Recently I have been listening to songs by John Lennon. I would like to write about Paul and John's lyrics.
t is said that John's lyrics have a deep message but Paul's lyrics don't.
Basically I agree with that. John began writing deeper messages on his lyrics when he married Ono Yoko, then the Beatles broke up. The songs more known for their message would be "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance".
Unlike John, Paul doesn't care much about the meaning of his lyrics. For example "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" has a
rustic melody and the lyrics talk about a man killing a woman with a silver hammer. The lyrics are strange and they have no special message. The gap between the melody and lyrics might be taken as a joke by Paul.
The song "Love" by John and "Hello Goodbye" by Paul both have simple lyrics but they are very different. It seems that the lyrics of “Love” have deep message and the lyrics of “Hello Goodbye” are just wordplay.
Their Christmas songs are very contrasting. John's song "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" has a message for peace, but a message of Paul's song "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul is just enjoying Christmas.
A key phrase of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" might be "War is Over, if you want it, war is over now" and a key phrase of "Wonderful Christmastime" might be "Simply having wonderful Christmastime".
"Wonderful Christmastime" was written after "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" had been written, so that Paul was conscious of John's song. When Paul would write his own Christmas song, there was John's Christmas song with a message of antiwar which was recognized as a classic song. He intentionally written“Simply having wonderful Christmastime”.
It could not to be described as ideal, but I can recognize his attitude. For that matter Paul might have an ideal that he prohibits himself to tell a high ideal. I sympathize with this Paul’s “ideal”.
A postscript
I like the lyrics of "Penny Lane", because I can put Paul’s nostalgia for his hometown and childhood on my own.
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