Get Back

 

I finished watching “Get Back”, the three episode documentary miniseries by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, broadcast on Disney+ Channel over the Thanksgiving weekend.  I followed that up with listening to Let It Be…Naked and watching my pirate DVD copy of ”Let It Be”, the movie. 

First, a timeline of the End of the Beatles, 1968-1970.

November 22, 1968, saw release of the self-titled double album, better known as the White Album.  Beyond Sgt Pepper, the White Album is my favorite Beatles album, which I’ve already blogged about.  But the Beatles weren’t done yet: they had not one but TWO more albums in store for us. 

December 11-12, 1968.  Rolling Stones Rock N’Roll Circus.  Recorded then but not commercially released until 1996.  The story is the Stones were upset that their performance was exceeded by the other bands.  Jethro Tull performed "A Song For Jeffrey”, with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi wearing a hat and playing a left handed Stratocaster.  The Who performed “A Quick One”.  Then the Stones themselves, still with Brian Jones, playing a set heavily laden with songs from Beggars’ Banquet, the last Stones album with Brian Jones.  Set:  Jumping Jack Flash; Parachute Woman; No Expectations; You Can’t Always Get What You Want; Sympathy For the Devil, plus Salt of the Earth as the outro music.   My subjective impression is that the Stones held their own with everyone, including The Who.

The Beatles angle is that John Lennon and Yoko Ono participated in this, teaming up with Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell for a one-off band called Dirty Mac, playing “Yer Blues” – for which Clapton doesn’t come close to the impressive studio solo - and “Whole Lotta Yoko”, quickly forgotten.  Moreover, the entire premise inspired the “Let It Be” project.  Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed this, also directed the “Let It Be” project the following month. 

January 13, 1969.  Yellow Submarine soundtrack album came out the month later.  The first side was simply outtakes, (“Only A Northern Song”, “All Together Now”, “Hey Bulldog” and “It’s All Too Much”) combined with the title track, which had originally appeared on Revolver (1966).   The second side was George Martin’s classical music soundtrack to the movie.  As a result, no recording sessions existed (or were necessary) for this album. 

January 8-30, 1969.  Let It Be recording sessions, ending in the rooftop concert on January 30.  The plan was for the band to rehearse and write the next album on film, under the looking glass, and perform the finished album live somewhere. 

Part 1.  Twickenham.  The first attempt was made on a soundstage at Twickenham film studios.  This was a large, cold and bleak room - and not a recording studio.  The band was surrounded by cameras and didn’t appear comfortable, though surprisingly they did get some work done.

Part 2.  Apple studio.  George Harrison quit the band abruptly, only persuaded to return by the collective agreement to move the whole business to the Apple recording studio - in the basement of the Apple offices, in downtown London - where it belonged, albeit still being filmed.  Billy Preston stopped by and helped out on keyboards, his presence truly bringing a smile to everyone and supercharging their productivity.  Overall the band seemed to work much better in the studio.  As before, they had the benefit of George Martin's assistance, although by this time the band was far more accomplished, and the intentionally bare bones recording effort made his expertise less crucial than it had been earlier.  

Part 3. Rooftop concert.  As to where the final concert would occur, different ideas – some more practical than others – were discussed.  An outdoor show in Libya seemed to be the most ambitious choice, but we all know the band eventually wound up performing on the roof of the building itself on January 30.  They didn’t play the entire album, from start to finish, and repeated some songs more than once.   As such it's more a live rehearsal of mostly finished songs than a true concert, especially since the only "audience" on the roof itself, aside from the band and their associates, were the handful of London policemen there to shut the whole thing down....eventually. Setlist:  Get Back (First Take), Get Back (Second Take), Don’t Let Me Down (First Take), I’ve Got A Feeling (First Take), One After 909, Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling (Second Take), Don’t Let Me Down (Second Take), Get Back (Third Take).  Of these, “I’ve Got A Feeling” (first take), “One After 909” and “Dig A Pony” as performed and recorded on this occasion wound up on the Let It Be album. 

