John Lennon: The Life

by Philip Norman

In many ways, Martin remembers, John was more easygoing than the perfectionist, workaholic Paul. “If we were doing a song of Paul’s, he’d get hold of his guitar and tell George what he wanted him to play in the middle; he’d get on the drums and show Ringo what he wanted. And that used to irk the piss out of them sometimes, obviously. When John recorded a song, he let other people do what they were going to do: Paul would work out a bass line, maybe add a little bit here and there, and George would do his guitar solo, and Ringo would take care of the beat. John would be entirely focused on his part of things, and leave the others to get on with theirs. As long as the end result was up to standard, he’d be happy. “Paul was his sounding-board, of course, and George had a huge amount of input, which, to my eternal regret, I didn’t sufficiently recognise at the time, but Ringo’s opinion was always important to John, just because he knew that with him there’d never be any bullshit. He’d often turn to Ringo and ask what he thought and if Ringo said, ‘That’s crap, John,’ he’d do something else.”