According to Peter Asher, that is not quite true.
Asher is still making the rounds, playing shows with long time friend Jeremy (from Chad and Jeremy). Asher told the story at a recent show:
McCartney was dating his sister, who was still living at home in her parents house (as was Asher). Paul, who would occasionally spend the night, was tinkering around on the piano working on "A World w/o Love". He played it for Asher, and Asher liked it.
Some time went by, Asher was now recording his first album and needed one more song. The next time he saw Paul, Asher asked how that song was coming along. Paul said he had stopped working on it, because "John hated it" and did not want to record it.
Asher said he needed one more song for his album and asked Paul if he could record it. Paul agreed, but said he needed to finish the bridge because it was not right.
He later completed the bridge and Asher recorded the song.
The song was written for the Beatles, but rejected by John
Which was a key to the success of The Beatles (at least up to The White Album), John and Paul were good at filtering out the other’s crap.
McCartney wrote “A World Without Love,” or at least most of it, when he was 16. By anybody else’s standards it would be considered a perfect pop song, but on the scale of his own work it was just OK, more of a “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” than a “Penny Lane.” Lennon vetoed it for the Beatles. “John didn’t think much of the song, so Paul hadn’t even finished it apart from the two verses,” says Asher. “I remember having to ask him a couple of times to finish it. Finally, he did it on the spot. He took his guitar into his room for an annoyingly short seven or eight minutes, and then came out with the bridge, which was perfect.”
Peter and Jeremy give a GREAT show. If they ever come to town again, we will go again. It was soooo much fun!