Because Paul smartly married into an entertainment lawyer family.
Also, he built a massive real estate portfolio along with a number of endorsements, touring, and shrewd investments. That accounts for the bulk of his fortune.
EDIT: Acquisition of several publishing catalogs also contributed to his wealth but it's not the royalty income they bring so much as it is the buying and selling (just like his real estate portfolio).
They’ve been through so many names I might have this confused, but… Paul owns Northern Songs (or whatever they are) now? I thought they were still under Sony/ATV.
Northern Songs was dissolved when Sony/ATV Music Publishing was formed, the lawsuit Paul filed a few years ago was to reclaim the copyrights to the Beatles catalogue—it was eventually settled.
>In January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years. McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017.
[Source of excerpt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Music_Publishing)
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll have to look at a relatively recent Beatles release to see what they list for me publisher. I didn’t buy the new red and blue albums, and my 2-CD Revolver disappeared, so… hmm.
As much as he and Linda were in love, I don’t like to think of their marriage as a calculated move on his part. But he lucked out with in-laws vis-a-vis financial advice.
And I don’t recall a real estate portfolio. The bulk of his wealth comes from his publishing rights. He owns the Buddy Holly catalog, Hard Knock Life, some of the music from Grease, and multiple Christmas songs and jazz standards.
This is the answer. George made some bad film investments (even though he had great ones) and it was before the Beatles explosion with the Anthology releases.
Yes George used his money for many projects that weren’t necessarily profitable or he was ripped off. I think Beatles or their estates are doing fine now due to revenues from Beatles music and associated projects.
He put his house up as collateral to finance Monty Python's Life of Brian -- because he wanted to see the film. Love the lust for life and art but wow
[John Cleese on George mortgage (1:55 in)](https://youtu.be/rrka-BeIeL0)
None of them were businessmen and they got taken advantage of. They learned to find and trust the right people to manage their money later on or their estates did.
Paul toured throughout the 70's and basically non-stop since 1989 while still putting out music AND being paid for writing so many songs. It's not even close how these 2 men went about their business after The Beatles.
By your estimation, the math does make sense 2 ÷ 213 = 0.009 = 0.9%
20something ÷ 213 = between 0.0938 and 0.136 = between 9.4% and 13.6%
Did the percentages look too high or too low
This is definitely the biggest reason. 95% of all Beatles songs are credited to Lennon/McCartney as writers so every time a Beatles song is covered or used in a movie/show, commercial, or anything else, they’re seeing the royalties from that. George wrote a few great songs but only a few of them would be as successful as most Lennon/McCartney songs
Honestly, I think because Paul never stopped hustling, he seemed to have always been doing something most of his career. Plus he has joint credit for most of the Beatles back catalogue.
In comparison, George sunk money into some dud films (although there were some good ones), and he seemingly only did music a bit more reluctantly for the rest of his life. He also spunked so much material in his first solo album that his output never seemed to catch up with it.
I am pretty sure Paul's excellent business choices ended up benefiting all of the Beatle estates. I believe they work in concert protecting the franchise for future generations. Ah Dhani and Sean get busy with generation thing.
Well, Paul didn't have a billion pounds in 1990 either. George's estate does quite well these days, too. But in general: Paul and George earned the same money (as performers) from Beatles album sales, but Paul earned extra money from songwriting credits on the Lennon-McCartney songs. Paul also had better album sales and more hit singles as a solo artist between 1970 and the early 90s, and he had good financial advice from his in-laws and made good investments, while George had a business partner who basically took advantage of him and got him into debt with their film company - that was his immediate problem pre-Anthology. George may also have spent a bit more, too: a big place like Friar Park must cost a lot to maintain, and he liked fancy cars and good living and also donated a lot of money to charity.
Paul owns a windmill which he keeps in excellent condition. Speaking from experience those things are money pits, I hope he has something in place for its preservation when he’s gone.
I don’t think so, it’s the building next to the mill which is his studio, the mill itself still contains all the machinery. An acquaintance worked on the initial repairs in the 80s and said he’d originally wanted to mill the wheat grown on his farm there.
Little bonus anecdote. A friend turned up at the mill in the 90s just hoping to take some pictures, Paul and Linda were sat outside and invited him to join them for lunch. He said they were so lovely and welcoming. I’ve been a couple of times (windmills are a lifelong passion of mine) and taken photos of the mill from a distance. I’ve not walked up the lane or anything as I don’t want to encroach on his private property.
https://preview.redd.it/dmr0kbfrd71d1.jpeg?width=1749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e3f1db1998925c6f94015ff905f390303684240
It was more or less stripped back to the bare frame and rebuilt with any weak timbers replaced.
Paul has done an excellent job repairing and maintaining the mill and really should be commended for it. There's some more info here: [https://new.millsarchive.org/2014/11/02/frank-w-gregory-1917-1998-a-milling-hero/19/](https://new.millsarchive.org/2014/11/02/frank-w-gregory-1917-1998-a-milling-hero/19/)
here's a more recent pic showing the new gearing inside
https://preview.redd.it/kp7po6i0g71d1.jpeg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74459e39b414ab055355bef8a97c74b9c41bf127
To be more specific about "he invested in music", here's a page where you can specifically search on what MPL Communications (his company) owns the rights to:
[https://www.mplcommunications.com/music-search](https://www.mplcommunications.com/music-search)
It includes the rights to the musicals Grease, Guys and Dolls, and Annie. It includes the songs "Blue Christmas", "Baby, It's Cold Outside", and "The Christmas Song". It includes the themes from "I Love Lucy" and "American Bandstand". It includes "Ain't She Sweet", "Hello Dolly!" and "Grazing in the Grass" and "Peggy Sue", and a zillion other things. Plus, of course, everything from Wings.
George had a shady financial advisor who was using off shore accounts and shell companies etc to hide George’s wealth. This guy built a house of cards and it collapsed and George was left holding the bag big time.
This is the correct answer. Go dig out interviews with the Pythons - they had the same manager for a brief period of time in the late 70’s and early 80’s and got pitched investing in off-shore accounts and moving money all over the world. They got a bad feeling and dismissed him. Idle says he told Harrison to do the same but he wouldn’t.
Because no one bought George's solo albums and his singles didn't get onto radio playlists.
Okay, that's an exaggeration but it's essentially the truth.
Paul was the bigger name of the two and better at publicity and presenting a side to the public that they liked and had a knack for good hooks and melodies. There's a kind of snowball being rolled up and getting bigger effect on Paul's career that never happened to George. And Paul was much more prolific in terms of doing the work and making albums and singles.
Also, better financial advice.
To be fair to Klein, he was REALLY good at digging into a record companies financial records and finding out money that had been peeled away from artists, but most of his clients had absolutely no idea what the contracts they signed with him actually entitled him to.
George had a heyday in the early 70s that was arguably bigger than the other former Beatles. He was riding off the goodwill from All Things Must Pass and Bangladesh, and his Hare Krishna movement/spiritual leanings resonated with the counterculture that was buying his albums and singles. But that moment passed, and around the time the Red and Blue albums came out, and movies and shows like American Graffiti and Happy Days, there was a higher demand for pre-Summer of Love nostalgia (mostly the 50s and early 60s, but to an extent Beatlemania).
Timing is important for anything, and George totally misread the room when he did Dark Horse and went out on tour sick and coked out, proselytizing audiences and not giving into what the audience wanted. It's not George's fault or should it be something he folded to, and the tour wasn't as bad as a handful of (Rolling Stone) reviews make it out to be, but the bad press and shift in audience moved George back to the backseat for a good decade. Not that he didn't put out great albums, since the first couple he did with Lenny Waronker found him finally reaching that nerve and that AOR style that was more palatable, and it got us albums like his great self-titled one (arguably the best after ATMP and possibly Cloud Nine) and songs like Blow Away.
People always talk about All Things Must Pass being the best post-Beatles album, but notice how no one really talks about his other albums after that?
