Paul McCartney Addresses 'Wonderful Christmastime' Encouraging Witchcraft: 'I Am the Head Wizard'

people.com

Paul McCartney Addresses 'Wonderful Christmastime' Encouraging Witchcraft: 'I Am the Head Wizard'

McCartney's Christmas classic was released in 1979

By Ilana Kaplan

Staff Editor at PEOPLE

December 24, 2025

NEED TO KNOW

• Paul McCartney reflected on "Wonderful Christmastime" encouraging witchcraft
• "I like the idea of Christmas songs purely because they only come around at Christmas!" the Beatles vocalist writes in a "Vevo Footnotes" video
• "Wonderful Christmastime" was released in 1979

Paul McCartney is reflecting on his most festive hit.

In a "Vevo Footnotes" video shared on Thursday, Dec. 18, the Beatles vocalist reflected on the online "theory" that the video for his 1979 Christmas classic "Wonderful Christmastime" encourages witchcraft.

"There is a theory online that the song is about people practicing witchcraft, getting found out and trying to cover it up," McCartney, 83, writes. "Thank goodness they found me out. This is completely true and in actual fact."

He continues, "I am the head wizard of a Liverpool coven. Either that...or it's complete nonsense."

McCartney then adds that "you know it's the latter."

Paul McCartney in the "Wonderful Christmastime" music video in 1979.

Credit : Paul McCartney/YouTube

Per a 2022 interview he did with PaulMcCartney.com, he clarified that the lyrics were "the mood is right" and not "the moon is right," which fans may have misheard.

"The thing is about this stuff, it’s so easy to convince half the people in the world. You do have to be a little bit careful!" he said at the time.

In the Vevo Footnotes video, McCartney reveals he was trying to showcase the excitement of the holiday season.

"When I was writing 'Wonderful Christmastime' I was trying to capture that party aspect," he writes of the video. “I’m thinking about Liverpool Christmas parties, that’s really all I’m doing with that song."

Adds McCartney, "‘The mood is right, let’s raise a glass, the spirit’s up’ — you know, all the stuff you do at Christmas. Particularly with my old Liverpool family parties.”

Paul McCartney in the "Wonderful Christmastime" music video in 1979.

Credit : Paul McCartney/YouTube

Directed by Russell Mulcahy and filmed at the Fountain Inn in West Sussex and The Hippodrome Theatre in Eastbourne, the music video features members of McCartney's band Wings.

In the video, McCartney also addresses how popular the track has become over the years.

“Sometimes people will go into a shop and hear the song a little too much, but I don’t care!” he writes. “I’m happy!”

In December 2024, the music legend surprised fans with a rare performance of "Wonderful Christmastime" in Manchester, England, featuring backing vocals from children who attend the You Should Be Dancing Theatre Academy.

According to Rolling Stone, McCartney has only performed "Wonderful Christmastime" live roughly a dozen times throughout his career.

Prior to his 2024 performance of the track, the last time McCartney had played it was during a trio of concerts in England in December 2018.

He also previously joined in a rendition of the song alongside Jimmy Fallon and the cast of Sing during a 2016 episode of The Tonight Show.

BONUS :

He Photographed Paul McCartney – and Upset the Beatle

beatlesblogger.com

He Photographed Paul McCartney – and Upset the Beatle

by BeatlesBlogger

Posted on December 19, 2025

When you see an iconic image like this one it is often fascinating to hear the backstory as to how it came about.

Photographer Chris Floyd has a fantastic tale to tell about working with Paul McCartney and the process of capturing an image of him for the ages:

If Floyd’s photographs looks familiar, that’s because another from that same shoot eventually made it’s way (some 12 years later via Paul’s own company MPL) onto the cover of Paul Du Noyer’s 2015 book, Conversations With McCartney:

As well as the YouTube above, Chris Floyd has written in detail about the session too, both in his book Not Just Pictures, and also at his substack.com page. His article there is well worth a read. It’s got some great additional information and images, plus two very surprising postscripts which add delightful new elements to the tale!

