As the Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce case draws to a close, it is almost inevitable that Sir Paul is frequently referred to as a musical genius and an integral part of The Beatles.
Half true…for sure. He was, of course, an integral part of The Beatles. Now, don’t get me wrong – I like The Beatles a lot. And I agree with those people that say “anyone who doesn’t like The Beatles is either deaf or lying”.
Nevertheless, The Beatles were – and are – overrated. Here is the first part of my 21 reasons why The Stones were better than The Beatles :
1) The Stones looked cooler
What’s this got to do with music? Everything. Keith and Mick were just cool – McCartney was a lovable, cheeky Scouser and Ringo was even worse.
2) The Wives and Girlfriends
The Beatles wives were partly responsible for their breakup. The Stones kinda shared and shared alike (Anita Pallenberg and all).
3) The Lyrics
The one thing that rarely gets mentioned about The Beatles is their lyrics. This is because, with only one or two exceptions, they are awful.
Here’s a few excerpts:
From Hello, Goodbye:
“You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don’t know why you say goodbye when I say hello, hello, hello.
I don’t why you say goodbye when I say hello.”
From Strawberry Fields Forever:
“No one I think is in my tree,
I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can’t you know tune in.
But it’s all right.
That is I think it’s not too bad. “
There’s much worse than this, of course, but you can find all the Beatles lyrics here – if you must.
By contrast, The Rolling Stones were pretty accomplished lyricists. Here’s a few excerpts:
From Salt of The Earth :
“Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead”
From I Can’t Get No Satisfaction :
“When I’m watchin’ my TV
And a man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarrettes as me”
Lots more great Stones lyrics can be found at this website.
4) The Drummer
Ringo Starr is an amiable, likeable scouser. Unfortunately, what he is not is a good drummer. In fact, he wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles.
I’ve heard all the revisionist nonsense about Ringo’s abilities over the last few years, but that’s all it is: nonsense.
By contrast, Charlie Watts is a fantastic drummer. His minimalist style in The Rolling Stones often hides his natural jazz style, but what he does in the Stones is always, always perfect.
5) The Novelty Songs
When you’re five or six years old, ‘Yellow Submarine’, ‘When I’m Sixty Four’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and the like are fantastic songs. In pretty much the same way as ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ is fantastic poetry.
The fact is, though, that The Beatles novelty songs are, frankly, embarrassing. They’re generally awful music hall pastiche with – in far too many cases – the tone deaf Ringo singing.
The Stones avoided this trap and thank God for that.
6) Self-Indulgent Rubbish
While The Stones are responsible for the execrable ‘Satanic Majesties Request’, there is nowhere near the level of self-indulgent rubbish as that churned out by The Beatles.
‘The White Album’, for example, is four good songs plus an hour of tiresome half-written rubbish, like ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’.
Is this really the work of the best band in the world ever? Nope…it’s just rubbish from a bunch of self-indulgent millionaires.
7) Where Did They Hide The Good Albums
The Stones recorded ‘Beggars Banquet’, ‘Sticky Fingers’, ‘Exile on Main Street’, ‘Goats Head Soup’ in succession.
The Beatles made only one really consistent album – ‘Sargeant Peppers..’. The rest were pretty ropey (Let It Be, The White Album, Revolver…some good, some bad on all).
I hope you enjoyed this first part of a three part series. Part two is here.
