In 1965, Paul McCartney was the only member of The Beatles to meet with esteemed playwright and composer Noel Coward. At this point, the band had grown used to politely greeting complete strangers, even when they were tired or irritable. They refused to meet with Coward, though. Here’s why McCartney was the only one to speak to Coward.
Paul McCartney was the only member of The Beatles to meet with 1 of their critics
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The Beatles were the biggest band in the world by the mid-1960s, but even they had their detractors. One of their critics was Coward, who described them as “totally devoid of talent. There is a great deal of noise. In my day, the young were taught to be seen but not heard” (per the Daily Mail).
Coward’s friend was a journalist for the Daily Mail and published his remarks. One year later, Coward saw The Beatles perform in Rome and described the concert as “just one long ear-splitting din.” Still, he felt he should congratulate the band after the concert. He met them at their hotel, where their manager, Brian Epstein, informed him that the band didn’t want to speak to him. They’d read his comments about them.
“I don’t remember too many artists of the day putting us down — except for Noel Coward, who put his foot in it with his ‘no talent’ remark,” Ringo Starr said in The Beatles Anthology. “We got him back later, when Brian [Epstein] came to us and said, ‘Noel Coward is downstairs and he wants to say ‘hi’ — ‘F*** off!’ We wouldn’t see him.”
When Epstein told Coward that the band would not speak to him, he indignantly called them bad-mannered. Epstein asked them again and, this time, McCartney agreed to talk to Coward.
Noel Coward wanted Paul McCartney to bring a message to the other Beatles
Despite Coward’s dislike for The Beatles’ music, he found McCartney to be polite. He could not say the same about McCartney’s bandmates, though.
“I explained gently but firmly that one did not pay much attention to the statements of newspaper reporters,” Coward said. “The poor boy was quite amiable and I sent messages of congratulation to his colleagues, although the message I would have liked to have sent them was that they were bad-mannered little s***s.”
What other celebrities disliked The Beatles?
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Coward was not the only person who publicly spoke about his dislike for The Beatles. Elvis, who was an early hero to the band, tried to turn the American government against them. When Quincy Jones first met the band, he thought they were completely void of talent.
Lou Reed gave a particularly harsh assessment of the group in a 1987 interview.
“The Beatles? I never liked The Beatles, I thought they were garbage,” he said. “I don’t think Lennon did anything until he went solo. But then too, he was like trying to play catch up. He was getting involved in choruses and everything. I don’t want to come off as being snide, because I’m not being snide, what I’m doing is giving you a really frank answer, I have no respect for those people at all. I don’t listen to it at all, it’s absolute s***.”
