Want to know a good rule of thumb for life? If you feel the need to preface something you're about to reveal with, "I'm not sure I should say it," you probably shouldn't.
That tip might have served the beloved Sir Paul McCartney well recently, when in a new conversation with The New Yorker, he got to talking about one of his favorite subjects: How The Beatles stack up against The Rolling Stones. (Of course, you can guess where the former Beatles legend stands on that one. In a 2020 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, McCartney flat-out said that "the Beatles were better.") In his TNY comments, the man was kind enough to let us in on his argument against Mick Jagger and co.
“I’m not sure I should say it, but they’re a blues cover band, that’s sort of what the Stones are,” said McCartney. “I think our net was cast a bit wider than theirs.”
The jab is reminiscent of, but far more pointed than another comment McCartney gave Stern in 2020. He said of The Rolling Stones, “They are rooted in the blues, When they are writing stuff, it has to do with the blues. [The Beatles] had a little more influences." If we're being honest, at this point—over 50 years after The Beatles broke up—maybe we should just let bygones be bygones. Both bands have long been cemented in pantheon of all-timers.
So we'll leave you with what Mick Jagger told Zane Lowe when he heard about McCartney's comments on Howard Stern. “One band is unbelievably luckily still playing in stadiums, and then the other band doesn’t exist,” Jagger said.
