“The Beatles were better” than the Rolling Stones: Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney weighed in on the age-old Beatles versus Stones debate on Howard Stern’s radio show, telling the host that “The Beatles were better”.

On the program, which aired Tuesday (14 April), Stern revealed that he thought The Beatles were a better band than the Rolling Stones – to which McCartney responded, “you know you’re going to persuade me to agree with that one”.

McCartney drew comparisons between the bands’ approach to songwriting: “There’s a lot of differences, and I love the Stones, but I’m with you. The Beatles were better.”

When Stern claimed Stone’s Their Majesties Satanic Request had many similarities to Sgt. Pepper, Macca agreed. “We started to notice that whatever we did, the Stones sort of did it shortly thereafter,” he said. “We went to America and we had huge success, then the Stones went to America. We did Sgt. Pepper, the Stones did a psychedelic album.”

Later in the interview, McCartney spoke about Peter Jackson’s upcoming film, The Beatles: Get Back, which stitches together 54 hours of unused footage from the Beatles’ album documentary, Let It Be. He said, “I’ll tell you, Howard, it’s great. I’m not bullshitting. You see this kind of thing, this relationship between me and John and me and George. You’ll get it.”

McCartney noted how the footage gave him a new perspective on his strained relationship with late songwriting partner John Lennon.

“I kind of bought into this whole idea that me and John were rivals and didn’t like each other and stuff,” McCartney said. “But you see the film and it’s like, ‘Thank God, it’s not true.’ We’re obviously having fun together. You can see we respect each other and we’re making music together, and it’s a joy to see it unfold.”

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