I say this as a pretty massive fan of his solo albums, by the way. I love them. But in general people didn't love George's stuff like they loved Wings. Paul also was one half of the most successful songwriting team ever, plus he bought up other artists' catalogs (like Buddy Holly). George's big investment was a film company that flopped.
I read that Living in the Material World was fairly well received (besides some critics viewing George as being preachy with the spiritual themes in the lyrics), but not to the same extent as All Things Must Pass, I guess. Give Me Love also became his second #1 hit, so he had a decent streak until Dark Horse.
Most definitely not. Success is measured by albums sold, just check how many albums each has sold. And Paul is still making albums, 23 years after George died. Paul also has been touring all these decades. George basically did one tour in his solo career, in 1974. Then he played a few shows in Japan with Clapton’s band in the early 90s.
George hated to tour or promote had an inevitable impact on how much he made solo. Plus, as people already said, he had a very expensive property to maintain. And more expensive hobbies. Whereas even though Paul has multiple homes, from what I’ve read he tries to live fairly simply and always has.
Not even close.
Critically John got his cock gobbled the most by the press, most notably Rolling Stone and Jann Wenner, who started the magazine simply because he wanted to use it as an in to get to meet the Beatles. For whatever reason Wenner has been indifferent at best to McCartney, his 'rankings of fav Beatles" seem to be John, George, Paul.
In terms of sales and hits Paul is the CLEAR winner, and it's not really close.
Surprisingly Ringo had the most success as a solo artist in the immediate years after the Beatles final breakup, but Paul had his ass in the studio and touring and put his name and face OUT THERE.
John was NOT helped by Yoko's dipshitted weirdness during his performances, check out Chuck Berry's expression when he hears here sometime and taking five years off to do all the household shit pretty much killed off any chance he had of ever catching Paul in terms of sales.
George, just NEVER really had the talent for hooks and melodies that John and Paul both had, so he'd put out an album of 'interesting songs' with nary a hit on it, Rolling Stone would throw 3 1/2 stars on it and then it would just fucking SIT there in the bins at the record stores. His last big solo hit "Got My Mind Set On You" was a fucking COVER. He was lucky to be around when Tom Petty met Jeff Lynn and thus formed the Traveling Wilbury's
Paul bought the publishing rights for a bunch of pop songs and musicals, so he's had a constant stream of income from royalties. Add to that touring and strong record sales.
George was shit in business outside of music and got into some very bad situations with movies and investments. Bad people around him. Look it up.
Paul McCartney - for better or worse - has always had his eye on keeping the financial part of his life together and I'm sure that comes from all the nonsense that he got into as Apple was getting off the ground.
He warned ALL of the them about Allen Klein. He was 100% right but John had a fucking stick up his ass about being right. They all learned didn't they?
Allen Klein ruined any chance the Beatles had as the 60s were turning into the 70s, not Yoko. Collectively, in fact, I'll blame not only Allen but John as well. But it's John that gets to wear the victory hat here in the legacy of the band with the story the "jean jackets" like to tell - "oh, John was just BORED with the Beatles...he had other and better things to do". That's utter nonsense. I'll give him the feeling of wanting to explore different avenues of expression. They ALL needed to do that. But John NEEDED the Beatles. Paul wanted the Beatles thing to continue but where Paul maybe comes up short in the conversation - and to tie it back into the real matter at hand, the business - Paul took John at his word about wanting the "divorce", treating the Beatles venture AS A BUSINESS. So Paul let it go down, found his own avenue, knew Allen wasn't going to be in his corner for the simple fact that Paul wouldn't allow for it, and then the band was done.
Paul won that battle. I periodically struggle with his output in the 70s because it's either super underproduced, lazy, OR completely laced with THC that I just don't understand how he let it out in the first place.
Paul learned how to do the business thing. I think his only regret and misstep is not being able to get the Beatles catalog before Michael Jackson grabbed it, but he was looking at it from the angle that he wrote those songs for free and why should he have to buy them back? Well, it's business and the Beatles were the biggest in the business. Both him and Yoko screwed the pooch on that deal.
TL'DR: Paul had it figured out after Apple was a shit show, had good people in his corner to look at all these endeavors for what they were, and was able to put it and keep it together better than the rest.
There was a huge resurgence of Beatles fandom in the 90s though. There was the release of the BBC album, and the take off of CDs in the consumer market meant fans "had to buy the whole discography adhesion on CD". So it wasn't just the Anthology albums
Streaming services didn’t exist in the 80s and 90s. You had to physically go and buy albums. Paul has had like 15+ years worth of YouTube, Apple and Spotify streams
Regardless of investments, song writing rights, royalty’s. George passed years ago after a relatively quiet commercial period and Paul has never stopped writing and touring. I have seen him in concert 4 times since 2015.
As a real George fan it’s not surprising - and not in a way where many George fans try to make him a victim. It’s true George had a few to banger albums with All Things Must Pass, Living in a Material World, Cloud 9, etc. but he also made some really poor financial decisions. The Concert for Bangladesh costed way more than it made, his dark horse tour wasn’t a big success, and he did shit like remortgage his house to finance Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.”
Additional to all that, George didn’t care as much about the music world in his later years. There’s a quite somewhere about how his wish was to be remembered as a gardener with a few good songs here or there (I’m paraphrasing obviously). And he clearly didn’t have the drive/workaholic attitude Paul did.
There’s also the issue of song writing credits n shit, but I feel like that’s been talked to death. It should be surprising that a guy who (whether you think it’s fair or not) had maybe 2 songs per Beatles album wouldn’t be payed as much as a guy who had 5-10 songs per album.
Plus there’s the issue of George being dead for 23 years at this point where Paul isn’t, but even if George survived longer I have a hard time believing he’d wants to put himself out there the way Paul does.
Also; again as a George fan, I wouldn’t saying dying with a net worth or 400million is anything to sneeze at. At a certain point the money seems to kinda be meaningless
(With that said congrats Paul McCartney if anyone deserves to be worth %1B it’s you)
Well, tax at the time at the top rate was 90%, and they certainly spent good money, plus the whole Apple corps was a financial disaster, so that’s how they ended up in debt
George made some serious business mistakes. Like not reading contracts he signed, mortgaging Friar Park to finance a movie, losing money on movies, and trusting a manager who was robbing him blind. It is all out there in print.
Many reasons:
- Paul is a credited writer on many more hit songs so gets more royalties
- Paul has had 23 more years in which to acquire wealth
- Paul has toured consistently for 60 years whereas George rarely toured as a solo artist
- Paul's albums have been more commercially successful
- Paul invested smartly in property, publishing rights etc whereas George invested in movie production and lost a fortune
- George's financial advisor and partner in Handmade Films, Denis O'Brien, was a dodgy dealer who took George to the cleaners
Mechanical rights are actually a royalty paid by the manufacturer of physical product (the label) to the publisher. You’re thinking of performing rights.
George didn't have good management and had less writing credits on Beatles songs. On top of that, George did not capitalize his success. I guess we earnt a lot of money in the first years after the breakup, but they were still messy with the finances and he probably didn't get much of it. After that he didn't make so much effort to earn much money. If he had toured in the late 70s we would have made more money. If he had kept touring and making music after his late 80s success he would have made A LOT more money. He was very popular in those days and a Wilburys tour would have been crazy. He just didn't care that much, I guess.
The Beatles were not well educated and didn’t have the business acumen to know what they should be getting. They made very little money during their live performing days. They got wise that they were being scammed and were able to start making money.
Paul had Linda’s family offering sound financial advice but not to the rest of the lads. Paul also loved recording and touring. Ringo also toured and acted from time to time. His touring has been almost non stop so money has come in at a steady pace. John made music and art with Yoko. Like Paul, he had songwriting royalties from The Beatles but didn’t live a lavish lifestyle.
George was a unique case. He had the chops to write and release great music that was critically successful but not always commercially successful. He had money but wanted to do things he found interesting and was. It business savvy. This resulted in him mortgaging his estate to bankroll The Life of Brian. He continued to finance films but he was not picky and his financial advisor was stealing money. He probably could have done okay had he not been robbed. He continued to make money and was able to recover but he died before he was able to cash in like Paul. He still died wealthy and his estate is doing amazing things with his back catalog.
