The Beatles: Get Back

I was offered a review copy of The Beatles: Get Back to accompany the TV documentary about them. I absolutely don’t like The Beatles, but my brother Colin is a big fan… so I got it sent to him instead. And here are his thoughts – over to you, Col!

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“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

For over 50 years, it has not been enough for Beatles fans to know the songs: we have to know about the songs, and what was happening when the songs were written, and where, and why, and how they changed along the way. Hey Jude? Originally conceived as Hey Jules, written by Paul about John’s son Julian while his parents were going through a divorce, but John thought it was about him, and Paul said it was actually about himself, too. Yesterday? The melody came to Paul in a dream, he asked everyone if they recognised it, and when no one did he started writing it as ‘Scrambled eggs / Oh my baby how I love your legs’. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite? Transcribed almost word for word by John from a circus poster. You get the picture.

These, and many more, have passed into Beatles lore, and while some are contested – was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds about LSD, or just about a picture Julian Lennon painted of his classmate? Was Blackbird really a subtle reference to the civil rights movement? – there is no doubting that the Beatles are the most talked-about band in history. And it’s not just the songs: almost every moment of their turbulent domination of the 1960s has produced its own legend, from Ringo learning how to play chess during the recording of Sgt. Pepper, to his rotating of his cymbals ninety degrees in case he was shot at in America, to his tendency when attempting to write tunes to inadvertently play whatever was in the charts at the time, to his suitcase full of baked beans, to his tonsillitis, to… well, again, you get the picture. And that’s just Ringo.

A huge part of the Beatles legend is, of course, their break-up. Every Beatles fan knows that Ringo left the band briefly during the recording of The Beatles (aka the White Album), returning to find his drum kit covered in flowers with a message saying he was the best drummer in the world (the line from John about him not even being the best drummer in the Beatles was – of course – never said by John; it was a Jasper Carrott joke). We know that George briefly departed during the Let It Be sessions; that John later broke up the band, calling it a ‘divorce’; and that Paul set the seal in the press release accompanying his album McCartney. And we all know that the recording of Let It Be was an acrimonious affair, filled with bitterness and backbiting (and Yoko), leading inevitably to the end of the Fab Four. That, at least, is the legend.

The Beatles, against the advice of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, have not printed the legend. Instead, with Peter Jackson’s 468 minute docuseries The Beatles: Get Back and this accompanying book – almost entirely a transcript of the series and credited as being ‘by the Beatles’ – the legend has been challenged. It is not the first time – the 2003 re-edit Let It Be… Naked included 22 bonus minutes of audio clips from the sessions, painting them in a more harmonious light – but it is by far the most comprehensive. Acrimony – what acrimony?

The docuseries comprises footage filmed by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for what was originally intended to be part of a TV special, but became the feature film Let It Be. That film was released in 1970 and is not currently officially available (about 15 years ago I watched a version that I thought I’d obtained legitimately); it was responsible for many of the legends that built up about the Beatles’ breakdown, perhaps the most famous of which being George telling Paul: “I’ll play whatever you want me to play, or I won’t play at all if you don’t want me to play.” That scene remains in place, and is there on p46 of the book, but even there a bit more context is given to show that, though clearly frustrated, both Paul and George were trying to do what they thought was best for each other and for the group.

In some quarters, the documentary has been criticised as concealing the true extent of the Beatle’s animosity, and it’s true that some elements either weren’t caught on camera or were deliberately omitted (John’s heroin addiction at the time is not properly covered, for example), but some of the criticism seems to stem from jealousy that the baton of the Beatles legend has been passed on. Philip Norman, biographer of the Beatles and previous keeper of the flame, complains that George and John’s fist fight is not included; this, though, is because it didn’t happen: the docuseries shows them laughing over fallacious reports of it at the time, and even talking about suing the reporter.

