Rolling Stone Readers Pick the Top 10 Songwriters of All Time

Every Beatles song written by either John Lennon or Paul McCartney is credited to Lennon/McCartney, even though they stopped writing together very early in their careers. "It ended around 1962," Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970. "All our best work–apart from the early days [was written together], like 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'" In a 2001 interview with Rolling Stone Paul McCartney said that the he feels the arrangement has made people under-value his role in the band. "The minute John died, there started to be a revisionism," he said. "There were some strange quotes, like, 'John was the only one in the Beatles.' Or 'Paul booked the studio' — I don't want to get into who said what, but that was attributed to someone who very much knew better. 'John was the Mozart; Paul was the Salieri.' Like, John was the real genius, and I was just the guy who sang 'Yesterday.' If this revisionism gets around, a lot of kids will be like, 'Did he have a group before Wings?' There may come a time when people won't know."