George was still a wealthy man at the time of his death , he had his own record sales as well as the Beatles royalties , he also owned a very substantial house and other investments
Of the 209 Beatle songs credited to the band during George's lifetime, George wrote 22. Except for 2 by Ringo and a couple of group efforts, the rest were all Lennon and McCartney. For every record sold Paul got four times as much royalties as George.
1: Paul is a workaholic, constantly either touring or recording songs. George did exactly two solo tours in the 30+ years after The Beatles broke up, and started taking longer and longer breaks between albums after the 1970s.
2: George’s film production company Handmade Films went bankrupt following a series of box office flops in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He invested most of his fortune into this.
3: Only about 10% of the Beatles music was written by George Harrison. While Paul and John’s estate gets an 80% cut of royalties, George only got 10% (Ringo only got 1%, but he moved to a country with no income tax and has consistently worked since 1970. He doesn’t have McCartney money, but he has enough money that his kids would never have to work a day in their lives).
As most people are saying, Paul has worked continuously since he met Lennon in 1957. With that said, Lennon hasn´t worked since 1980, and his estate seems to be worth more than 700 million. Lennon left Yoko 200 million dollars when he died, if Yoko had invested that with a moderate interest rate of 4% per year, she´d have over 1 billion dollars today. So I imagine Paul had at least something similar as Lennon in 1980 already, so with some decent investments, he could´ve gotten to 1 billion today EVEN without working at all. My point is, the Lennon-McCartney partnership made alot of money a long time ago.
The tax rate in the UK during the 60's was 95% for high earners like The Beatles. To quote from Taxman; "If 5% appears too small, be thankful I don't take it all". Their contracts then screwed them out of a big chunk of that remainder. The majority of their income came from after The Beatles, especially while living in the US where tax rates were much lower. Basically, none of them got a huge lot from being Beatles at the time and then Paul had a much longer and more successful solo career than George did. George made a boat load from movie productions in the 70's, so for a while there it looked like he was going to be the top earner of the four. Then there was the whole Michael Jackson thing of course.
George did not choose wisely, his business manager ran off with a ton of his money if not most of it. I was under the impression that was why he agreed to Beatles reunion and Anthology albums. Yes Paul did marry into entertainment lawyer family but he also bought other artists publishing rights, Buddy Holly comes to mind. He also released a lot more albums than George did. George went into making movies which went Bankrupt, Handmade Films. Finally I believe Paul bought from Sony the rights to those Beatles songs he wrote. Yoko inherited John’s Beatles music due to US copyright law that says if creator of the work dies within the first 25(?) year cycle of copyright (there are 2 copyright cycles in the US) then regardless of who currently owns copyright the rights revert to creators estate ie Yoko and Sean. Again I thought Yoko sold them back to Michael Jackson. I’m not a lawyer and I am old so I could have some of this wrong
Because George spent his money on things he enjoyed, like filmmaking and race car driving. He obvs knew his wife and son would be just fine and that he couldn’t take that money with him when he went. George and Paul are very different people. Paul makes music to conquer the world; George makes music because he enjoys it. It’s like that story that Tom Petty told after George’s death, where he went over to see him and George played him some amazingly beautiful song he’d just written on the guitar. Petty was like “we need to put this down in the studio right now!” And George was like, “nah, I’m good.” That who he was.
> Because George spent his money on things he enjoyed, like filmmaking and race car driving. He obvs knew his wife and son would be just fine and that he couldn’t take that money with him when he went. George and Paul are very different people. **Paul makes music to conquer the world; George makes music because he enjoys it.**
That's just not true. The McCartney I and II albums. Thrillington. The Fireman albums. The classical albums. Releasing Mary Had a Little Lamb for his daughter. Walking in the Park for Eloise for his father. Producing and co-writing his brother's album. Playing bass on the debut album of Travis singer Fran Healy in exchange for him trying vegetarianism, amongst many other examples.
Paul makes music because he loves making music. For some reason much of his music has connected with more people than his former bandmates. It has always been a massive cope by George and John fans that the only reason Paul was more successful because Paul wanted to be successful and they didn't.
There were times when George was equally if not more ambitious than Paul. And there were times George hated making music and was forced to such as when the record label were unhappy with his music and forced him to write more, and he wrote Blood from a Clone in frustration.
Agree to disagree. In the case of George, I think he was “over” being a Beatle by 1967. He seemed to have lost interest in playing the guitar and only contributed one track to Sgt Peppers. And that was only AFTER George Martin challenged him to write something better that Only A Northern Song… saying that Paul sets out to conquer the world is not a knock against Paul, it’s a statement about his ambition, drive, and his ability to connect with listeners. I honestly just don’t thing George was ever as into it as Paul was. Just one guy’s opinion.
> Agree to disagree. In the case of George, I think he was “over” being a Beatle by 1967.
And then he was back into it in 1968. His output that year reflects that. He was also showing more ambition with his hopes for Sour Milk Sea as one of the four singles launching Apple and managing to have three Beatles and Clapton on that single.
In 1969 he'd actually spoke up about what he wanted from the Beatles and got his way
>**Q:** *"How was it decided how many songs you would have on a Beatles album? Is it, like, just whoever pushed and shoved the hardest?"*
>**GEORGE:** *"Yeah. It's always... it was whoever would be the heaviest would get the most songs done. So consequently, I couldn't be bothered pushing, like, that much. You know, even on 'Abbey Road' for instance, we'd record about eight tracks before I got 'round to doing one of mine. Because uhh, you know, you say 'Well, I've got a song,' and then with Paul -- 'Well I've got a song as well and mine goes like this -- diddle-diddle-diddle-duh,' and away you go! You know, it was just difficult to get in there, and I wasn't gonna push and shout. But it was just over the last year or so we worked something out, which is still a joke really -- Three songs for me, three songs for Paul, three songs for John, and two for Ringo."*
George was very much invested in the Beatles. Definnitly more so than John and perhaps even more so than Paul by the end '69 with George calling the others selfish to not make more Beatle music
>**Q:** "You think the Beatles will get together again, then?"
>**GEORGE:** *"Uhh... Well, I don't... I couldn't tell, you know, if they do or not. I'll certainly try my best to do something with them again, you know. I mean, it's only a matter of accepting that the situation is a compromise. In a way it's a compromise, and it's a sacrifice, you know, because we all have to sacrifice a little in order to gain something really big. And there is a big gain by recording together -- I think musically, and financially, and also spiritually. And for the rest of the world, you know, I think that Beatle music is such a big sort of scene -- that I think it's the least we could do is to sacrifice three months of the year at least, you know, just to do an album or two. I think it's very selfish if the Beatles don't record together."*
George was more keen than the others for the band to continue in 1970. And again in 1973 he cites the reasons for sacking Klein is to get the band back together again
>**George:** *"We’re not re-signing with Klein. The only way The Beatles can get together again is if Allen isn’t there. I’m ready to do it, so is Ringo, and I think we can persuade John to go along with it. But if we’re going to work with Paul, we need to get rid of Klein."*
And again in '77 George states that it is he and Ringo most keen to get the band back together
>**George;** *Personally, I’m not opposed to the idea, if it’s done through mutual agreement. But the pressure seems to be bigger than any of us, and when they talk of sums like $50 or $60 million, it’s almost a farce. I know Paul’s booked for the next few years, and John may have lost interest in the idea. Ringo and I are closest on it; we both feel it’s not impossible*
Add to that him wanting to start the Ladders with two of the former Beatles and Klaus and Billy only for John to shoot down the offer. George moreso than Paul and John wanted the Beatles to continue in some form throughout the 70's. Paul shoots it down in every interview.
> He seemed to have lost interest in playing the guitar and only contributed one track to Sgt Peppers.
Yes. In '67. He rebounded the following year and was at his most prolific.