‘A Song Reborn’ – A New Beatle “Making Of” Film

beatlesblogger.com

‘A Song Reborn’ – A New Beatle “Making Of” Film

by BeatlesBlogger

Posted on December 19, 2025

The Beatles have released a new short film on the “making of” their Anthology song, ‘Free As A Bird’:

A Song Reborn is directed by Oliver Murray, who did a similar thing in 2023 for ‘Now And Then’:

Murray also compiled the trailer for The Beatles Anthology 2025 now on Disney+:

And he wrote and directed the new 50 minute Episode 9 of the Disney+ series, so Apple is obviously sending quite a bit of work his way. Hopefully soon we’ll get the Oliver Murray take on the making of ‘Real Love’, with even more previously unseen footage?

The Best Music Books of 2025: Cameron Crowe, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne and More

variety.com

The Best Music Books of 2025: Cameron Crowe, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne and More

By Jem Aswad

VARIETY

Dec 16, 2025

We say this every year, but any list of the year’s best music books is even more of a losing proposition than best albums or songs, primarily because of the time investment — so any such list is doomed to being “some of the best music books.” With that inevitable caveat, although this year lacked a jaw-dropping must-read along the lines of Cher’s “The Memoir” or Elton John’s “Me” — which are arguably the most continually satisfying music memoirs of the last decade — there’s still plenty to dig into.

What we music-memoir junkies are usually seeking is, if not the dirt, then at least great anecdotes, especially ones that we haven’t read before. Which brings us to a second caveat: A couple of books in this tally aren’t necessarily compellingly written and would have benefited from a skilled editor, but the stories in them largely deliver the goods. However, that is most certainly not the case with the first on this list…

“The Uncool” Cameron Crowe

“The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told” Bill Janovitz 

“The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley and the Partnership That Rocked the World” Peter Guralnick

“Wings” Paul McCartney / “The McCartney Legacy Volume 2: 1974-1980” Allan Kozinn / Adrian Sinclair

If anyone ever felt that that 1970s/ Wings-era Paul McCartney was insufficiently documented, they’re drinking from a firehose this year. While Tom Doyle’s 2013 book “Man on the Run” is a concise and compelling overview that should suit most fans just fine, these two imposing tomes fall under the “everything you could ever want to know and then some” category. Like his first volume (covering 1969-73), Kozinn’s doorstop goes into near-daily detail about McCartney’s recording sessions, tours, business and life. While the attention to detail is formidable in its execution, this era covered the peak of McCartney’s ‘70s popularity although not the peak of his creativity (that was in the previous volume) so these graduate-school-level deep-dive details on albums like the treacly 1978 set “London Town,” or mediocre peripheral efforts like his brother Mike McGear’s solo album, can sometimes strain one’s attention.

More digestible is “Wings,” an oral history of those years told via interviews with dozens of musicians and friends, as well as McCartney himself and his late wife and Wingsmate Linda, who died in 1998. It is no understatement to say that she was unfairly Yoko’ed, and while her skills as a keyboardist were rudimentary, her singing in particular remains an essential component of McCartney’s music at that stage, and her personality emerges vividly in these pages — her commentary is often more engaging and revealing than that of the man himself.  — Jem Aswad

