“The Beatles were also really just a blues cover band when they started out” Mick Jagger revisits Paul McCartney’s claim that the Beatles were “better”

Mick Jagger has revisited a comment Paul McCartney once made about the Beatles being “better” than the Rolling Stones.

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In a recent interview with The Times, Jagger spoke about his friendship with the Beatles musician, offering his take on a remark made by the latter a few years back comparing the two bands.

“[The Stones] are rooted in the blues. When they are writing stuff, it has to do with the blues. We had a little more influences,” McCartney told Howard Stern in a 2020 interview. “There’s a lot of differences, and I love the Stones, but I’m with you. The Beatles were better.”

Responding to Macca’s claims at the time, Jagger said: “That’s so funny. He’s a sweetheart. There’s obviously no competition.”

“The big difference, though, is and sort of slightly seriously, is that The Rolling Stones is a big concert band in other decades and other areas when The Beatles never even did an arena tour, Madison Square Garden with a decent sound system. They broke up before that business started, the touring business for real.”

Commenting once again on Macca’s words, Jagger tells The Times: “He said the Beatles were better than the Stones because the Stones were really just a blues cover band.”

“Well, the Beatles were also really just a blues cover band when they started out. Every band is a cover band at the beginning, because that’s how it goes.”

He adds that McCartney’s comments have actually been a source of “comic material”, saying: “When we’re on tour I like to say that someone is in the audience when they’re actually not, to create a big moment, so I said one time, ‘Paul McCartney is here tonight. He’s going to come up on stage and play some of our blues cover tunes.’”

“I texted Paul to say thank you for his comment because it has given me a lot of comic material.”