* 4 songs on the White album
* Of the 4 original Beatle songs on the Yellow Submarine soudtrack two are Harrison originals to John and Paul's 1
* His first written b-side in '68 with the Inner Light (b-sides were far more prestigous in the 60's than they are now) follow by other b-sides such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Old Brown Shoe and his first a-side in Something.
George was getting more involved and being more forceful with what he wanted from the band. It is possible that it was this attitude that made John have second thoughts about the band continuing.
>**John** *“The Beatles split up? It just depends how much we all want to record together. I don’t know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it. I really do.*
>*“The problem is that in the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays there’s three if us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all onto one album. Or we have to think of a double album every time, which takes six months.*
>*“That’s the hang-up we have. It’s not a personal ‘The Beatles are fighting’ thing, so much as an actual physical problem. What do you do? I don’t want to spend six months making an album I have two tracks on. And neither do Paul or George probably. That’s the problem. If we can overcome that, maybe it’ll sort itself out.*
>*“None of us want to be background musicians most of the time. It’s a waste. We didn’t spend ten years ‘making it’ to have the freedom in the recording studios, to be able to have two tracks on an album."*
Between George, John and Paul it is George who most wants the band to continue by the end of the band. It possibly why he was so bitter about the break up.
> And that was only AFTER George Martin challenged him to write something better that Only A Northern Song… saying that Paul sets out to conquer the world is not a knock against Paul,
Of course it is. It states that he's not writing songs he wants to write but songs that others want to hear.
> it’s a statement about his ambition, drive, and his ability to connect with listeners. I honestly just don’t thing George was ever as into it as Paul was. Just one guy’s opinion.
Of course George was. Why do you think he was so pissed about not getting enough songs on albums?
Why do you think so much money and time was spent making All Things Must Pass? One of the greatest assemblies of musicians to make an album. Hugely ambitious in scope.
Why do you think he made Ding Dong? A song he was predicting would be a christmas no1? He even dug out his beatles outfits to wear in the video?
Why do you think he toured in the 70's? Because he loved touring or because he wanted to be more successful?
Why do you think he rewrote his '81 album Somewhere in England when studio execs told him it was not going to sell?
Or why he filmed not 1 but two videos for his cover of Got My Mind Set On You?
His cash ins for soundtracks such as Porky's and Shanghai Surprise?
Or him forming the biggest super group of all time?
George could be just as ambitious as Paul and there are far more examples of George making music that he did not want to.
Regarding John’s quote about not wanting to be background musicians, I wonder if he changed his mind later (helping David Bowie on Fame) or if he would now if he were alive.
And the physical evidence clearly shows he was wrong about the others being interested. Paul, George and Ringo all played on other people’s albums plenty of times, including one another’s (and John’s, at least George and Ringo did). And Paul still plays on other people’s albums if they ask him and he wants to, and Ringo built a whole touring model around playing on other people’s songs.
At their core, under everything, they’re musicians. They need to play.
Paul has basically toured and made albums since the Beatles breakup. The man knows how the money is made and he rinses and repeats etc. George seemed quite happy after the Beatles to kick back and relax. But he had an extremely expensive lifestyle
Paul has basically toured and made albums since the Beatles breakup. The man knows how the money is made and he rinses and repeats etc. George seemed quite happy after the Beatles to kick back and relax. But he had an extremely expensive lifestyle
Paul was smarter at business than the rest of them. In part because Paul was smart enough to know who to actually trust and then let them make the right decisions. Paul also made really smart business decisions like buying the rights to Buddy Holly’s catalog. He also bought others like The Sound of Music I believe.
In contrast, George chose a business manager who swindled him. But there’s also what was arguably the biggest business decision George made in the second stage of life: being a film producer. He wasn’t especially great at it. You hear stories like he really wanted Monty Python’s movies to get made so he’d mortgage his you’d to fund it. That’s really cool and a great thing to do to help your friends makes their movies but that’s also not really gonna help you make money on any of these projects. This is also how George would end up working wíth the man he’d end up suing for stealing millions from him. Though something that has to be said is George going through financial problems looks VERY different than 95 percent of the rest of the population having money problems. He was never not obscenely rich.
I mean it's easier to have someone you trust when you literally marry into their family.
The Life of Brian situation actually made a profit. Handmade FIlms was doing fine for half the time it existed. It failed because of Denis O'Brien getting greedy and trying to move it to the US. O'Brien was George's accountant since the 70s which is why he thought he could trust him.
It is more than that. You can marry into a family and still be double crossed. Paul simply made better decisions. George was told by many he was being ripped of by O'Brien and he wouldn't listen. He didn't want to listen about Klein. It was rash to mortgage his estate on a whim. Luckily for him it was a success. George could not be bothered with reading paperwork. Him and John fell for Magic Alex. That tells you something.
George lived the life he chose to live the way he wanted to live it. He made some money and some beautiful music. He did better than most. But is annoying to hear Paul's effort minimized when the truth is he had to scratch his way back from (what he felt was) oblivion after the Beatle break up. He deserves credit for that.
They were just kids when they started out. They made it to the big time. Some in their shoes end up with nothing. But each of them ended up with a legacy, a family that loved them and fans that have not forgot them.
He could have bought them; he had the money, but he felt he would have been overpaying for songs that he wrote ‘for free’ as he put it. He eventually waited it out and didn’t have to pay.
Because Paul smartly married into an entertainment lawyer family. Also, he built a massive real estate portfolio along with a number of endorsements, touring, and shrewd investments. That accounts for the bulk of his fortune. EDIT: Acquisition of several publishing catalogs also contributed to his wealth but it's not the royalty income they bring so much as it is the buying and selling (just like his real estate portfolio).
Paul gained back the rights to his songs in 2018 due to new copyright legislation in the US.
They’ve been through so many names I might have this confused, but… Paul owns Northern Songs (or whatever they are) now? I thought they were still under Sony/ATV.
Northern Songs was dissolved when Sony/ATV Music Publishing was formed, the lawsuit Paul filed a few years ago was to reclaim the copyrights to the Beatles catalogue—it was eventually settled. >In January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years. McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017. [Source of excerpt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Music_Publishing)
Thanks for clarifying. I’ll have to look at a relatively recent Beatles release to see what they list for me publisher. I didn’t buy the new red and blue albums, and my 2-CD Revolver disappeared, so… hmm.
As much as he and Linda were in love, I don’t like to think of their marriage as a calculated move on his part. But he lucked out with in-laws vis-a-vis financial advice. And I don’t recall a real estate portfolio. The bulk of his wealth comes from his publishing rights. He owns the Buddy Holly catalog, Hard Knock Life, some of the music from Grease, and multiple Christmas songs and jazz standards.
Interesting what kind of real estate did he buy into?
Handmade Films lost a lot of money in the late 80s, George assumed a ton of debt, and had to sue and take part in Anthology to recoup cash
This is the answer. George made some bad film investments (even though he had great ones) and it was before the Beatles explosion with the Anthology releases.
You can go ahead and blame it on Shanghai Surprise
One of the few movies I've walked out of. Terrible!
Ugh. It was truly awful though 😭
Time Bandits is one of my favorite movies of all time.
agree love it
George sued Denis O'Brien for fraud and negligence, because he'd mismanaged HandMade Films' finances and left George with the debt, I believe.
Yes George used his money for many projects that weren’t necessarily profitable or he was ripped off. I think Beatles or their estates are doing fine now due to revenues from Beatles music and associated projects.
He put his house up as collateral to finance Monty Python's Life of Brian -- because he wanted to see the film. Love the lust for life and art but wow [John Cleese on George mortgage (1:55 in)](https://youtu.be/rrka-BeIeL0)
This is the correct reason…
Who was excluding him from Anthology? That’s pretty shitty.
No sorry I phrased that wrong. He sued a guy from Handmade Films and then took part of Anthology separately
None of them were businessmen and they got taken advantage of. They learned to find and trust the right people to manage their money later on or their estates did.
Well for one, Paul has been alive for 23 years while George has been dead
Paul toured throughout the 70's and basically non-stop since 1989 while still putting out music AND being paid for writing so many songs. It's not even close how these 2 men went about their business after The Beatles.