“Ozzy Osbourne: Last Rites” Ozzy Osbourne with Chris Ayres

“Night People: How to Be a DJ in ‘90s New York City” Mark Ronson

“Yoko: A Biography” David Sheff

Sheff has walked this road before: He wrote the famous expansive Playboy interview with Yoko and John Lennon at their Dakota apartment just months before Lennon’s assassination, and even titled his own memoir “Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction,” after a song from “Double Fantasy.” Yet over the years, he befriended Ono and came to a rare understanding of her life and art: Her family’s Tokyo home being destroyed by U.S. bombers and their ensuing poverty; her work with avant-garde art groups in New York before meeting Lennon; her broken marriage to American film producer Anthony Cox; her custody battle and the subsequent loss of their daughter, Kyoto, for over 25 years. And not least the ongoing nightmare of Ono’s demonization by Beatles fanatics who saw her as the cause of the group’s breakup — even after Lennon admitted to conceling Ono’s credit for co-writing songs such as “Imagine” (which was rectified in 2017) due to his own fragile male ego. While Ono’s stature as an artist has largely been rehabilitated, Sheff brings hue and shading to her story. —A.D. Amorosi

“Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema” Steven C. Smith

“Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story” Barry Mazor

“Queen & A Night at the Opera: 50 Years” Gillian Gaar

“Waiting on the Moon” Peter Wolf

“Bread of Angels: A Memoir” Patti Smith 

“John Williams: A Composer’s Life” Tim Greiving

“Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey From Stage Lights to Executive Heights” Derek Shulman with Jon Wiederhorn

Beatles Biopic Casting: What We Know So Far

ultimateclassicrock.com

Beatles Biopic Casting: What We Know So Far

Allison RappPublished: December 12, 2025

Andreas Rentz, Getty Images / Stuart C. Wilson, Getty Images for BFI / S

In April of 2028, the world will receive not just one Beatles biopic, but four of them.

The brainchild of Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event will roll out over the course of four separate weekends, with each film focusing on a different Beatle.

Both of the two remaining Beatles and the estates of the late ones have given the project the green light, though they are keeping a bit of distance.

"[Mendes] had a writer — very good writer, great reputation, and he wrote it great, but it had nothing to do with Maureen and I," Ringo Starr said to The New York Times earlier this year, referencing his marriage to his first wife, Maureen Starkey, and explaining that he'd been through the script for his own biopic "line by line" with Mendes. "That's not how we were. I'd say, 'We would never do that.' But he'll do what he's doing and I'll send him peace and love."

Meanwhile, both Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan, the actors set to play Paul McCartney and Starr respectively, have spent time with the Beatles in real life.

"He's an extraordinary man," Mescal said about McCartney, speaking to IndieWire in September, "like to spend any time — it's a crazy sentence to say that I've spent time with that man, let alone play him."

And these are just the people playing the Beatles themselves. There's a whole other cast of characters who are slated to be a part of this project, including the Beatles wives, family members and employees. In the below gallery, we're taking you through every cast member we know about so far at the time of this writing.

Beatles Biopic Casting: What We Know So Far

Due April 2028, these are the thespians who will bring the Fab Four's individual stories to life.

Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp

Larry Ellis, Daily Express, Hulton Archive, Getty Images / Kate Green, Getty Images for BFI

Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney

"I'm obsessed with the Beatles at the moment," Irish actor Paul Mescal, who is set to play Paul McCartney, said to Rolling Stone in September of 2025. "It's part of my job, but it's also the way that my brain is wired. I'm excited about listening to music, writing music, absorbing music, going to shows, all of these things — they start with an intensity with the job and then kind of become my personality for a bit." Mescal has two BAFTA Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award to his name, plus nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Hulton Archive, Getty Images / Gareth Cattermole, Getty Images

Harris Dickinson as John Lennon

English actor Harris Dickinson has actually met McCartney, which is perhaps the closest he will come to getting to know his character, John Lennon. "My dad's a northerner, from near Liverpool, so he was very impressed," he told The Times in September 2025. Dickinson has appeared in productions like Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), Where the Crawdads Sing (2022) and Babygirl (2024). In the same Times interview, Dickinson admitted that he'd been in touch with Tony King, an old friend of Lennon's, who advised him not to impersonate the Beatle so much as create a "now" version of him, "like Austin Butler did with Elvis."

