From the moment he officially joined John Lennon’s teenage skiffle group The Quarrymen, Paul McCartney was the guitarist in the band. He even taught John Lennon how to move between guitar chords as they practised together at his childhood home. But not long after The Quarrymen became The Beatles, the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe consigned McCartney to the role of bassist.
Guitar was still his primary instrument, though, as it was the one on which he wrote most of his songs. And the band’s bass player harboured a hankering to get back to six strings, particularly when it came to meatier solo parts. This desire was finally fulfilled in 1965, when during the recording of the Beatles single ‘Ticket to Ride’, he indulged himself in a country and western–style jam during the song’s coda.
McCartney subsequently recorded the lead guitar parts on all of the songs he wrote himself for the band’s fifth studio album Help!, including a sumptuous nylon-string introduction to folk tune ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’. Nevertheless, he still accepted his position as bass player and was careful not to step on the toes of nominal lead guitarist George Harrison.
That all changed a year later when McCartney began instructing Harrison to play a solo like “early Jimi Hendrix” on a song the younger Beatle had written himself. After several attempts by Harrison, McCartney still wasn’t happy, he took over the part himself. The resulting tearaway snippet of psychedelia fits Harrison’s ‘Taxman’ like a glove and takes pride of place at the start of Revolver.
Then came ‘Paperback Writer’, the single McCartney had penned alongside the Revolver sessions which contains one of the band’s hardest-edged riffs. Played by its songwriter with aplomb. From that moment on, McCartney put himself at the disposal of the band as a substitute lead guitarist.
We hear his intervention at the end of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, for example, rousing us from Lennon’s bittersweet trip back to childhood. Although that is a rare exception, it must be said. The rest of the band otherwise only needed McCartney’s guitar-playing for songs he had written and was allowed to determine who played what as a consequence.
So, how many lead guitar parts did he play?
While McCartney’s presence as a lead guitarist is noticeable on The Beatles’ catalogue, he didn’t actually play the lead on as many songs as Lennon managed throughout the band’s career. He was too busy reinventing the role of rock bassist in the first half of their seven years of recording together. And he was less forceful in imposing his own instrumentation onto songs than is often reported.
In total, there are 13 Paul McCartney lead guitar parts among the band’s recordings, including on nine songs which were largely his compositions. Aside from ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, he also played on Lennon’s tracks ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!’ and ‘Good Morning Good Morning’, which were released on the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
It’s worth noting, too, that McCartney was the go-to pianist in the groups. He played both bass and piano parts on various Beatles songs, meaning that multiple guitar parts were almost inevitably left to Harrison and Lennon. He could play pretty much anything, but he couldn’t play it all at once.
The Beatles songs featuring Paul McCartney on lead guitar:
‘And Your Bird Can Sing’
‘Another Girl’
‘Back in the USSR’
‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’
‘The End’ (with John Lennon and George Harrison)
‘Good Morning Good Morning’
‘Helter Skelter’ (with George Harrison)
‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’
‘The Night Before’
‘Paperback Writer’ (with George Harrison)
‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ (with George Harrison)
‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ (with George Harrison)
‘Ticket to Ride’
