Competition and Facilitation: David Kopp’s Examination of the Lennon/McCartney dyad

Recent evaluations of the Beatles songcraft and dynamic have begun to explore the role played by the innate qualities of the group’s individuals. One such area of exploration involves the differing methods and styles of creation within the band. A growing interpretation argues that one of the primary artistic and interpersonal clashes resulted from the contrast between McCartney’s more conceptualized method of songcraft, which contrasted with Harrison and Lennon’s more step-by-step approach.

From 1966 on, McCartney would often come into the studio with almost all the musical facets of a song fully mapped out in his brain, instructing the others how and what to play in order to achieve his vision. In contrast, both Harrison and Lennon often built their songs layer by layer in the studio, trying and then rejecting or accepting musical and production suggestions from the other Beatles, or George Martin.

While it is difficult to argue with some of the results of McCartney’s determination to decline suggestions and realize his individual artistic vision – see “Hey, Jude” – this approach stifled input from the other band members, provoking resentment not only from Harrison and Lennon, but even the relatively laid-back Starr, as the drummer noted in Anthology: “It got a bit like, ‘I wrote the song and I want it this way,’ whereas before it was ‘I wrote the song; give me what you can.’”

Additionally, evidence from the “Let it Be” “lunchroom” conversation indicates that, in Lennon’s mind at least, McCartney’s differing conceptual approach began to overwhelm the production of some of Lennon’s songs as well. Due to McCartney’s well-documented innate musicality and superior ability regarding and interest in production, he could ‘hear’ a more comprehensive musical landscape, including instrumentation and studio production, than Lennon could, even on some of Lennon’s own songs. The lunchroom tapes include Lennon acknowledging their differing approaches and strengths, while requesting a more concerted effort from McCartney to grant Lennon’s gradual, trial-and-error approach more time before offering McCartney’s own suggestions. Thus the complimentarily natures of their innate but contrasting creative styles sparked both friction and genius.

In his article “Linking Differences in Self-Directed Learning Competency to Dyadic Conflict,” (Twentieth Century Approaches in Self-Directed Learning, 2003), David Marshall Kopp adds another layer to the debate, arguing that significant contrasts in learning styles, and how those learning styles influenced creativity between Lennon and McCartney, also played a role in creating a friction and eventually dissolving their creative dyad. Kopp, an academic, focuses solely on the narrow issue of “Self-Directed Learning” in an attempt to ascertain each man’s individual learning style, what issues/conflicts resulted from their differing approaches to Self-Directed Learning, and the arc of the Lennon/McCartney dyad.

Kopp’s resources on the Beatles and the Lennon/McCartney dyad include numerous biographies and secondary sources, such as Ray Coleman’s Lennon, as well as primary sources, such as McCartney’s Many Years From Now. Drawing information and quotes from these materials, Kopp argues that, from their childhoods onwards, Lennon and McCartney demonstrated serious contrasts in their levels of self-directed learning, which Kopp defines as actively pursuing new knowledge via a variety of avenues, someone who can “conceive of goals and plans, and has the will to power through and exercise self-discipline.”

Due primarily to his voracious reading habits, Kopp regards Lennon as a self-directed learner, “but of a significantly lesser degree than McCartney.” As Kopp notes (and Pete Shotton concurs) “Lennon never made any plans for the future and lived in the spur of the moment,” and the unstable nature of his early upbringing ensured he was not exposed to the same degree of attention and stimulation as McCartney.

The result of this was that Lennon displays a “consistent need for a facilitator, or ‘peer simulator,’ during his learning experiences.” In simple English, Lennon was uninterested in or incapable of pursuing new knowledge (again, with the notable and significant exception of reading) by himself, and needed a partner to introduce and familiarize him with new concepts and knowledge.  Lennon’s reliance on some sort of partner – from Shotton to McCartney to Ono – has been well documented and accepted as one of the fundamental aspects of his personality.

Kopp also identifies McCartney as a Self-Directed Learner, but of an entirely different level than Lennon. He identifies McCartney as one of the highest levels possible: an “autodidact,” a “self-directed learner who is single minded in his or her commitment to learning tasks, achieves high levels of expertise in his or her chosen area of inquiry, and thrives on personal autonomy.” Or, as McCartney described it in his 1966 interview with Maureen Cleave, “I vaguely mind people knowing anything I don’t know.”

The author also notes that, unlike Lennon, McCartney’s Self-Directed Learning did not require a facilitator, but was conceived and pursued independently. “What fundamentally emerged was that Lennon was more dependent on his environment – by way of a facilitator – for his learning experiences than was McCartney. John had low autonomy and high dependence, whereas Paul had high autonomy and low dependence.”

The rest of the article outlines the various stages of collaboration and competition between the two men, while linking an overall decline in the writing partnership to a decline in Lennon’s benefiting from McCartney’s higher level of self-directed learning. Kopp notes how McCartney’s superior musical knowledge at his July 6, 1957 introduction to Lennon – superior knowledge which was the direct result, in part, of McCartney’s higher level of self-directed learning and greater autonomy — was viewed by the older boy as a threat, with Lennon worrying “that his leadership role might be threatened by McCartney’s formidable abilities, rendering Lennon secondary status.” However, Lennon also viewed these same qualities as among McCartney’s primary enticements: “What was significant was that not only was McCartney reaping the rewards of such SDL projects of teaching himself to play and tune a guitar as well as learning the words and music to the most popular songs, but that these also were the skills and abilities to which Lennon reacted.” This interpretation – that throughout their relationship Lennon viewed McCartney’s strengths as both admirable and beneficial but potentially threatening to his preeminent status – is also reinforced by Shotton’s memoirs.