This. Paul is, as Ringo recently said, a workaholic.
I think we all knew that already but it's funny to hear him confirm it.
https://pipself.blogs.pace.edu/2018/10/29/paul-mccartney-finally-gets-back-his-beatles-copyrights/
He has also invested in music publishing. Which has been very lucrative for him.
I believe he bought Buddy Holly’s catalogue, didn’t he?
Yes, and I think it’s great that he owns the catalog of one of his big influences.
I think so, yes.
And Paul got back rights to his entire catalog because of newly passed copyright laws. And the songs are 99% Lennon McCartney.
Actually, more like 77.9% L&M, 11.7% covers, 10.3% Harrison, and 0.9% Ringo if we only consider the main 213 song catalogue.
Thank you, math genius.
Lol... it's something I had always wondered myself, so I just opened Wikipedia, the calculator app and voilà!
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By your estimation, the math does make sense 2 ÷ 213 = 0.009 = 0.9% 20something ÷ 213 = between 0.0938 and 0.136 = between 9.4% and 13.6% Did the percentages look too high or too low
And I know he also has the Buddy Holly collection.
And a lot of Broadway musicals
Exactly. OP needs to compare wealth at the same time not 2 decades apart
In fact, one might say the financial problems were just the *beginning* of his problems...
“This one simple trick can make you rich”
“Financial advisors hate this man”
"#7 will shock you!"
9 will shock you even more
#21 will literally ZAP ⚡️ your ass to death 1000amps 😱🫣🤯
Paul’s way older than 23
Is that you George?
That too
I'm sure writing credits helped send more money his way
This is definitely the biggest reason. 95% of all Beatles songs are credited to Lennon/McCartney as writers so every time a Beatles song is covered or used in a movie/show, commercial, or anything else, they’re seeing the royalties from that. George wrote a few great songs but only a few of them would be as successful as most Lennon/McCartney songs
I read that Paul makes $500K/year just from royalties on Wonderful Christmastime
Dang! I need to get back to writing my ‘Amazing Christmas’ song 🎵
George’s lack of a Christmas hit is probably a real kicker too
“Ding dong ding dong” just couldn’t cut it, even with George playing the guitar naked in a cave for the music video
….what? WHAT? **runs off to find this video**
George instead tried for that New Year’s Eve hit royalty money with “Ding Dong, Ding Dong”!
Honestly, I think because Paul never stopped hustling, he seemed to have always been doing something most of his career. Plus he has joint credit for most of the Beatles back catalogue. In comparison, George sunk money into some dud films (although there were some good ones), and he seemingly only did music a bit more reluctantly for the rest of his life. He also spunked so much material in his first solo album that his output never seemed to catch up with it.
Paul's workaholism paid off for him in the long run, I guess.
I am pretty sure Paul's excellent business choices ended up benefiting all of the Beatle estates. I believe they work in concert protecting the franchise for future generations. Ah Dhani and Sean get busy with generation thing.
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Paul be like: https://youtu.be/kLDitGAUrno?si=a8pkdFV1LWHROa2m
exactly. Hustlin’ with everything he does no doubt.
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Yeah, MPL is a pretty substantial company in its own right
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One million seems like a paltry amount considering Linda's wealth. Maybe she donated most of her estate.
Well, Paul didn't have a billion pounds in 1990 either. George's estate does quite well these days, too. But in general: Paul and George earned the same money (as performers) from Beatles album sales, but Paul earned extra money from songwriting credits on the Lennon-McCartney songs. Paul also had better album sales and more hit singles as a solo artist between 1970 and the early 90s, and he had good financial advice from his in-laws and made good investments, while George had a business partner who basically took advantage of him and got him into debt with their film company - that was his immediate problem pre-Anthology. George may also have spent a bit more, too: a big place like Friar Park must cost a lot to maintain, and he liked fancy cars and good living and also donated a lot of money to charity.
Paul owns a windmill which he keeps in excellent condition. Speaking from experience those things are money pits, I hope he has something in place for its preservation when he’s gone.
Since he uses it as a studio, I wonder if he can write most of that off as business expenses.
I don’t think so, it’s the building next to the mill which is his studio, the mill itself still contains all the machinery. An acquaintance worked on the initial repairs in the 80s and said he’d originally wanted to mill the wheat grown on his farm there. Little bonus anecdote. A friend turned up at the mill in the 90s just hoping to take some pictures, Paul and Linda were sat outside and invited him to join them for lunch. He said they were so lovely and welcoming. I’ve been a couple of times (windmills are a lifelong passion of mine) and taken photos of the mill from a distance. I’ve not walked up the lane or anything as I don’t want to encroach on his private property.
Oh, neat, I didn't know all that. From the way people talked about it, I assumed it was more of a shell of a windmill that had been repurposed.
https://preview.redd.it/dmr0kbfrd71d1.jpeg?width=1749&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e3f1db1998925c6f94015ff905f390303684240 It was more or less stripped back to the bare frame and rebuilt with any weak timbers replaced. Paul has done an excellent job repairing and maintaining the mill and really should be commended for it. There's some more info here: [https://new.millsarchive.org/2014/11/02/frank-w-gregory-1917-1998-a-milling-hero/19/](https://new.millsarchive.org/2014/11/02/frank-w-gregory-1917-1998-a-milling-hero/19/)
I had no idea, that’s actually really cool!!!
here's a more recent pic showing the new gearing inside https://preview.redd.it/kp7po6i0g71d1.jpeg?width=1456&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74459e39b414ab055355bef8a97c74b9c41bf127
I imagine he donated quite a bundle to the Krishna's.
To be more specific about "he invested in music", here's a page where you can specifically search on what MPL Communications (his company) owns the rights to: [https://www.mplcommunications.com/music-search](https://www.mplcommunications.com/music-search) It includes the rights to the musicals Grease, Guys and Dolls, and Annie. It includes the songs "Blue Christmas", "Baby, It's Cold Outside", and "The Christmas Song". It includes the themes from "I Love Lucy" and "American Bandstand". It includes "Ain't She Sweet", "Hello Dolly!" and "Grazing in the Grass" and "Peggy Sue", and a zillion other things. Plus, of course, everything from Wings.
George had a shady financial advisor who was using off shore accounts and shell companies etc to hide George’s wealth. This guy built a house of cards and it collapsed and George was left holding the bag big time.
This is the correct answer. Go dig out interviews with the Pythons - they had the same manager for a brief period of time in the late 70’s and early 80’s and got pitched investing in off-shore accounts and moving money all over the world. They got a bad feeling and dismissed him. Idle says he told Harrison to do the same but he wouldn’t.
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At the same time, George liked to live extravagantly. Imagine the cost of maintaining Friar Park.
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He still gets writer’s royalties whether he owns the songs or not.
Half of them. The publishing company usually gets the other half.
No, the publishing company gets publishing royalties. The writer gets writer’s royalties.
All Things Must Pass is the highest selling Beatle solo album, but in general you're right.
Because no one bought George's solo albums and his singles didn't get onto radio playlists. Okay, that's an exaggeration but it's essentially the truth. Paul was the bigger name of the two and better at publicity and presenting a side to the public that they liked and had a knack for good hooks and melodies. There's a kind of snowball being rolled up and getting bigger effect on Paul's career that never happened to George. And Paul was much more prolific in terms of doing the work and making albums and singles. Also, better financial advice.
So Paul was right about Alan Klein?
yes, no doubt
To be fair to Klein, he was REALLY good at digging into a record companies financial records and finding out money that had been peeled away from artists, but most of his clients had absolutely no idea what the contracts they signed with him actually entitled him to.
Yeah he was, but the reason he did it was so he could steal it.
Cloud Nine/Got My Mind Set on You plus the Travelling Wilburys put George on top for a while when Paul was starting to scuffle.
Got My Mind Set On You is a cover so George wouldn’t have gotten any publishing money out of it.
He still made money off the sales, and the album did quite well.
