Sometimes people think of John Lennon as the rocker and Paul McCartney as the balladeer. But the truth is that Lennon could sing ballads quite well and McCartney was also a rocker when he felt like it (which was actually quite often.) This article looks at Paul's 7 best singing performances as a member of The Beatles.



"Eleanor Rigby" - McCartney actually won the 1966 Grammy Award for best male vocal performance for this one and it's easy to hear why.

"Helter Skelter" - The Beatles at their heaviest and it was McCartney who wrote the song and sang lead. The perfect example of McCartney stretching his voice to fit the song.

"Hey Jude" - This song has everything. The verses feature McCartney's soft and sweet voice but the ending refrain of the song features McCartney going wild and doing his best Little Richard imitation (he was very influenced by Little Richard.)

"I Will" - This charming little love song is the perfect follow-up to "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" and it includes perfect balladeer vocals by McCartney. The bass part is sang by McCartney (who was The Beatles bassist.)

"Oh! Darling" - Apparently John Lennon disagrees with me on this one as he said in his 1980 Playboy interview that Paul didn't it sing it well. "'Oh! Darling' was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better'it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it" Lennon said. I can see (or hear) where Lennon is coming from, it is seemingly more Lennon's style. But I disagree with him that McCartney didn't do a good job on it.

This is what Paul had to say about singing the song: "When we were recording 'Oh! Darling' I came into the studios early every day for a week to sing it by myself because at first my voice was too clear. I wanted it to sound as though I'd been performing it on stage all week." I think he was successful in getting that sort of feeling with the song. It's also always been one of my favorite Beatles songs to sing along to.

"Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" - This is arguably Paul at his most raucous. It's an extremely simple song which is fitting because it's a song about just "doing it." It's a song about living in the moment and his voice perfectly captures that feeling. McCartney wrote and recorded this song all on his own with no input from the other Beatles.

"Yesterday" - One of the most popular songs ever written. There have been at least 3000 cover versions recorded. It was the most played song on US radio for 8 consecutive years. Amazingly it was initialy included as a "b-side" to "Act Naturally" (a rather forgettable cover song sang by Ringo.) The band was concerned about song not fitting into their rock n roll image so it was not released as a single in the UK (they didn't have the same control over the US record company.)

This song featured only McCartney's acoustic guitar and his voice along with a string quartet. Because of that his voice really stands out in the song as it's certainly a song driven first and foremost by it's beautiful melody. Paul sings the song perfectly.