In Kopp’s analysis, The Lennon/McCartney dyad progressed through various stages, including Collaboration, which lasted from 1957-1963, Competition: 1963-1965, Competition Lost: 1966-1967, and Disengagement: 1968-1970. In the first stage, Lennon benefited from McCartney’s self-directed learning even as both benefited and improved each other’s work; during this same time period, Lennon produced more A-side singles than McCartney and provided a dominant presence on the A Hard Day’s Night album. However, Kopp argues that, during the competitive stage, Lennon began to benefit less from McCartney’s Self-Directed Learning as the two progressed beyond 50/50 songwriting to writing more songs entirely or primarily as individual rather than collaborative efforts. Lennon’s low autonomy regarding Self-Directed Learning as well his destructive LSD habit, along with the now primarily competitive rather than collaborative nature of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership, pushed McCartney into the forefront. As McCartney explored Stockhausen, Lennon explored LSD, and his productivity plunged. The result was McCartney’s de-facto leadership and musical dominance, as evidenced by an overwhelming number of McCartney A-side singles during the band’s last four years. Unable and unwilling to compete commercially, by 1968 Lennon largely withdrew from contention, with the A-side count from 1968-1970 tallied as Paul: 5, John: 1, and George: 1.

The largest flaw with Kopp’s analysis is his narrow focus on songwriting as the sole evidence of collaboration between the Lennon/McCartney dyad. While face-to-face songwriting did decline over the years, particularly after touring ceased, collaboration within the studio evidenced numerous instances in which McCartney’s Self-Directed Learning continued to benefit Lennon’s work. The famous tape loops McCartney added to “Tomorrow Never Knows” would be one such example. In addition, this avant-garde musical bent, a direct result of McCartney’s higher level of Self-Directed Learning, was something McCartney encouraged Lennon to pursue, to the extent that McCartney hooked up the Brunel reel-to-reel tape recorders in Lennon’s home studio so that Lennon, too, could experiment. Thus, in a circuitous way, we can thank McCartney for enabling Lennon and Ono to use those same tape recorders and later gift the world with Two Virgins.

Multiple other instances, including McCartney’s similarly essential contributions to “A Day in the Life,” cast doubt on Kopp’s conclusions that Lennon viewed McCartney’s higher level of SDL as an irreconcilable threat because it no longer benefited him: “Lennon’s inevitable floundering can be traced back to Foucher’s and Tremblay’s 1993 study, which posited that a SDL with low autonomy could not thrive without facilitation. During their earlier collaborative period, the data shows that McCartney facilitated Lennon in such things as learning chord structures and harmonies … By the competitive stage, however, Lennon no longer had McCartney’s facilitation … as a result, Lennon could not compete with McCartney’s output.” Studio evidence indicates that Lennon’s work continued to benefit from McCartney’s high level of Self-Directed Learning, even as McCartney’s work continued to benefit from Lennon’s editorial input (again, see “Hey, Jude”) and musical suggestions. Ultimately, declaring that “Lennon no longer had McCartney’s facilitation” is simply an exaggerated, if not untrue assessment which undermines a significant element of Kopp’s thesis.

Where Kopp’s thesis becomes stronger is in his evaluation of the power and creative fluctuations within the Lennon/McCartney dyad. The author reinforces the now fairly well-established perception that McCartney dominated the band, musically and otherwise, from 1966 onwards. More, Kopp argues that Lennon’s insecurity at this realization of McCartney’s preeminence may have increased his drug use. During this period, John “began to abuse harder drugs such as LSD. What emerges from the data is the possibility that Lennon’s drug abuse was a response to his growing insecurity regarding McCartney. What Lennon had worried about almost ten years earlier had materialized … McCartney, by way of his superior talents, was now leading the dyad and the group.” While there is considerable reason to reject Kopp’s argument that Lennon lost McCartney’s faciliatation, the analysis that Lennon felt threatened by McCartney’s increasing pre-eminence is an interpretation that numerous writers, such as Peter Doggett and Mikal Gilmore, have presented within the last decade. Under this theory, Beatles historiography inevitably unfolds like a Greek Tragedy, as the very seeds for the band’s collapse were also present at its origin: Lennon chose McCartney because of his musical abilities, but felt threatened by those same abilities, and would not accept anything but recognition as leader. (Lewisohn also hints at this interpretation in the introduction to Tune In).

Ultimately, Kopp’s analysis that Lennon and McCartney displayed significant innate differences in Self-Directed Learning Styles, and that those differences impacted their individual approaches to music and songwriting, appears correct. Where Kopp stumbles is, first, assigning the issue of differences in Self-Directed Learning such significance and, second, in arguing that Lennon lost McCartney’s facilitation.