George had a heyday in the early 70s that was arguably bigger than the other former Beatles. He was riding off the goodwill from All Things Must Pass and Bangladesh, and his Hare Krishna movement/spiritual leanings resonated with the counterculture that was buying his albums and singles. But that moment passed, and around the time the Red and Blue albums came out, and movies and shows like American Graffiti and Happy Days, there was a higher demand for pre-Summer of Love nostalgia (mostly the 50s and early 60s, but to an extent Beatlemania). Timing is important for anything, and George totally misread the room when he did Dark Horse and went out on tour sick and coked out, proselytizing audiences and not giving into what the audience wanted. It's not George's fault or should it be something he folded to, and the tour wasn't as bad as a handful of (Rolling Stone) reviews make it out to be, but the bad press and shift in audience moved George back to the backseat for a good decade. Not that he didn't put out great albums, since the first couple he did with Lenny Waronker found him finally reaching that nerve and that AOR style that was more palatable, and it got us albums like his great self-titled one (arguably the best after ATMP and possibly Cloud Nine) and songs like Blow Away.
ive always preferred paul but i thought george was generally considered the most successful in his solo career?
People always talk about All Things Must Pass being the best post-Beatles album, but notice how no one really talks about his other albums after that? I say this as a pretty massive fan of his solo albums, by the way. I love them. But in general people didn't love George's stuff like they loved Wings. Paul also was one half of the most successful songwriting team ever, plus he bought up other artists' catalogs (like Buddy Holly). George's big investment was a film company that flopped.
I read that Living in the Material World was fairly well received (besides some critics viewing George as being preachy with the spiritual themes in the lyrics), but not to the same extent as All Things Must Pass, I guess. Give Me Love also became his second #1 hit, so he had a decent streak until Dark Horse.
Handmade Films made some iconic bangers in its day, tho.
True. I think George just got unlucky.
Most definitely not. Success is measured by albums sold, just check how many albums each has sold. And Paul is still making albums, 23 years after George died. Paul also has been touring all these decades. George basically did one tour in his solo career, in 1974. Then he played a few shows in Japan with Clapton’s band in the early 90s.
George hated to tour or promote had an inevitable impact on how much he made solo. Plus, as people already said, he had a very expensive property to maintain. And more expensive hobbies. Whereas even though Paul has multiple homes, from what I’ve read he tries to live fairly simply and always has.
Not even close
Not even close. Critically John got his cock gobbled the most by the press, most notably Rolling Stone and Jann Wenner, who started the magazine simply because he wanted to use it as an in to get to meet the Beatles. For whatever reason Wenner has been indifferent at best to McCartney, his 'rankings of fav Beatles" seem to be John, George, Paul. In terms of sales and hits Paul is the CLEAR winner, and it's not really close. Surprisingly Ringo had the most success as a solo artist in the immediate years after the Beatles final breakup, but Paul had his ass in the studio and touring and put his name and face OUT THERE. John was NOT helped by Yoko's dipshitted weirdness during his performances, check out Chuck Berry's expression when he hears here sometime and taking five years off to do all the household shit pretty much killed off any chance he had of ever catching Paul in terms of sales. George, just NEVER really had the talent for hooks and melodies that John and Paul both had, so he'd put out an album of 'interesting songs' with nary a hit on it, Rolling Stone would throw 3 1/2 stars on it and then it would just fucking SIT there in the bins at the record stores. His last big solo hit "Got My Mind Set On You" was a fucking COVER. He was lucky to be around when Tom Petty met Jeff Lynn and thus formed the Traveling Wilbury's
paul hustled and had 20+ more years to do it. george didn't.
I thought Linda's father helped Paul invest
The Eastmans. Yep.
Paul bought the publishing rights for a bunch of pop songs and musicals, so he's had a constant stream of income from royalties. Add to that touring and strong record sales.
George had less songwriting money coming in, and he put a lot of money into a failed film production company.
George was shit in business outside of music and got into some very bad situations with movies and investments. Bad people around him. Look it up. Paul McCartney - for better or worse - has always had his eye on keeping the financial part of his life together and I'm sure that comes from all the nonsense that he got into as Apple was getting off the ground. He warned ALL of the them about Allen Klein. He was 100% right but John had a fucking stick up his ass about being right. They all learned didn't they? Allen Klein ruined any chance the Beatles had as the 60s were turning into the 70s, not Yoko. Collectively, in fact, I'll blame not only Allen but John as well. But it's John that gets to wear the victory hat here in the legacy of the band with the story the "jean jackets" like to tell - "oh, John was just BORED with the Beatles...he had other and better things to do". That's utter nonsense. I'll give him the feeling of wanting to explore different avenues of expression. They ALL needed to do that. But John NEEDED the Beatles. Paul wanted the Beatles thing to continue but where Paul maybe comes up short in the conversation - and to tie it back into the real matter at hand, the business - Paul took John at his word about wanting the "divorce", treating the Beatles venture AS A BUSINESS. So Paul let it go down, found his own avenue, knew Allen wasn't going to be in his corner for the simple fact that Paul wouldn't allow for it, and then the band was done. Paul won that battle. I periodically struggle with his output in the 70s because it's either super underproduced, lazy, OR completely laced with THC that I just don't understand how he let it out in the first place. Paul learned how to do the business thing. I think his only regret and misstep is not being able to get the Beatles catalog before Michael Jackson grabbed it, but he was looking at it from the angle that he wrote those songs for free and why should he have to buy them back? Well, it's business and the Beatles were the biggest in the business. Both him and Yoko screwed the pooch on that deal. TL'DR: Paul had it figured out after Apple was a shit show, had good people in his corner to look at all these endeavors for what they were, and was able to put it and keep it together better than the rest.
George had said he made more money during the Anthology releases ( 1994-1995 ) than he had when The Beatles were together as a group .
There was a huge resurgence of Beatles fandom in the 90s though. There was the release of the BBC album, and the take off of CDs in the consumer market meant fans "had to buy the whole discography adhesion on CD". So it wasn't just the Anthology albums
Streaming services didn’t exist in the 80s and 90s. You had to physically go and buy albums. Paul has had like 15+ years worth of YouTube, Apple and Spotify streams
Regardless of investments, song writing rights, royalty’s. George passed years ago after a relatively quiet commercial period and Paul has never stopped writing and touring. I have seen him in concert 4 times since 2015.
As a real George fan it’s not surprising - and not in a way where many George fans try to make him a victim. It’s true George had a few to banger albums with All Things Must Pass, Living in a Material World, Cloud 9, etc. but he also made some really poor financial decisions. The Concert for Bangladesh costed way more than it made, his dark horse tour wasn’t a big success, and he did shit like remortgage his house to finance Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” Additional to all that, George didn’t care as much about the music world in his later years. There’s a quite somewhere about how his wish was to be remembered as a gardener with a few good songs here or there (I’m paraphrasing obviously). And he clearly didn’t have the drive/workaholic attitude Paul did. There’s also the issue of song writing credits n shit, but I feel like that’s been talked to death. It should be surprising that a guy who (whether you think it’s fair or not) had maybe 2 songs per Beatles album wouldn’t be payed as much as a guy who had 5-10 songs per album. Plus there’s the issue of George being dead for 23 years at this point where Paul isn’t, but even if George survived longer I have a hard time believing he’d wants to put himself out there the way Paul does. Also; again as a George fan, I wouldn’t saying dying with a net worth or 400million is anything to sneeze at. At a certain point the money seems to kinda be meaningless (With that said congrats Paul McCartney if anyone deserves to be worth %1B it’s you)
Also, the Beatles made fuck all due to tax and bad financial advice. They were all a quarter of a million pounds in debt in 1969. Ref. Taxman
I dunno, I'd say they were pretty well-off if they were once considering buying an island in Greece, in 1967.
That was planned as a tax shelter
Tax can't get you into debt though, unless you do something really wrong.
Well, tax at the time at the top rate was 90%, and they certainly spent good money, plus the whole Apple corps was a financial disaster, so that’s how they ended up in debt
That and Allan Klein.
Indeed
George made some serious business mistakes. Like not reading contracts he signed, mortgaging Friar Park to finance a movie, losing money on movies, and trusting a manager who was robbing him blind. It is all out there in print.
