Paul McCartney Rejected This John Lennon Song for The Beatles, and I Can't Say I Blame Him

There are lots of opinions swirling on the internet about The Beatles’ final years as a band, with some Fab Four fans posthumously judging the musicians for what they did (and didn’t do) in the tumultuous last few years of the 1960s. However, I would argue that Paul McCartney showed tremendous foresight when he—along with Ringo Starr and George Harrison—rejected a song John Lennon proposed the band release as their next single in the fall of 1969.

For some context, The Beatles had just released their penultimate album, Abbey Road, on September 26 of that year. The album’s lead single, “Something”, with “Come Together”, was set to come out on October 6. On September 30, fresh from the album release, John Lennon went into the studio to record “Cold Turkey” with the Plastic Ono Band, having been turned down by his other bandmates.

The Plastic Ono Band version came out on October 20. The songwriting credit was solely John Lennon. This marked a first for the musician who previously released all of his other compositions, even the personal ones, under the Lennon-McCartney partnership.
“Cold Turkey” Never Would Have Worked as a Beatles Song

It’s true that “Cold Turkey” is an intensely, viscerally personal song by John Lennon. But that’s not the sole reason why The Beatles didn’t record the song. After all, “Ballad Of John And Yoko” couldn’t have been more personal and specific to Lennon’s life. Yet, the Fab Four recorded and put out that personal song in May 1969. Perhaps that spring release played its own role in the band’s refusal. After all, “Ballad Of John And Yoko” had already been banned by radio stations worldwide. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable for the band to assume “Cold Turkey” would bring much of the same.

And indeed it did. As Lennon later recalled, “Cold Turkey” was “banned again all over the American radio, so it never got off the ground. They were thinking I was promoting h****n, but instead… I’m not preaching about ‘em. I’m just saying a drug is a drug, you know. Why we take them is important, not who’s selling it to whom on the corner,” Lennon told David Sheff in one of his final interviews in 1980.

Had The Beatles followed through and released “Cold Turkey”, the band would have had yet another highly controversial song in their catalogue for radios to ban. Who knows what effects that could have had on their musical legacy? On the legacy of the individual musicians? Most importantly of all, Lennon releasing “Cold Turkey” by himself was highly effective in distancing himself from the Fab Four. If he hadn’t released it, there’s a chance his former Beatles persona would become too sticky and hard to shake.

Source: americansongwriter.com/Melanie Davis

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