Let it be, Sir Paul (as someone or other once said)

Sullivan and Gilbert doesn't sound right; nor does Hammerstein and Rodgers

A strange footnote to cultural history has emerged in the last week or two. Sir Paul McCartney has reversed the song-writing credits on some Beatles songs on his latest live album, so that they now read by Paul McCartney and John Lennon rather than Lennon/McCartney. "Hey Jude", "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby", he wishes the world to know if it did not already, were all his own work. John can certainly share the credit, as that was always the arrangement; but Sir Paul now feels that the real writer should, after all these years, come first on certain seminal compositions, so that music fans know who was really responsible.

Who comes first in the songwriting credits has long been a bugbear of Sir Paul's, even as regards the genuinely joint compositions of the early days. Actually, on the first Beatles album the credits did read McCartney/Lennon. But after that they were forever reversed. Sir Paul recounted last week in a statement to the press (yes, a statement to the press – do not underestimate the importance of these footnotes to cultural history) that he arrived late at a meeting with John and the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein shortly after that first album and they had already agreed to use Lennon/McCartney henceforth.

An older, more worldly-wise McCartney would never have arrived late for such a meeting. One can only speculate on the speed with which Lennon impressed upon Epstein the elegance of alphabetical order.

The second episode that weighed heavily on McCartney occurred much more recently when he was in a bar and looked at the pianist's sheet music. "Hey Jude" was ascribed to John Lennon. Songwriting credits are indeed sometimes shortened for reasons of space; but the phrase "Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player" may well have been screamed in terror that night.

I understand his irritation (though I wish he had been as irritated by the ridiculous omission of John's "Strawberry Fields" from the 1 album, which brought the songs to a new generation). McCartney has genuine reasons for irritation in perceptions of the Beatles. The way Lennon is regarded as the avant-garde one and McCartney as a suburban, middle-of-the-road figure is unfair. McCartney championed cutting-edge art in the Sixties and mixed in avant-garde circles, as artists such as Peter Blake will attest.

But messing with the order of songwriting credits is like messing with the language. The ear has got used to them. Sullivan and Gilbert does not sound right; nor does Hammerstein and Rodgers. Nor, after all these years, does McCartney and Lennon. I'm not sure, either, that those who were interested ever made the mistakes of attribution that Sir Paul fears. In the case of the Beatles, fans tended to think, rightly, that whoever sang the song probably wrote it. McCartney sang "Hey Jude", "Eleanor Rigby" et al.

Besides, Sir Paul should beware opening a Pandora's box. Some might argue that there is a case for crediting all the musicians involved in the formulation of a song. Pink Floyd often credited the whole group. To stay with that vintage, Dave Davies, the lead guitarist of the Kinks, has complained at not being credited alongside his brother Ray, the singer and wordsmith.

There may be those who would argue that some of the Beatles' songs should be credited to Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr. "Let It Be" may not be the most tactful thing to urge Sir Paul, as that is the title of another song that he wrote on his own, but is forever credited to Lennon/McCartney. Nevertheless, let it be.

¿ The subject of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting credits came up on the final episode of the latest series of Have I Got News For You. The host was Jeremy Clarkson. He "joked" that there was one place where McCartney should come before Lennon – "on Mark Chapman's hit-list". The silence from the audience will have told him on which side of the taste barrier that little jest landed. It's always hard in a satirical programme to know where the boundaries lie. Have I Got News For You, the best satirical programme on TV, usually gets it right. But on this occasion, Jeremy, that was unpleasant, which may or may not matter, and unfunny, which presumably does.

¿ Last week I expressed my bewilderment at a much-broadcast BBC plug for its channels on the digital service, Freeview. It had the actor Steven Berkoff saying he would be using the service for "exclusive drama and world cinema". He was followed by the actress June Brown (Dot from EastEnders) contradicting him, saying: "Not on your nelly! I want some culture from BBC4."

I could not understand why exclusive drama and world cinema were not culture. A BBC spokesman tells me that this trail was edited down from a longer version, in which those two comments did not follow on from one another. Were it not the season of goodwill, I'd be tempted to express further bewilderment that no one at the corporation noticed the glaring nonsense in the edited version. Instead, let me wish a Happy New Year to everyone, including those whizz-kids at the BBC.

d.lister@independent.co.uk