Woman

Song facts

“Woman” is a song written by Paul McCartney in 1965, under the pseudonym Bernard Webb, and given away to British pop duo Peter and Gordon, composed of Peter Asher (brother of Paul’s girlfriend at the time, Jane Asher) and Gordon Waller.

From Wikipedia:

Under the Lennon–McCartney moniker, McCartney had written three previous Peter and Gordon singles (viz. “A World Without Love”, “Nobody I Know”, and “I Don’t Want to See You Again”). On this occasion, McCartney used the pseudonym Bernard Webb (though some Capitol pressings carry the name A. Smith instead) to see if the song would be a success without the Lennon–McCartney credit. McCartney commented at a press conference in August 1966, “People come up to them and say, ‘Ah, we see you’re just getting in on the Lennon–McCartney bandwagon’. That’s why they did that one with our names not on it… because everyone sort of thinks that’s the reason they get hits.” However, the publishing credit was Lennon and McCartney’s company Northern Songs, and according to Gordon Waller it took only two weeks’ time for the song’s real author to be revealed, as the first review of the record said, “This Bernard Webb has an amazing talent. Could even be Paul McCartney!” It was then introduced as written by McCartney when Peter and Gordon performed it on the US TV show Hullabaloo. […]

In January 1969, during the Beatles’ “Get Back” sessions, gave a casual performance of the song on piano. It can be heard in Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary released in 2021.

The 1981 single “Woman” by John Lennon, is an unrelated song, and the only example of each member of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership receiving songwriting credit for two different songs with the same title.

I liked that. We [The Beatles] did a much better one, the first time we did it. The first time we ever did it, we did it very dry. It was little with about eight violins. It really sounded like a string quartet, you know. We were very fussy at the time. We thought, ‘This was the one,’ but we just chucked it and jacked it in, and let them go and do it again. It got turned into a mammoth Peter & Gordon treatment, only Gordon couldn’t get the high notes. It was a great song, though. I wonder if Peter has still got our original thing … It was all right, it was OK.

Paul McCartney (1969) – From “The Beatles: Off The Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

You wrote ‘Woman’ for Peter and Gordon as BERNARD WEBB.

Paul McCartney: Well that was the first pseudonym I used for secrecy reasons. I was a bit annoyed that anything by Lennon-McCartney was being a hit, particularly by Peter and Gordon, and…I don’t know, I just got an attack of morals or something, but I felt it was a bit much that automatically having our name on something made it do well, and I wanted to see if I could get around it. So I asked our music publisher, Dick James, if I could use a pseudonym. He was a bit jittery – “It sells better if your name’s on it!” – so I said “Yes but Dick, look, you’ve got all that money, you’ve got ‘Yesterday’, we’re doing great, I really am keen on seeing this happen”, so he gave in. Bernard Webb was the name I chose, and the nice thing was that shortly after that we went on tour to America and someone was holding up a big sign saying “Long live Bernard Webb”! I didn’t really mind when people found out. The release suggested to me that my name didn’t need to be on things – but then, it wasn’t as big a hit as some of their other singles so it sort of proved a point. I quite like the song, actually. People say to me now, “Is that song really yours?” because it doesn’t sound like one of mine.

In America, the credit was B Webb-A Smith.

I don’t know why that is – it may have been a contractual thing, or John might have caught onto the joke and taken a pseudonym too.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Club Sandwich N°62, Spring 1992

I tried once to write a song under another name, just to see if it was the Lennon-McCartney bit that sold our songs. I called myself Bernard Webb — I was a student in Paris and very unavailable for interviews. The song was ‘Woman’ for Peter and Gordon. They made it a big hit. Then it came out it was me. I realised that when I saw a banner at a concert saying ‘Long Live Bernard Webb.’ We’d need a properly controlled experiment to find out how much our names really mean now, but I can’t be bothered.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Sunday Times, September 1966

I tried to write a song under another name, just to see if it was the Lennon-McCartney bit that sold our songs. I called myself Bernard Webb and I was a student in Paris and was very unavailable for interviews. Peter & Gordon made it a big hit and then it came out that it was me. I realised that when I saw a banner at a concert saying, ‘Long Live Bernard Webb’. We would need a properly controlled experiment to find out how much our names really mean now, but I can’t be bothered.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off The Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

Paul had asked that “Woman” be released under a pseudonym, with the songwriting credit given to the imaginary “Bernard Webb.” The reason for doing this was that some of the press were suggesting that the Beatles’ stature had reached a point where anything with their name on it, or anything with a Beatle’s name on it, would inevitably be successful, regardless of its intrinsic merit and quality. And I think this pissed Paul off a bit, because nobody likes to be thought of as resting on his laurels or relying on his name for success. The “Bernard Webb” deception worked for about three or four weeks before somebody found out that it was really Paul, and the cat was out of the bag, but in truth, “Woman” became a big hit very quickly, so even those few weeks were enough to prove that the success of the song did not depend upon the record having Paul’s name on it.

Peter Asher – From “The Beatles from A to Zed“, 2019

PAUL’S PEN NAME

We asked Paul why he chose the name Bernard Webb to go on the song “Woman” that he wrote for Peter and Gordon, he replied simply, “Why not! It’s a very inconspicuous name. If there are any real Mister Bernard Webbs about then I apologise”.

From The Beatles Monthly Book – May 1966

Last updated on October 6, 2023

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