Paul McCartney has said that both he and Beatles bandmate John Lennon needed the creative rivalry that spanned their careers.
But he argues that it was a positive relationship, and not the negative one that it’s often regarded to have been.
In an excerpt from a book, Mojo reports how McCartney’s 1980 track Coming Up inspired Lennon to write his last album Double Fantasy.
McCartney says: “I saw a John documentary and somebody was saying, ‘I brought this record of Paul’s to John and played it for him.’ John went, ‘Oh, fucking hell, the bastard’s done something good – I’ve gotta work!’
“I love the idea of forcing him up off his arse. We were always doing that with each other.”
He adds: “People sometimes see it as an arch rivalry – it wasn’t. It was a friendly competition that was actually very necessary.”
Meanwhile, the first management contract signed by the Beatles and Brian Epstein has sold at auction for £365,000.
The 1962 document is the only one of its kind to have been signed by all five players, including George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Last month the band’s first-ever record contract, signed in 1961 for a German single under the name Tony Sheridan And The Beat Brothers, was sold for £48,000.
