Beatles Songs Written by Paul: The Complete Guide

How We Know Who Wrote What

Every song John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote for the Beatles between 1962 and 1970 carries the joint Lennon-McCartney credit, an agreement the two made as teenagers in Liverpool. The credit hides a lot. From about 1964 onward most songs were written mainly by one of them, with the other adding a line, a middle eight or a title, and fans have spent decades sorting out whose was whose.

The best evidence comes from the two men themselves. John went through the catalogue song by song in his 1980 Playboy interview with David Sheff, and Paul did the same with his authorised biographer Barry Miles for Many Years From Now (1997), and again in The Lyrics (2021). Where they agree, the attribution is solid. Where they disagree, and there are a handful of famous cases, this guide gives both accounts.

The lists below cover the songs that both sources, or the weight of evidence, put mainly on Paul's side of the ledger, organised by era, followed by the songs he wrote for other artists while he was still a Beatle. For how the partnership itself worked, from the Forthlin Road sessions to the split, see our guide to Lennon and McCartney's songwriting.

1963 to 1965: From the Cavern to Yesterday

In the early years John and Paul often wrote together, face to face, at Paul's family home at 20 Forthlin Road or on tour. Even so, several early songs are mainly Paul's. 'I Saw Her Standing There', the opening track of Please Please Me in March 1963, began as Paul's song, with John helping on lines. 'All My Loving', from With the Beatles, is Paul's, with words he has said he wrote on a tour bus. 'Can't Buy Me Love', a US and UK No.1 in 1964, was written by Paul during the Beatles' stay in Paris in January 1964.

Moving into 1964 and 1965, Paul's ballads start to define his side of the partnership: 'And I Love Her' (John claimed a hand in the middle eight), 'Things We Said Today', 'I'll Follow the Sun' (an early song Paul had been carrying around for years), and 'I've Just Seen a Face'. His rockers matter too: 'She's a Woman' and 'The Night Before' are both his.

Then there is 'Yesterday'. Paul recorded it at Abbey Road on 14 June 1965, alone with an acoustic guitar, with a string quartet arranged by George Martin added three days later. No other Beatle plays on it. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks from October 1965, but in Britain it was not issued as a single until 1976. According to Guinness World Records it had been recorded by more than 1,600 artists by 1986, and it remains one of the most covered songs ever written.

1965 to 1967: Rubber Soul to Sgt. Pepper

As the Beatles stopped touring and became a studio band, Paul's songs grew in range. On Rubber Soul (1965) the mainly-Paul songs include 'Drive My Car' (with John's help on lyrics), 'You Won't See Me', 'I'm Looking Through You' and 'Michelle', whose French lines Paul got help with from Jan Vaughan, the wife of his old friend Ivan Vaughan. John added the 'I love you' middle section. 'We Can Work It Out' is a classic split: Paul wrote the verses, John the middle eight.

Revolver (1966) is packed with Paul: 'Eleanor Rigby' with its string octet, 'Here, There and Everywhere', 'For No One', 'Good Day Sunshine' and 'Got to Get You Into My Life'. 'Eleanor Rigby' is one of the songs where John later claimed a larger share of the lyrics than Paul remembers him contributing, and the two accounts have never been fully reconciled. 'Yellow Submarine', sung by Ringo, was mainly Paul's idea too.

In 1967 Paul wrote 'Penny Lane', released as a double A-side with John's 'Strawberry Fields Forever' in February. Famously, it stalled at No.2 in the UK behind Engelbert Humperdinck. On Sgt. Pepper, Paul wrote the title song and its reprise, 'Fixing a Hole', 'When I'm Sixty-Four' (a song he first wrote as a teenager), 'Lovely Rita', and most of 'She's Leaving Home' and 'Getting Better', with John contributing lines to both. In 'A Day in the Life', the middle section that begins with waking up and getting out of bed is Paul's piece inside John's song. Later in 1967 came 'Hello Goodbye', 'The Fool on the Hill', 'Your Mother Should Know' and most of 'Magical Mystery Tour'.

