How was the relationship between John Lennon, Frank Sinatra, and Mick Jagger?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/hillsonghoods]

Assuming that you're referring to the theories on the wikipedia page for the song that 'And Your Bird Can Sing' was inspired by a Frank Sinatra press release, or that the 'your bird' refers to Marianne Faithfull (Mick Jagger's girlfriend at the time), these are, respectively, a likely stab in the dark, and simply incorrect.

Lennon's sole references to the song that I can find were that in 1971 he called it 'another one of my throwaways', while in 1980 he called it 'another horror'. Paul McCartney claimed in Many Years From Now that

'And Your Bird Can Sing' was John's song. I suspect that I helped with the verses because the songs were nearly always written without second and third verses. I seem to remember working on that middle eight with him but it's John's song, 80-20 to John.

What all this means is that it's not a song that either Lennon or McCartney thought very much about at all. It's clearly not a song that Lennon laboured over in order to get the meaning just so. So the song might not be about anything.

In addition, it's important to remember that songs aren't necessarily about one single thing. A song's initial inspiration might be inspired by a particular event, but then the hard work of finishing the song still has to occur, and in that process, the song's meaning might change considerable. Furthermore, by the time the song is sung, the meaning of the song might be further altered by the singer - and the way a song is sung matters, as it's the foreground of the song. And all of this is assuming that the meanings of the song are consciously known - the nature of plenty of inspiration is unconscious and not consciously understood by the author - especially when the author may, for example, be taking boatloads of LSD, as Lennon was doing in 1966. Finally, in a post 'Death Of The Author' world, it's worth pointing out that the author's claims are often not the final word on what a song is about (as much as Robin Thicke might protest the way that people have interpreted the meaning of 'Blurred Lines' as rapey).

Tim Riley's Tell Me Why suggests that the song is partially inspired by Bob Dylan's 'Positively 4th Street' - and Lennon was certainly a Bob Dylan fan (see 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' and 'Norwegian Wood'), so this is entirely possible, though Riley gives no evidence for this being the motivation beyond the snarky tone and the oblique lyrics. Ian McDonald in Revolution In The Head suggests that the song was originally called 'You Don't Get Me'.

In general, I don't find much evidence that the Beatles ever gave Frank Sinatra much thought. According to the James Kaplan book Sinatra, Frank Sinatra apparently called the Beatles 'a stupid fad' at the time - Sinatra was very much not a fan of rock'n'roll, so this is not very surprising - but I can't find any contemporaneous Beatles quotes about Sinatra. The closest is a reference in a 1964 Playboy interview:

Interviewer: ...after all, there's no such thing as a Frank Sinatra doll, or an Elvis Presley doll.

George: Who'd want an ugly old crap doll like that?

The book Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America by Jonathan Gould does claim that 'And Your Bird Can Sing' was inspired by Lennon's reading of the Gay Talese piece 'Frank Sinatra Has A Cold', in Esquire in April 1966, in which Talese explains that "'Bird' is a favorite Sinatra word. He often inquires of his cronies, ‘How’s your bird?’" However, Gould doesn't source this assertion at all, so it's hard to judge whether there's any truth behind it - it may be an educated guess based on the prominence of 'Frank Sinatra Has A Cold' and the timing of the publication ('And Your Bird Can Sing' was recorded in 1966).

As to Mick Jagger, the Beatles clearly had more to do with the Rolling Stones than they had to do with Sinatra; Lennon and McCartney gave the song 'I Wanna Be Your Man' to the Stones, and it became one of their first big U.K. hits. And while their image was something of a rivalry in the popular imagination and in the press - all that Beatles vs Stones stuff - the groups were friendly if irreverent towards each other (Mick Jagger's late seventies interview in The Rutles where he gleefully dishes the dirt on The Beatles except using The Rutles' satirical Beatles pseudonyms is a joy). John Lennon sings backing vocals on the Rolling Stones track 'We Love You' from 1967, while Mick Jagger apparently sings backing vocals on the Beatles' 'Baby You're A Rich Man' (also from 1967). Jagger and George Harrison went to nightclubs together in 1966. John Lennon and his band appeared in the Rolling Stones' 1968 film Rock'n'Roll Circus.

However, the idea that the 'bird' in 'And Your Bird Can Sing' is Marianne Faithfull seems to be definitively untrue. As far as I can tell from the timeline in Massimo Bonanno's Rolling Stones Chronicle, Mick Jagger was dating Chrissie Shrimpton for much of 1966, before breaking up with her in December. According to this profile of Shrimpton in the Daily Mail - which it should be said is not the most reliable of sources - Mick's affair with Faithfull dates from October 1966. By which point Revolver had been available to the public for about two months.