, where he sings with a strong Liverpool accent!

Obviously, certain songs were written individually, like Paul's "Yesterday" & John's "In My Life"

I have found a fascinating site for you here:
http://www.stevesbeatles.com/ - there is lots of stuff on this Google page: http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-46...

Frankly, this is a subject one could discuss for hours, and the Net is also full of stuff to read. 15 years ago this would be difficult to research, but we are very lucky today. I think our generation really appreciates what can be achieved using the Net - even just this contact between me & you! Little trivia: They once called Paul & John "The Me 'n' You Boys" because so many of their titles had those 2 words in them?

Have a Beatley day!

Chalk.