Tristan Fewings, Getty Images for BFI / Keystone, Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr

Another Irish actor is slated to portray a Beatle: Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. Keoghan has appeared in Dunkirk (2017), The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), Saltburn (2023) and more. Like Mescal, Keoghan has spent some time with his character subject. "I met [Starr] at his house and he played the drums for me," he told Jimmy Kimmel in May of 2025. "He asked me to play, but I wasn't playing the drums for Ringo. ... My job is to observe and take in the mannerisms and study him. But I want to humanize him and bring feelings to it, not just imitate." Starr's son, Zak Starkey, had this piece of advice to offer Keoghan when speaking with NME in June of 2025: "Get a big rubber nose."

Brendon Thorne, Getty Images / Keystone, Getty Images

Joseph Quinn as George Harrison

British actor Joseph Quinn has been featured in Gladiator II and Stranger Things, but this role as George Harrison may top all the others. "My mum's from Liverpool. She's a very Scouse lady. I grew up spending Christmases and stuff there – I love my Liverpudlians," he told Esquire before his casting was made official. "My mum was singing Beatles songs when I was at primary school, so if that was to happen, there would be another level of meaningfulness there."

Antoine Flament, Getty Images / Evening Standard, Getty Images

Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney

The critically-acclaimed Saoirse Ronan, whose credits include The Lovely Bones (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019) and many more, has been cast as Paul McCartney's first wife, Linda. Paul and Linda were married in 1969 — she was a photographer and the first woman to have a photo on the cover of Rolling Stone — and were together for nearly 30 years before she passed away from breast cancer in 1998.

Tommaso Boddi, Getty Images / Central Press, Getty Images

Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono

Much has said and written about Yoko Ono, Lennon's second wife and the woman to which he was married when he was murdered in 1980, some of it with misogynistic and racist undertones to it. But one thing is undeniable: you simply cannot tell the story of Lennon's life without her. Japanese actress Anna Sawai, who has been working in film and television since she was 11, has been cast as Ono. She also has a musical background, having risen to fame in Japan as one of the lead vocalists of a girl group called Faky.

Andreas Rentz, Getty Images / M. McKeown, Express, Getty Images

Aimee Lou Wood as Patti Boyd

Patti Boyd was one of the '60s It Girls, helping to usher in a new sense of style and overall vibe for women of the time. Boyd met George Harrison on the set of the 1964 Beatles film A Hard Day's Night and they were married two years later. (They divorced in 1977, with Boyd leaving Harrison for Eric Clapton.) Aimee Lou Wood will take on this role — you may recognize her from White Lotus.

Stuart C. Wilson, Getty Images for BFI / Larry Ellis, Daily Express, Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Mia Mckenna-Bruce as Maureen Starkey

Ringo Starr met his first wife, Maureen, a teenage hairdresser from Liverpool, at the Cavern Club in 1962. They were married from 1965 until 1970. She'll be played by Mia Mckenna-Bruce, winner of a BAFTA Rising Star Award.

Eamonn M. McCormack, Getty Images / Michael Fresco, Evening Standard, Getty Images

David Morrissey as Jim McCartney

David Morrissey has spent a lot of his career on stage with esteemed companies like the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre. He's also appeared in two seasons of The Walking Dead and numerous feature-length films. Morrissey will portray Jim McCartney, Paul's father, with whom he had a very close relationship.

Anthony Devlin, Getty Images / YouTube, @TheBeatleCavern

Leanne Best as John Lennon's Aunt Mimi

Here is the most touching casting of the entire film series: Leanne Best as John Lennon's Aunt Mimi. (Lennon's mother died when he was 17, and prior to that, he spent most of his childhood living with his aunt.) If you recognize Leanne's last name, that may be because she is the niece of Pete Best, who was the Beatles' original drummer.

