Paul McCartney picks his top three John Lennon songs

In the late 1950s, John Lennon and Paul McCartney formed one of the most renowned musical partnerships in history. The Beatles expanded early in the 1960s with the addition of George Harrison and Ringo Starr, embarking on a journey that would ultimately take them around the world.

The Beatles changed from performing love songs and traditional rhythm and blues songs in their early years to experimenting with experimental psychedelia in their later years. By doing this, they helped many contemporary artists get their start and irrevocably changed pop cultural history.

Lennon and McCartney first crossed paths at the St. Peter's Church Hall festival in Woolton in July 1957 when they were both 16 years old. Since they got along so well, McCartney quickly began playing rhythm guitar in The Quarrymen, Lennon's school band.

We had grown up together. When we were kids, we had made the first moves together. McCartney stated on BBC Radio 2 in 2021, "We kind of learnt to walk together, then we learned to run."And it was vital that we were all influencing one another. Along with music and other things, we were also teaching ourselves important life lessons.

McCartney continued by describing how the two of them collaborated on creative ideas. "If I accomplished anything that was somewhat ahead of the curve, John would come up with something that was slightly ahead of my curve. There was a lot of friendly rivalry, and I would respond, "How about this?"

"If you've known someone that long, from early adolescence to late twenties, that's an awfully long time to be working with them, and you get to know each other, and even when you're apart, you're still thinking about each other, you're still referencing each other," the speaker added.

The host of the British radio station invited McCartney to list his favorite John Lennon solo songs when he appeared on the program. Obviously, Imagine. And 'Instant Karma' is great; additionally, it's nice because when I listen to the tunes, I can envision him in the studio and say, 'Oh ok, I know what he's done. He just asked the engineer for some Elvis echo. Bog echo," McCartney chuckled.

In order to make his point more clear, the former Beatle explained, "Bog is the toilet in Liverpool, but we just called it bog echo.

However, "Beautiful Boy," McCartney's favorite song from the solo catalog of John Lennon, comes before these two classic tunes. I always include "Beautiful Boy" when people ask me what my favorite songs are, he said.