Here’s a fine example of the difference between a John Lennon lyric and a Paul McCartney lyric.

In Getting Better off of Sgt. Pepper, we hear:

It’s getting better all the time
I use to get mad at my school
The teachers that taught me weren’t cool

Do you see what he did there? He rhymed school with cool. Right out of the ole’ rhyming dictionary. The teachers weren’t cool. That’s kind of obvious, don’t you think? Can you guess who wrote that? A little later in the same song, we hear:

I used to be cruel to my woman I beat her
and kept her apart from the things that she loved
Man, I was mean but I’m changing my scene

Holy shit! He went from thinking school wasn’t cool to beating his woman! That’s quite a leap, don’t you think? I think we can guess who contributed that part of the song. It sure ain’t the guy who would go on to write:

You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs
I look around me and I see it isn’t so
Oh no.

More likely, it’s the guy who would later write:

Father, you left me but I never left you.
I needed you but you didn’t need me.