It’s happened to me before. I fall into the trap of comparing the relative value and contributions of the work of two close collaborators. It’s easy to do when they’re linked together in everyone’s mind like, say… John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Due to the new doc about The Beatles, there’s a lot of talk about them lately (there usually is anyway) and I found myself thinking about McCartney’s melodies, and superficially buying into the narrative that he was ‘the great melody writer’ of the two.

Soon after, though, I started thinking about John’s song ‘Across The Universe’ (below)… singing it to myself, stunned, marveling at the its sinuous beauty – an amazing melody. And thinking, ‘John’s as good at writing melodies as anyone ever’ (arguable but, at his best, true). And thinking – I’m ashamed to admit – that ‘as great as Paul is, he never wrote a melody that good’.

Well, guess what? A day or two later I heard Dave Grohl sing McCartney’s ‘Blackbird’ (below). Paul definitely did write melodies that good! How could I have forgotten? I immediately realized how dumb it was for me to think that John was better than Paul at writing melodies. Or vice versa.

By some miracle, two guys in the same band were equally great.

It’s stupid to compare. Leave that to the critics and the pundits. I’m just grateful John and Paul wrote songs, together and apart, and that each one had the other to push his talents to the limit and beyond.

(Read more on this topic here.)

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