Well, not to be disagreeable, but if you look at quality and quantity of songs written by either John or Paul, you come away with an admiration for the number of quality songs Paul wrote relative to John. All of this writing was done in a very compressed period of time. I agree, that when the two separated, neither wrote much to match their previous output, but I chalk that up to them being exhausted and played out. It was at the end of the bands string that George really started showing up with his own songs. I am convinced he got his songs recorded because John’s production was simultaneously dropping and they needed to fill an album. My feeling is that John was pretty much played out by the White Album and Paul and to a lesser extent George provided the bulk of the new material on the last two albums. My opinion - just saying.
I think I agree with your assessment. John was definitely distracted by a lot of things toward the end. As has been said by many others, the Beatles really quit being a band at least a couple of years before they officially broke up. They were all tired of the whole thing.
I agree that on their later records, George started becoming more notable in his compositions. His first solo album, “All Things Must Pass” was his best, in my opinion. After that, not too much interested me in George’s music. Both Paul and John put out some junky albums in the first few years after their break-up.
Your point about John being exhausted is probably true. Didn’t he kind of drop out of the music scene for few years prior to his release of “Double Fantasy”? It seems like he did. I really liked several of his songs on that album - there was a freshness of style. It was such a tragedy what happened to him. I think he was coming out of much of his “angry-political-stupid” phase.
As to Paul, I loved his writing when he was in the Beatles. His solo albums were all pretty disappointing to me. There are maybe a couple of decent songs per album and even those never seemed to match his earlier output.
I miss those Beatle years in the early sixties - when it all was just fun and exciting. It truly is amazing how they grew musically over their career. Kids today are rediscovering them and still love their sound.
Ok, I’ve gone on too long - thanks for the discussion.