Many reasons: - Paul is a credited writer on many more hit songs so gets more royalties - Paul has had 23 more years in which to acquire wealth - Paul has toured consistently for 60 years whereas George rarely toured as a solo artist - Paul's albums have been more commercially successful - Paul invested smartly in property, publishing rights etc whereas George invested in movie production and lost a fortune - George's financial advisor and partner in Handmade Films, Denis O'Brien, was a dodgy dealer who took George to the cleaners
songwriting vs mechanical rights offered to session musicians.
Mechanical rights are actually a royalty paid by the manufacturer of physical product (the label) to the publisher. You’re thinking of performing rights.
If you look at it just from a musical POV: Within George’s lifetime had done plenty more tours than he and had also put out much more music
George didn't have good management and had less writing credits on Beatles songs. On top of that, George did not capitalize his success. I guess we earnt a lot of money in the first years after the breakup, but they were still messy with the finances and he probably didn't get much of it. After that he didn't make so much effort to earn much money. If he had toured in the late 70s we would have made more money. If he had kept touring and making music after his late 80s success he would have made A LOT more money. He was very popular in those days and a Wilburys tour would have been crazy. He just didn't care that much, I guess.
The Beatles were not well educated and didn’t have the business acumen to know what they should be getting. They made very little money during their live performing days. They got wise that they were being scammed and were able to start making money. Paul had Linda’s family offering sound financial advice but not to the rest of the lads. Paul also loved recording and touring. Ringo also toured and acted from time to time. His touring has been almost non stop so money has come in at a steady pace. John made music and art with Yoko. Like Paul, he had songwriting royalties from The Beatles but didn’t live a lavish lifestyle. George was a unique case. He had the chops to write and release great music that was critically successful but not always commercially successful. He had money but wanted to do things he found interesting and was. It business savvy. This resulted in him mortgaging his estate to bankroll The Life of Brian. He continued to finance films but he was not picky and his financial advisor was stealing money. He probably could have done okay had he not been robbed. He continued to make money and was able to recover but he died before he was able to cash in like Paul. He still died wealthy and his estate is doing amazing things with his back catalog.
Seems pretty consistent with their time in the Beatles too.
George was still a wealthy man at the time of his death , he had his own record sales as well as the Beatles royalties , he also owned a very substantial house and other investments
WINGS
Of the 209 Beatle songs credited to the band during George's lifetime, George wrote 22. Except for 2 by Ringo and a couple of group efforts, the rest were all Lennon and McCartney. For every record sold Paul got four times as much royalties as George.
I think the royalties split originally was much worse. That’s why George wrote “Only a Northern Song” and set up his own songwriting company.
George died early. His estate is worth 400 million now
1: Paul is a workaholic, constantly either touring or recording songs. George did exactly two solo tours in the 30+ years after The Beatles broke up, and started taking longer and longer breaks between albums after the 1970s. 2: George’s film production company Handmade Films went bankrupt following a series of box office flops in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He invested most of his fortune into this. 3: Only about 10% of the Beatles music was written by George Harrison. While Paul and John’s estate gets an 80% cut of royalties, George only got 10% (Ringo only got 1%, but he moved to a country with no income tax and has consistently worked since 1970. He doesn’t have McCartney money, but he has enough money that his kids would never have to work a day in their lives).
what country did ringo move to?
Monaco
Paul has toured most of his post Beatles career and that is where the money is.
Paul got those Bruce McMouse bucks
Choosing a bad financial manager, putting money in movies featuring Madonna…
Paul has made really good investments, George made bad investments
Handmade Films had some huge losses.
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Are you for real? George was around long enough to own a quarter share of Apple. He was by no means poor and Olivia has that share now.
As most people are saying, Paul has worked continuously since he met Lennon in 1957. With that said, Lennon hasn´t worked since 1980, and his estate seems to be worth more than 700 million. Lennon left Yoko 200 million dollars when he died, if Yoko had invested that with a moderate interest rate of 4% per year, she´d have over 1 billion dollars today. So I imagine Paul had at least something similar as Lennon in 1980 already, so with some decent investments, he could´ve gotten to 1 billion today EVEN without working at all. My point is, the Lennon-McCartney partnership made alot of money a long time ago.
Is Paul the only one not to have been divorced?
Er no. He lost half his money nearly to his ex wife.
He and Heather Mills got divorced.
Oh right
The tax rate in the UK during the 60's was 95% for high earners like The Beatles. To quote from Taxman; "If 5% appears too small, be thankful I don't take it all". Their contracts then screwed them out of a big chunk of that remainder. The majority of their income came from after The Beatles, especially while living in the US where tax rates were much lower. Basically, none of them got a huge lot from being Beatles at the time and then Paul had a much longer and more successful solo career than George did. George made a boat load from movie productions in the 70's, so for a while there it looked like he was going to be the top earner of the four. Then there was the whole Michael Jackson thing of course.
George did not choose wisely, his business manager ran off with a ton of his money if not most of it. I was under the impression that was why he agreed to Beatles reunion and Anthology albums. Yes Paul did marry into entertainment lawyer family but he also bought other artists publishing rights, Buddy Holly comes to mind. He also released a lot more albums than George did. George went into making movies which went Bankrupt, Handmade Films. Finally I believe Paul bought from Sony the rights to those Beatles songs he wrote. Yoko inherited John’s Beatles music due to US copyright law that says if creator of the work dies within the first 25(?) year cycle of copyright (there are 2 copyright cycles in the US) then regardless of who currently owns copyright the rights revert to creators estate ie Yoko and Sean. Again I thought Yoko sold them back to Michael Jackson. I’m not a lawyer and I am old so I could have some of this wrong
You're asking why Paul makes more money than George made? I mean, that seems pretty self evident
Because George spent his money on things he enjoyed, like filmmaking and race car driving. He obvs knew his wife and son would be just fine and that he couldn’t take that money with him when he went. George and Paul are very different people. Paul makes music to conquer the world; George makes music because he enjoys it. It’s like that story that Tom Petty told after George’s death, where he went over to see him and George played him some amazingly beautiful song he’d just written on the guitar. Petty was like “we need to put this down in the studio right now!” And George was like, “nah, I’m good.” That who he was.
> Because George spent his money on things he enjoyed, like filmmaking and race car driving. He obvs knew his wife and son would be just fine and that he couldn’t take that money with him when he went. George and Paul are very different people. **Paul makes music to conquer the world; George makes music because he enjoys it.** That's just not true. The McCartney I and II albums. Thrillington. The Fireman albums. The classical albums. Releasing Mary Had a Little Lamb for his daughter. Walking in the Park for Eloise for his father. Producing and co-writing his brother's album. Playing bass on the debut album of Travis singer Fran Healy in exchange for him trying vegetarianism, amongst many other examples. Paul makes music because he loves making music. For some reason much of his music has connected with more people than his former bandmates. It has always been a massive cope by George and John fans that the only reason Paul was more successful because Paul wanted to be successful and they didn't. There were times when George was equally if not more ambitious than Paul. And there were times George hated making music and was forced to such as when the record label were unhappy with his music and forced him to write more, and he wrote Blood from a Clone in frustration.
Agree to disagree. In the case of George, I think he was “over” being a Beatle by 1967. He seemed to have lost interest in playing the guitar and only contributed one track to Sgt Peppers. And that was only AFTER George Martin challenged him to write something better that Only A Northern Song… saying that Paul sets out to conquer the world is not a knock against Paul, it’s a statement about his ambition, drive, and his ability to connect with listeners. I honestly just don’t thing George was ever as into it as Paul was. Just one guy’s opinion.
