Paul McCartney & Kanye West: An Unlikely Friendship?

Buddies & Pals: Paul & Kanye.

Paul McCartney's collaboration with Kanye West has produced all sorts of responses from loyal fans of both artists on both ends of the scale. But was this more than just a simple collaboration?

The pair have been spotted together at award shows, fashion shows just hanging out. Is this an unlikely friendship between artists whose musical style is so different? Perhaps they have more in common beyond music, perhaps Kanye isn't as swell headed as he appears to be.

Paul talked about writing with Kanye recently in an interview. The interview has been headlined by some media outlets as Paul comparing writing with Kanye to writing with John Lennon, which has re-ignited the vitriol of Beatles fans. After reading the quotes, Paul said this:

"When I wrote with John, he would sit down with a guitar. I would sit down. We'd ping-pong till we had a song. It was like that."

People who are shouting "BLASPHEMY!!" right now should bear in mind that this is probably how most of Paul's collaborative efforts go since this is how he learned to do it with John back in the late 50s. He probably said the same thing about writing with Denny Laine, Eric Stewart & Elvis Costello. But because it's with Kanye, it's suddenly not okay? I don't think Paul would even try to compare Kanye, as an artist or as a man, with John. Different musical styles, plus Kanye wasn't even thought of when Love Me Do went into the charts.

Paul talked about sitting with Kanye and discussing how he wrote Let It Be, us Beatles fans are familiar with the dream that Paul had about his late mother Mary coming to him in a dream "speaking words of wisdom". This resonated with Kanye to the point where he told Paul "I'm going to write a song with my mother" and the result was the track 'Only One', which featured Macca on Piano.

We all know Kanye's ego tends to get a little ahead of him sometimes and this has caused a lot of people to deride him and dismiss him, with good cause. When I heard that Kanye was the one who reached out to Paul though, I knew he wasn't all hot air. I mean, most of us, if we could, would try to work with Paul McCartney, wouldn't we? He was one of the Beatles for crying out loud! Not only that but his body of work puts most other artists, including Kanye, to shame.

There are also reports that Paul has been working on something with Lady Gaga, although after his collaboration with Kanye, I doubt that many will bat an eyelid about that one.

Or will they? We shall see.