July 2 – August 20, 1969.  Abbey Road studio sessions.  Much of the material was developed while working on Let It Be in January.  In late February and early May, more work was done, with the final sessions occurring between July 2 and August 20, 1969.  Those were at Abbey Road Studio, also in London, and not the Apple Studio.  In fact, that studio was somewhat hastily put together, and in 1971 it was refurbished to more modern specifications by Geoff Emerick.  As for Abbey Road Studio itself, formerly EMI Studio, it was where not only Abbey Road (after which it was renamed) was recorded in summer 1969, but also Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and both Piper At the Gates of Dawn (recorded at the same time as Sgt Pepper) but also Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd, of course, and can thus be seen during the studio sequences of “Live at Pompeii”.   For that matter, Alan Parsons worked on Let It Be, Abbey Road, and Dark Side of the Moon  [Another little fact:  McCartney’s long time girlfriend Jane Asher married Gerald Scarfe, who did the animation for “Pink Floyd The Wall”]. 

August 22, 1969.  Tittenhurst park photo session, two days after the album’s recording was completed.  By this time Lennon has a full beard, George and Ringo have beards instead of mustaches, and Paul, the only one in January 1969 with a beard, is clean shaven.  The pictures from this session wound up on Hey Jude, a Capital records collection of the later B-sides which eventually wound up on Past Masters Vol 2. 

September 14-16, 1969.  Last meeting of the Beatles together.  They bickered back and forth.  On September 20, they met again, minus George, who was out of town.  John announced he was leaving the band, effectively disbanding the Beatles.

September 26, 1969.  Abbey Road released.

January 3, 1970.   Paul, George and Ringo had one last recording session, working on “I Me Mine”.  John was in Denmark with Yoko.  This marks the final end to the band. 

May 1970.  Let It Be released.   Phil Spector took the tapes and gave us the album as we know it, doing so without any input from the band, after it had effectively disbanded.  Until Let It Be…Naked came out much later, this was our main way of thinking of these last songs. 

In addition to the album, the movie documentary was also released at the same time.  It comes in at around an hour and a half.  It was released on VHS in the 80s, but never officially released on DVD – so my copy in that format is a bootleg.  After watching all three episodes of “Get Back”, I watched this again.  An hour and 20 minutes, it starts with the Twickenham sessions (January 8) and ends with the rooftop concert (January 30).  The time period of the movie (January 8-30, 1969) is covered again in the “Get Back” documentary.   

November 2003.  Let It Be…Naked is released.   This stripped off the Phil Spector overproduction, removed “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae”, added “Don’t Let Me Down” (recorded during the Let It Be sesssions but omitted by Spector from the final product – it wound up as a B-side to “Get Back”), and changed the running order of the songs.  The CD has a second disc which strings together audio portions, both music and dialogue. 

Soundwise, I have no preference between the two, and actually like the so-called “overproduction” on some of these songs, even if it does betray the original intent of the band to keep it simple and straightforward.  In terms of song selection, I prefer the Naked version. 

When the dust clears, we find the ultimate result of the Let It Be Project turned out to be the following:  A free rooftop concert in London on January 30, 1969; the Abbey Road album, released in September 1969; the Let it Be album, released in May 1970; the “Let It Be” movie, released decades later on VHS; Let It Be…Naked, released in 2003; and this “Get Back” documentary, albeit not by the band itself. 

Peter Jackson Get Back documentary.  Here are my observations on that.

Far better visual quality than the “Let It Be” movie, though that’s not surprising – my basis for comparison was a DVD copied from VHS.  But here we can see all four of them, the instruments they’re playing, the skin on their faces, the hair on their heads, etc.  It’s like night and day.

Of course, it’s much longer, each of three episodes far longer than the 1.5 hours of the original film:  a total of 468 minutes – 4 hours and 48 minutes, just short of 5 hours.  But the captions explain what’s going on, tracking progress on a day by day basis, from January 8 through January 31 (a brief wrap up after the rooftop concert) whereas the 1970 movie simply transitions from soundstage to studio abruptly – and back again, really just compiling everything together in a continuous array of sequences with no captions or explanations.  The linear structure is yet another major benefit of the “Get Back” documentary.

