John Lennon didn’t always like Paul McCartney’s songs, but he praised one of Paul’s solo hits from the early 1980s. Sadly, the track John liked sounds like it was performed by Kermit the Frog. Listeners loved the song anyway.

John Lennon didn’t care about Paul McCartney’s solo songs

During a 1980 interview from the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John discussed Paul’s post-Beatles work. “Somebody asked me what I thought of Paul’s last album [McCartney II] and I made some remark like I thought he was depressed and sad,” he said. “But then I realized I hadn’t listened to the whole damn thing. I heard one track — the hit, ‘Coming Up,’ which I thought was a good piece of work. Then I heard something else that sounded like he was depressed. 

“But I don’t follow their work,” he added. “I don’t follow Wings, you know. I don’t give a s*** what Wings are doing, or what George’s new album is doing or what Ringo is doing. I’m not interested, no more than I am in what Elton John or Bob Dylan is doing. It’s not callousness. It’s just that I’m too busy living my own life to be following what other people are doing, whether they’re Beatles or guys I went to college with or people I had intense relationships with before I met The Beatles.”

John Lennon could have been talking about 1 of 2 different versions of the song

John was pretty picky, once admitting that he only liked two full albums in the entire history of recorded music (Elvis Presley by Elvis Presley and a Carl Perkins album he didn’t mention by name). Given that the “Imagine” singer had such discriminating tastes, it’s surprising that he was a fan of “Coming Up.” There are two notable versions of that song, and both are atrocious.

The rendition of the song that appears in the song’s music video and opens McCartney II is a ridiculous song where Paul’s voice is altered so that he sounds like a cartoon alien. On top of that, the beat is obnoxiously peppy and over-the-top. This tune sounds like it belongs on Sesame Street, not the pop charts. 

Meanwhile, the hit version of “Coming Up” was a live rendition. Paul didn’t recreate the horrid vocal effects from the original “Coming Up” live. However, his voice sounds strained and the lyrics aren’t any better the second time around. Regardless of which recording of “Coming Up” that John heard, he was way off the mark when he called it “a good piece of work.” Paul put out many good pieces of work during his solo career, but “Coming Up” was not one of them.

Paul McCartney’s ‘Coming Up’ was huge

The live version of “Coming Up” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks. It lasted on the chart for 21 weeks in total, making it one of the biggest hits in Paul’s solo career. The song appeared on the album McCartney II. That record reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and lasted on the chart for 38 weeks.

“Coming Up” is a poor song, but it pleased John — and the music-buying public.