Jeff Spicer, Getty Images / Evening Standard, Hulton Archive, Getty Images

James Norton as Brian Epstein

In 2024 there was a film called Midas Man, an entire production about Brian Epstein starring Jacob Fortune-Lloyd. The reviews were mixed, with The Guardian describing it as "uneven but well-meaning." Now, English actor James Norton has a chance at the crucial role of the Beatles' manager.

Joe Maher, Getty Images / Hulton Archive, Getty Images

Harry Lloyd as George Martin

You may recognize Harry Lloyd from a few episodes of Doctor Who, or perhaps from the first season of Game of Thrones. Here, he'll play the Beatles' producer, George Martin. Often referred to as the "fifth Beatle," Martin produced every single one of the Beatles' albums with the exception of Let It Be.

The Beatles, Sony Pictures / Pace, Getty Images

Bobby Schofield as Neil Aspinall

Neil Aspinall started out as a school friend of McCartney and Harrison's and went on to be head of the Beatles' Apple Corps company. He'll be played by Bobby Schofield, a native of Kirkby, England which sits just outside Liverpool.

The Beatles, Sony Pictures / Pace, Getty Images

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as Mal Evans

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill is slated to play Mal Evans, who worked for the Beatles as their road manager and personal assistant from 1963 up until their breakup in 1970. (Before that, he was a bouncer at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.) Tragically, Evans was shot and killed during an encounter with police in 1976.

Kate Green, Getty Images / YouTube, @carlwilbon6202

Arthur Darvill as Derek Taylor

Arthur Darvill, who is set to play the Beatles' press officer Derek Taylor, has a background in musical theater having appeared in both Broadway and West End productions like Once and Oklahoma! Interestingly, his musical background stretches to childhood — his father, Nigel, played organ for the likes of Edwin Starr, Fine Young Cannibals and UB40.

Monica Schipper, Getty Images / Frederick R. Bunt, Evening Standard, Getty Images

Adam Pally as Allen Klein

Adam Pally is best known for his comedy roles in things like Happy Endings and The Mindy Kaling Project, but for this series he'll be acting a bit more serious as Allen Klein, the Beatles one-time manager. Of course, if you know anything about the history of British invasion bands, you know that Klein was notorious for improperly handling the finances of both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to his own advantage.

Grail McCartney/Fireman – Strawberries Ships Ocean Forest

beatlesblogger.com

Grail McCartney/Fireman – Strawberries Ships Ocean Forest

by BeatlesBlogger

Posted on December 8, 2025

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a decent Beatle and Beatle-related auction held in our own hometown by a small auction house, but one happened about a week ago and it turned up quite a rare Paul McCartney/Fireman double LP from 1993, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest.

We’ve had the CD version of this for a long time, but the vinyl has always been elusive. The problem is that you hardly ever see it for sale, and when it does come up it’s usually very pricey.

The standard edition is in a bright red/green cover with clear vinyl. But there’s an even rarer, limited edition in a white cover. And this is why we were very interested when a copy came up for grabs at a local auction place here in Sydney, Australia.

We made a single bid – and got it!

This rarer 2LP vinyl edition comes in a very plain white outer sleeve:

The album title wraps around the cover onto the rear, where there’s a limited edition number stamped in black in the centre (ours is No.263).

Apart from that, there’s no other info on the outside, except on the spine there is the catalogue number FIRE 1:

Inside there are two clear vinyl records. Both come in plain white, non-poly-lined paper sleeves:

And here are the labels in close-up. These too are different to the standard release:

So, this has been something of a grail find and Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest on vinyl can at last take its rightful place in the collection.

At the same auction we nabbed a selection of Dark Horse Records singles. These were Australian pressings from some of the more obscure bands that were signed to the label in the 1970s. More on that next time.