1968 to 1970: Hey Jude to Abbey Road

'Lady Madonna' (March 1968) and 'Hey Jude' (August 1968) opened Paul's final burst. 'Hey Jude' began as a song of comfort for Julian Lennon during his parents' separation, ran over seven minutes, and spent nine weeks at No.1 in the US, the longest run of any Beatles single there. John encouraged Paul to keep a line Paul had meant to replace, one of the small collaborative moments that survived even late in the band.

The White Album (1968) is where the division is clearest, because so many tracks were effectively solo recordings. Paul's include 'Back in the U.S.S.R.', 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', 'Martha My Dear', 'Blackbird', 'Rocky Raccoon', 'Why Don't We Do It in the Road?', 'I Will', 'Mother Nature's Son', 'Helter Skelter' and 'Honey Pie'. 'Birthday' was written together in the studio.

From the Get Back sessions came 'Get Back', a UK and US No.1 in 1969, plus 'Two of Us', 'Let It Be' and 'The Long and Winding Road'. 'Let It Be' was inspired by a dream about his mother, Mary, who died in 1956. 'The Long and Winding Road' became the Beatles' final US No.1 in June 1970, although Paul objected strongly to the orchestral overdubs Phil Spector added. 'I've Got a Feeling' joined a Paul song and a John song together.

On Abbey Road (1969) Paul wrote 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer', 'Oh! Darling' and most of the famous side-two medley: 'You Never Give Me Your Money', 'She Came In Through the Bathroom Window', 'Golden Slumbers' (adapted from a 17th-century lullaby by Thomas Dekker), 'Carry That Weight', 'The End' and the hidden 23-second 'Her Majesty'.

Songs Paul Gave to Other Artists

While still in the Beatles, Paul wrote hits for other people, most of them credited Lennon-McCartney. 'Love of the Loved', an early Paul song the Beatles played at their Decca audition on 1 January 1962, became Cilla Black's debut single in 1963. 'A World Without Love' went to Peter and Gordon, whose Peter Asher was the brother of Paul's then girlfriend Jane Asher, and it reached No.1 in both the UK and the US in 1964. 'Step Inside Love' was written for Cilla Black's BBC television series in 1968.

At Apple, Paul wrote and produced 'Goodbye' for Mary Hopkin in 1969, which reached No.2 in the UK, and wrote 'Come and Get It' for Badfinger, a top ten hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1970. He famously recorded a demo of 'Come and Get It' himself and told the band to copy it closely, and the demo later appeared on Anthology 3.

Paul also tested how much the famous credit mattered. In 1966 he gave Peter and Gordon 'Woman' under the pseudonym Bernard Webb, and it still reached the US top twenty before the secret came out. For hearing Paul's own demos and alternate takes of the Beatles songs, our guide to the best Beatles box sets compares the Anthology releases and the album Special Editions.

The Disputed Cases and the Real Joint Efforts

A few songs remain genuinely argued over. 'In My Life' is the famous one: John said Paul helped only with the middle eight, while Paul has said he wrote the melody to John's words. 'Eleanor Rigby' runs the other way, with John claiming much of the lyric and Paul remembering a line or two from him. Neither man ever fully accepted the other's version.

Some songs really were close to fifty-fifty, including 'She Loves You', 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' and 'From Me to You', all written face to face in 1963. Others were joins: 'Baby You're a Rich Man' fused John's unfinished 'One of the Beautiful People' with Paul's chorus, and 'With a Little Help from My Friends' was finished by both of them for Ringo. That habit of writing together produced most of the 1963 and 1964 singles, which is why the joint credit still makes sense.

If you want to play these songs rather than just sort them, a complete songbook is the best reference. Our list of the best Beatles songbooks picks out which editions are accurate enough to trust.