Which Beatles singing voice is your favorite? | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

paulsbass said:

I forgot to mention John best Beatle performance (imo).

That would be “Happiness Is A Warm Gun “. It's all there.

That's a pretty good one, I've always enjoyed John's really honest songs though, right now I'm a Loser would have to be my favorite of his. I think that's why I've always liked John's voice a little bit more than Paul's, there's just more honesty in his voice and I'm more aware of the emotions he felt while singing or writing whatever song. I agree with vonbontee about Why Don't We Do It In The Road, it sort of seems like he's trying to be someone else, but he still sounds fantastic.

If you count solo stuff George would be my favorite, but Beatlewise John just had so many different styles that it would be almost impossible for him not to have my favorite voice of the four.

paulsbass said:

DoctorRobert said:

Yeah, I admit Paul's voice can be brutal (oh darling springs to mind) but it lacks the honest emotion John shows. It all seems a bit plastic soul (or should that be Rubber Soul ).

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First: I LOVE your avatar! I could watch it for hours! Ok, after a few minutes you get a little dizzy…
 

I think Paul just never was as insecure and depressed and desperate as John. He's always been the ground-solid, controlled one and would never had let himself go down as John did.

He was always the happy and nice one, and while many critisize him for that, calling him dishonest or fake or false, I do like that attitude much better than any of this “everything sucks and goes to hell anyway, so f&%$ you…” attitude people like Kurt Cobain and also sometimes John showed.

People generally seem to think of depressed, “emotional” people as being cooler than happy people who are confident of themselves.

I don't agree to that. For me that's just weak, I don't like too much of that.

Paul could still do very emotional songs, but more in a distant, observing way (Eleanor Rigby , For No One ). Personally I hear lots of emotion in “Hey Jude ” or “Maybe I'm amazed”.

“Oh darling” on the other hand would be an example of fake-emotions. He just did that one to scream, without real feeling. John would have done it better (just listen to that awful “Anthology” version where John is just fooling around and still sounds much better than Paul who just doesn't know yet how to master that song).

 

So while I acknowledge the fact that Paul almost never really opened up his inner soul I'm totally ok with that. I like his attitude and his vocal diversity which is unparalleled, imo.

Hmm, I think they both did a decent amount of “fake emotions” type songs, hell with the amount of songs both did in the course of 7 years it would be impossible for them not to do a few fake ones. The difference between John and Paul, to me, is 1st person versus 3rd person, it's fiction versus non-fiction. They both have their charms, but different people just like different things.

 I don't think John was always a depressed “emotional” person, but he was willing to let that aspect of his personality into his songwriting, whereas Paul really didn't and I really respect John for that. Despite his fame and fortune, he was still able to look at himself introspectively and tell the world what he thought of himself. Paul liked to mask his emotions behind characters or metaphors and there's nothing wrong with that, but I've always found it a bit harder to relate to.