Dig It.  Part of a much longer jam session in the studio with Billy Preston.  The part which wound up on the album was the least interesting part of the whole thing. 

Yoko not a problem.  From what I could see, she simply sat next to John and kept her mouth shut.  If this was modern day she would be on her cell phone nonstop Twittering away.  I didn’t see her telling John or the others what to do, though obviously we’re not privy to their private conversations.  Moreover, Yoko’s permission was required to make this whole thing work, and there were more than 50 hours which were not included. 

Heather & Linda.  American accents!  Amusing to hear them speak.  Heather was very cute – especially surprising Ringo on the drums. 

Paul.  Mainly he’s using his Hofner bass (left handed, of course).  When he’s on the piano, bass is handled on a (right handed) Fender Bass VI by John or George.  I was surprised to see John and George on the piano, instead of just Paul.  John seems to play his Epiphone Casino (white) exclusively. 

George’s guitars.   Red 1957 Gibson Les Paul Standard ("Lucy").   Rosewood Fender Telecaster.  MMT-painted 1961 Fender Stratocaster.  No sign of his 1964 Gibson SG. 

Amps.  All Fender, including some Twin Reverbs.  Since they were new amps, they are the late 60s CBS era silverface.  There’s also the hammer and anvil for “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.

Fifth Beatle.  This has been going on for ages.  Billy Preston (guest keyboardist on Let It Be) and George Martin (longtime producer) have strong advocates for the position.  My own take is that only Stuart Sutcliffe, bassist back in the Hamburg days, has a compelling case for being the “fifth” Beatle, as reluctant as he may have been.  John’s explicit assertion to the contrary notwithstanding, although Preston did play with them in the studio AND upstairs on the roof, and he was part of the Abbey road sessions in July and August for “Something” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, the band broke up in September anyway.  He’s as much a “fifth Beatle” as Admiral Karl Donitz was the Fuhrer of the Third Reich.   George Martin has as strong a case, but he was the producer.  Was Terry Brown the “Fourth Rush”?  Sandy Pearlman the Sixth Blue Oyster Cultist?  Martin Birch the Sixth Maiden?  Including a producer as a band member, no matter how important, seems a stretch.  For that matter, make Brian Epstein the Fifth Beatle, or Peter Grant the Fifth Zeppelin.  Enough already. 

Rooftop show.   During normal business hours, so the stock brokers and solicitors on the street below could hear and complain.  Note:  we take all these songs for granted, but since Let It Be wasn’t released until May 1970, this was the first anyone outside the band would have heard these songs.  It’s remarkable how many people down on the street, hearing but not seeing could still recognize it as the Beatles making this music/noise.  Noise complaints from Stones fans below brought the police on the scene, but to Ringo's dismay, no one was arrested.

Much of Abbey Road written during these sessions, albeit initial versions, fleshed out more during the later sessions in July and August.  It looks like they wound up with multiple recordings of the different Let It Be songs, plus the live recording of the rooftop show. 

The band was splitting apart but still able to operate together, albeit more so when shifted over to the recording studio instead of the Twickenham soundstage.   They screw around fairly often but still manage to get work done. 

Speculation.  I don’t care to discuss why the band broke up, an issue which became moot when John was shot in New York City in December 1980.  Same deal with “what if they continued,” “what if they just took a break and got back later”, etc. etc.  As for their solo careers, I’ve only heard All Things Must Pass, “Imagine” & “Give Peace A Chance”, and the first disc of McCartney’s recent Citifield show (Good Evening New York City) (2009), which is 90% solo material, presumably the strongest of his work from McCartney (first solo album) through Memory Almost Full (2007).  None of that comes close to the Beatles’ material together as a band.  Lennon & McCartney, as well as George and Ringo, no longer enjoyed the benefit of each other’s input and assistance when writing their solo material.  This was one band where the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.