ABSTRACT
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were more like an oyster and a grain of sand. Their power together did not derive simply from individual ingredients, but from a dynamic of constant mutual influence. Lennon and McCartney did affect each other, change each other, goad, inspire, madden, and wound each other, but they also each contributed to something that went beyond either individual, a charged, mutual space of creation. In a 1995 interview, Mick Jagger was asked how he and Keith Richards lasted so long as song-writing partners, when Lennon and McCartney split. The tension between Lennon and McCartney was rooted in their distinct styles and personalities. To the public, Lennon and McCartney famously declared themselves a fused pair. McCartney, meanwhile, edged into an almost operatic narrative style with "Eleanor Rigby", and his infectious pop developed new layers, as with "Got To Get You Into My Life".