NOTE :

Paul McCartney's "Fireman" persona refers to his experimental music duo with producer Youth (Martin Glover), a project for ambient, electronic, and psychedelic music, exploring creative freedom away from his mainstream work, named partly after his father being a WWII fireman and his own fire-making skills. They released instrumental albums like Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998), and Electric Arguments (2008), which featured vocals and McCartney's name, showcasing his interest in soundscapes and different musical textures

The best day Paul McCartney ever had with George Harrison: “We were kids”

Paul McCartney and George Harrison on Brodersweg in Hamburg, 1960 (Photos by Astrid Kirchherr).

faroutmagazine.co.uk

The best day Paul McCartney ever had with George Harrison: “We were kids”

Paulina Subia

Tue 9 December 2025

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Before The Beatles became the Fab Four, revolutionising popular music forever, they were just school kids in Liverpool, absorbing all the rock music they could find and picking up their instruments for the first time.

Paul McCartney and George Harrison met, naturally, on the school bus. Both recognised a shared love of music: Harrison said that he played the guitar and learned that McCartney, a trumpet player, was going to pick up the guitar, too. They also found a mutual appreciation of the British ‘King of Skiffle’, singer-songwriter Lonnie Donegan, whom the two realised they’d both seen at Liverpool Empire, the same night, before they met.

The earliest colour photograph of The Beatles, showing Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison, along with Dennis Littler, a friend Credit: Mike McCartney

McCartney invited Harrison to his house to learn the chords to ‘Don’t You Rock Me Daddy O’, and the two became bonded for life, solidified when McCartney brought along Harrison to audition for John Lennon’s group, The Quarrymen. McCartney vouched for his friend to a sceptical Lennon, who was unsure due to Harrison’s age, and Harrison’s guitar skills proved stronger. As they say, the rest is rock ‘n’ roll history.

While the bond between McCartney and Harrison would fray as the former’s with Lennon grew stronger, creative tensions posing a frustration to Harrison, the two would slowly reconcile, albeit not quite the same as before, when they were two kids, practising guitar chords in McCartney’s home.

But it is moments such as these that remain in McCartney’s mind all these years later, looking back on his memories with Harrison, who passed away from lung cancer in 2001. In the 2011 documentary George Harrison: Living In The Material World, McCartney reminisces on his “best times with George”, thinking back to a hitchhiking trip the pair took to Wales in the summer of 1959.

“We hitchhiked to a place in Wales called Harlech; we were kids, before The Beatles,” McCartney remembers. “We’d heard a song, ‘Men of Harlech’, and saw the signpost, and said, ‘Yeah!’ There was a big castle, and we just went there.”

Credits: Far Out / Public Domain / ingen uppgift)

The two young musicians, with little plan outside of sheer curiosity, roamed Harlech and met a cast of characters along the way. “We had our guitars [and] took them everywhere,” McCartney says. “We ended up in this cafe; we’d try and go to a central meeting place… they had a jukebox, so this was ‘home’. So we sat around there, we met a guy, and he started talking. He was into rock ‘n’ roll, and we went and stayed at his house, so it was great! Me and George, top-and-tailing it in a bed.”

The pair would stay at the man’s mother’s bed-and-breakfast, where, as McCartney remembers, they forgot to pay. Years later, they received a letter from the woman requesting payment, now that they were “famous and rich,” in McCartney’s words.

“We said, ‘Oh, sorry!’” McCartney says and, mimicking the writing of a letter, responded, “‘Here, with payment.’” McCartney continues to remember the kindness of everyone he and Harrison crossed paths with. “We just had so many laughs with these Welsh guys,” he recalls. “We sat in with their band, one drunken night in a Welsh pub.”

As McCartney reflects, the bed-and-breakfast was unlike anywhere they had been before. Going from their estate in Liverpool, Wales, was another world of surprises. “Now, we were in the country, Wales, and there were these spiders, daddy longlegs, in the room,” McCartney remembers with a mock-scared gasp.

Adding, “‘The menace, the spiders!’ So, me, George, or both of us, took a rolled-up newspaper and got them. Then we could sleep safely. We went down to breakfast the next morning, and the mum said, ‘How did you sleep? Alright?’ We said, ‘Yeah, fine, thanks, great.’ She said, ‘Did you see Jimmy and Jemima?’ ‘Pardon?’ ‘Two little spiders!’”

