Though they typically kept it light, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had a rivalry in their heyday that echoes in their respective fandoms to this day. There wasn’t any major fueding, and they ultimately respected each other. However, there were a few occasions when their beef was taken seriously. There was one night when Paul McCartney purposefully attempted to upstage The Stones at their own party.

The Night the Beatles Upstaged the Rolling Stones

The Stones were gearing up to release Beggars Banquet in the late ’60s when they hosted a party at a club owned by their friend, Tony Sanchez. The album played in its entirety for the a-list invitees. It was proving to be a rousing success until McCartney walked in.

McCartney reportedly went up to Sanchez, who was in charge of the music, and nonchalantly handed over one of the greatest songs ever written, “Hey Jude.”

“Hey Jude”

“As Paul walked in, everybody was leaping around to Beggars Banquet, which was far and away the best album of The Stones’ career,” Sanchez once said. “Paul discreetly handed me a record and said, ‘See what you think of it, Tony. It’s our new one.’”

“I stuck the record on the sound system and the slow thundering build-up of ‘Hey Jude’ shook the club,” he continued. “I turned the record over, and we all heard John Lennon’s nasal voice pumping out ‘Revolution.’”

Though they didn’t have the context we do of how successful “Hey Jude” would become, everyone in attendance felt its power in the moment.

“So there we all were, having a wonderful time, and in strolls Paul McCartney—a little smile on his lips, hands behind his back,” ’60s icon Marianne Faithfull added elsewhere. “‘What have you got, Paul?’ we cried out. ‘Oh, nothing, really,’ says he. [He then] put on Hey Jude. It was the first time anyone had heard it and we were all blown away.”

Everyone was on board with the surprise single release, except Mick Jagger. “When it was over, I noticed that Mick looked peeved,” Sanchez added. “The Beatles had upstaged him.”

Beatles PR officer Tony Barrow said to that point elsewhere, calling the move a “wicked piece of promotional one-upmanship.”

In that moment, Jagger felt the weight of the Beatles’ songwriting. Though there was always a sense of healthy competition between the two bands, in Jagger’s point of view, there was really no winning against the Beatles—as evidenced by this night.

“They were so big that to be competitive with them was impossible,” Jagger once said. “They were huge…they were The Beatles.” He continued, “They were this forerunning, breakthrough item, and that’s hard to overestimate.”

(Photo by Roy Cummings/THA/Shutterstock)