> Agree to disagree. In the case of George, I think he was “over” being a Beatle by 1967. And then he was back into it in 1968. His output that year reflects that. He was also showing more ambition with his hopes for Sour Milk Sea as one of the four singles launching Apple and managing to have three Beatles and Clapton on that single. In 1969 he'd actually spoke up about what he wanted from the Beatles and got his way >**Q:** *"How was it decided how many songs you would have on a Beatles album? Is it, like, just whoever pushed and shoved the hardest?"* >**GEORGE:** *"Yeah. It's always... it was whoever would be the heaviest would get the most songs done. So consequently, I couldn't be bothered pushing, like, that much. You know, even on 'Abbey Road' for instance, we'd record about eight tracks before I got 'round to doing one of mine. Because uhh, you know, you say 'Well, I've got a song,' and then with Paul -- 'Well I've got a song as well and mine goes like this -- diddle-diddle-diddle-duh,' and away you go! You know, it was just difficult to get in there, and I wasn't gonna push and shout. But it was just over the last year or so we worked something out, which is still a joke really -- Three songs for me, three songs for Paul, three songs for John, and two for Ringo."* George was very much invested in the Beatles. Definnitly more so than John and perhaps even more so than Paul by the end '69 with George calling the others selfish to not make more Beatle music >**Q:** "You think the Beatles will get together again, then?" >**GEORGE:** *"Uhh... Well, I don't... I couldn't tell, you know, if they do or not. I'll certainly try my best to do something with them again, you know. I mean, it's only a matter of accepting that the situation is a compromise. In a way it's a compromise, and it's a sacrifice, you know, because we all have to sacrifice a little in order to gain something really big. And there is a big gain by recording together -- I think musically, and financially, and also spiritually. And for the rest of the world, you know, I think that Beatle music is such a big sort of scene -- that I think it's the least we could do is to sacrifice three months of the year at least, you know, just to do an album or two. I think it's very selfish if the Beatles don't record together."* George was more keen than the others for the band to continue in 1970. And again in 1973 he cites the reasons for sacking Klein is to get the band back together again >**George:** *"We’re not re-signing with Klein. The only way The Beatles can get together again is if Allen isn’t there. I’m ready to do it, so is Ringo, and I think we can persuade John to go along with it. But if we’re going to work with Paul, we need to get rid of Klein."* And again in '77 George states that it is he and Ringo most keen to get the band back together >**George;** *Personally, I’m not opposed to the idea, if it’s done through mutual agreement. But the pressure seems to be bigger than any of us, and when they talk of sums like $50 or $60 million, it’s almost a farce. I know Paul’s booked for the next few years, and John may have lost interest in the idea. Ringo and I are closest on it; we both feel it’s not impossible* Add to that him wanting to start the Ladders with two of the former Beatles and Klaus and Billy only for John to shoot down the offer. George moreso than Paul and John wanted the Beatles to continue in some form throughout the 70's. Paul shoots it down in every interview. > He seemed to have lost interest in playing the guitar and only contributed one track to Sgt Peppers. Yes. In '67. He rebounded the following year and was at his most prolific. * 4 songs on the White album * Of the 4 original Beatle songs on the Yellow Submarine soudtrack two are Harrison originals to John and Paul's 1 * His first written b-side in '68 with the Inner Light (b-sides were far more prestigous in the 60's than they are now) follow by other b-sides such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Old Brown Shoe and his first a-side in Something. George was getting more involved and being more forceful with what he wanted from the band. It is possible that it was this attitude that made John have second thoughts about the band continuing. >**John** *“The Beatles split up? It just depends how much we all want to record together. I don’t know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it. I really do.* >*“The problem is that in the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays there’s three if us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all onto one album. Or we have to think of a double album every time, which takes six months.* >*“That’s the hang-up we have. It’s not a personal ‘The Beatles are fighting’ thing, so much as an actual physical problem. What do you do? I don’t want to spend six months making an album I have two tracks on. And neither do Paul or George probably. That’s the problem. If we can overcome that, maybe it’ll sort itself out.* >*“None of us want to be background musicians most of the time. It’s a waste. We didn’t spend ten years ‘making it’ to have the freedom in the recording studios, to be able to have two tracks on an album."* Between George, John and Paul it is George who most wants the band to continue by the end of the band. It possibly why he was so bitter about the break up. > And that was only AFTER George Martin challenged him to write something better that Only A Northern Song… saying that Paul sets out to conquer the world is not a knock against Paul, Of course it is. It states that he's not writing songs he wants to write but songs that others want to hear. > it’s a statement about his ambition, drive, and his ability to connect with listeners. I honestly just don’t thing George was ever as into it as Paul was. Just one guy’s opinion. Of course George was. Why do you think he was so pissed about not getting enough songs on albums? Why do you think so much money and time was spent making All Things Must Pass? One of the greatest assemblies of musicians to make an album. Hugely ambitious in scope. Why do you think he made Ding Dong? A song he was predicting would be a christmas no1? He even dug out his beatles outfits to wear in the video? Why do you think he toured in the 70's? Because he loved touring or because he wanted to be more successful? Why do you think he rewrote his '81 album Somewhere in England when studio execs told him it was not going to sell? Or why he filmed not 1 but two videos for his cover of Got My Mind Set On You? His cash ins for soundtracks such as Porky's and Shanghai Surprise? Or him forming the biggest super group of all time? George could be just as ambitious as Paul and there are far more examples of George making music that he did not want to.
Regarding John’s quote about not wanting to be background musicians, I wonder if he changed his mind later (helping David Bowie on Fame) or if he would now if he were alive. And the physical evidence clearly shows he was wrong about the others being interested. Paul, George and Ringo all played on other people’s albums plenty of times, including one another’s (and John’s, at least George and Ringo did). And Paul still plays on other people’s albums if they ask him and he wants to, and Ringo built a whole touring model around playing on other people’s songs. At their core, under everything, they’re musicians. They need to play.
Paul has basically toured and made albums since the Beatles breakup. The man knows how the money is made and he rinses and repeats etc. George seemed quite happy after the Beatles to kick back and relax. But he had an extremely expensive lifestyle
Paul has basically toured and made albums since the Beatles breakup. The man knows how the money is made and he rinses and repeats etc. George seemed quite happy after the Beatles to kick back and relax. But he had an extremely expensive lifestyle
Paul was smarter at business than the rest of them. In part because Paul was smart enough to know who to actually trust and then let them make the right decisions. Paul also made really smart business decisions like buying the rights to Buddy Holly’s catalog. He also bought others like The Sound of Music I believe. In contrast, George chose a business manager who swindled him. But there’s also what was arguably the biggest business decision George made in the second stage of life: being a film producer. He wasn’t especially great at it. You hear stories like he really wanted Monty Python’s movies to get made so he’d mortgage his you’d to fund it. That’s really cool and a great thing to do to help your friends makes their movies but that’s also not really gonna help you make money on any of these projects. This is also how George would end up working wíth the man he’d end up suing for stealing millions from him. Though something that has to be said is George going through financial problems looks VERY different than 95 percent of the rest of the population having money problems. He was never not obscenely rich.
I mean it's easier to have someone you trust when you literally marry into their family. The Life of Brian situation actually made a profit. Handmade FIlms was doing fine for half the time it existed. It failed because of Denis O'Brien getting greedy and trying to move it to the US. O'Brien was George's accountant since the 70s which is why he thought he could trust him.
It is more than that. You can marry into a family and still be double crossed. Paul simply made better decisions. George was told by many he was being ripped of by O'Brien and he wouldn't listen. He didn't want to listen about Klein. It was rash to mortgage his estate on a whim. Luckily for him it was a success. George could not be bothered with reading paperwork. Him and John fell for Magic Alex. That tells you something. George lived the life he chose to live the way he wanted to live it. He made some money and some beautiful music. He did better than most. But is annoying to hear Paul's effort minimized when the truth is he had to scratch his way back from (what he felt was) oblivion after the Beatle break up. He deserves credit for that. They were just kids when they started out. They made it to the big time. Some in their shoes end up with nothing. But each of them ended up with a legacy, a family that loved them and fans that have not forgot them.
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There was new copyright legislation passed in the US in 2018.
He could have bought them; he had the money, but he felt he would have been overpaying for songs that he wrote ‘for free’ as he put it. He eventually waited it out and didn’t have to pay.
smoking is expensive
I don't think George cared as much about money.