McCartney and Harrison, pretending not to know a thing, responded, “‘No! Jimmy and who?’ Oh my God, so we had many a laugh over that,” McCartney says with a laugh.

Harrison, too, reflected on his and McCartney’s hitchhiking adventures in The Beatles Anthology, remembering such trips as a time with little food or money, yet filled with kind strangers whom they would later immortalise in The Beatles’ songs.

“It’s something nobody would dream about these days,” Harrison said of their decision, but still, it is one that the two men would reflect on for the rest of their lives, transporting them back to boyhood.

The one singer John Lennon and Paul McCartney called their greatest hero

faroutmagazine.co.uk

The one singer John Lennon and Paul McCartney called their greatest hero

Tim Coffman

 

Mon 8 December 2025

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Any pop singer of the past 50 years who says that they haven’t taken at least a few cues from John Lennon and Paul McCartney is either lying or working with someone influenced by them.

The songwriting duo behind The Beatles have written the entire rule book of what pop music should sound like, and even if some of their songs can seem dated to younger ears, there’s no doubt that pop music would have changed for the worse had they not started everything back in the early 1960s. But they were rock and rollers, too, and they would do anything to follow in their heroes’ footsteps.

Then again, it wasn’t clear whether or not rock and roll was a fad by the time that the Fab Four started making music. Elvis Presley had turned the genre into a mecca from the moment he started shaking his ass, but that didn’t give rock legitimacy. It only proved that it could make money, but Lennon and McCartney felt that they could make high art if they worked together on making the right songs.

It’s not like ‘Love Me Do’ or ‘Thank You Girl’ were brilliant pieces of poetry or anything, but when listening to the way that the melody lands, they were already understanding what made people like the same rock songs they love. And even when they started venturing into new territory on records like Revolver or Abbey Road, there were still the lingering sounds of people like Chuck Berry off in the background.

Because if you talk to any other rocker from around their time, there’s no question that Berry was the beginning of everything. Before him, the sounds of rock and roll had been the likes of rockabilly and blues, but when Berry kicked up the tempo and started singing about kids that loved to play the guitar all night long, those lads from Liverpool had a greater purpose in life. Most people wouldn’t have made it out of Liverpool, but McCartney knew he wanted to follow Berry’s lead.

Aside from the energetic songs, McCartney felt that hardly anyone could match what Berry did, saying, “It was so thrilling. It was a world we didn’t know existed. You couldn’t imagine a time when oldie rock and roll was brand new, but there it was. He was a huge influence on us and we copied a lot from his guitar style. I always saw him as a poet. He continued to influence us for years and years and years.”

And despite Lennon wanting to move on from traditional rock and roll during his solo career, he could never bring himself to give up Berry’s influence, saying, “Berry is the greatest influence on earth. So is Bo Diddley and so is Little Richard. There is not one white group on earth that hasn’t got their music in them. And that’s all I ever listened to.” But when looking at their vocal styles in the band, Lennon was clearly more of a Berry acolyte.

Whereas Macca could reach up into the same stratospheric range that Little Richard got so effortlessly, Lennon had the kind of voice that could tell a story over top of those bluesy chords. He was still at the height of his revolutionary phase back in the mid-1970s, and even on an album that was trying to be as progressive as Some Time in New York City, ‘New York City’ is the kind of record that Berry could have easily written himself had he been born in the middle of Manhattan.

So while everyone can debate on how Elvis Presley changed the world and Jerry Lee Lewis showed everyone what a wild man could be, there’s always only going to be one person that’s credited with starting rock and roll. Others may have had rock and roll songs before Chuck Berry, but if you look at the template for the genre, it was all there before a song like ‘Johnny B Goode’ was even finished.