If the intention here was to show that everything was happiness and smiles, though, it has failed. The cavernous Twickenham studio where the Beatles were initially huddled seems to have been just as unhappy a setting as always imagined, with minimal productivity – lots of time is spent playing through old tunes and discussing the many and various plans for a concert that may be on a boat, or in Tripoli, or in the Houses of Parliament, but in fact will never actually materialise – and plenty of rancour. The Beatles: Get Back shows (which Let It Be didn’t) George quitting the Beatles, with the beautifully casual “I think I’ll be leaving the band now” (his famous “See you round the clubs” parting line was not caught by the microphones); it also makes clear why he was driven to that point, facing lectures from Paul and seeing his compositions disregarded while vast amounts of time were spent on other, lesser, songs. One particular scene shows him playing a rough version of I Me Mine, one of the standouts of the album, to almost no interest from John – who was offering the likes of Dig a Pony: a fun song, but not in the same league. Paul, of course, was producing all-time classics like Get Back, Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road, as well as trying to keep the band together.

The documentary does succeed, though, in showing that things weren’t as bad as the legend says. There is almost no fighting between John and Paul – one of the more surprising segments is a lengthy defence of Yoko’s permanent presence by the latter (“Let the young lovers stay together […] they just want to be near each other”) – and there is plenty of laughing and joking, even after Georg’s departure, and (following several crisis talks that were not recorded) after his return. It’s a cliché, but they really were like a family: they may have fought, and fought badly, but underneath it all they did love each other. Once they relocated to Abbey Road alongside keyboardist Billy Preston (there are some surprisingly serious conversations about inviting him to become the fifth Beatle), the atmosphere is palpably warmer. As, indeed, the legend has always said it was.

That, though, demonstrates one of the problems of the book, as opposed to the docuseries. It’s wonderful – for a Beatles fanatic – to see with your own eyes the intimate camaraderie of the Beatles, in beautifully remastered footage that looks like it was recorded yesterday; it is rather less wonderful to read it. Even the most dedicated Beatlemaniac will gain little joy from reading the likes of: ‘George: What sort of vegetables do you like?’ or ‘Yoko: I’m trying [the toast] without marmalade today, you know.’ Or, for example, when Peter Sellers comes to visit the set (he’s about to film The Magic Christian with Ringo), it’s incredibly awkward and he’s clearly embarrassed to be there, but none of that comes through in the text itself. And then, of course, there’s the music…

It is perhaps a little obvious to say that one of the main selling points of the docuseries is watching and hearing the Beatles make music together. While very little is created from scratch in the studio – each member of the band would start writing something at home, then bring it in to be developed – the most thrilling part of the series, musically speaking, is watching Paul putting together Get Back. He plays a few chords; it becomes recognisable; out of almost nothing comes a familiar favourite, which they will later return to over and over, perfecting it in time for their famous rooftop concert. It’s a beautiful moment that is not really fully captured by ‘Paul leads a very early version of ‘Get Back’’ (p53 of the book). This is a shortcoming that comes through time and time again in reading the book: The Beatles without the music are just four young men (all of them in their 20s) fighting a bit, laughing a bit, and climbing onto a roof.

The fascinating revelations are mostly still there – the eagerness with which the Beatles read their own press; George saying the group should ‘divorce’; Paul suggesting using strings for The Long and Winding Road long before Phil Spector was castigated for adding them – but we’ve already got them on the screen, and if I wanted them written down I could have done it myself. It’s difficult to understand what purpose the book is intended to serve: there’s no index, so it doesn’t even make it easier to track down particular conversations. It has beautiful pictures, but we’ve just had nearly eight hours of beautiful pictures, and those ones moved. We get a call sheet showing that the documentarians thought Mal Evans (the Beatles’ long-term roadie) was called Mel Evans; we get a slightly mystifying introduction from Hanif Kureishi, a playwright with no apparent connection to the project or to the Beatles, other than the fact that – like half the world – he’s a fan; we also get a foreword from Peter Jackson himself, who says: “When Apple Corps told me about this book, based on the transcribed audio conversations, I must admit was dubious […] the first time I read the book you hold in your hands, I realised how wrong I was.”

I’m afraid, Peter, that you were right the first time. The docuseries is fascinating (if overlong) and essential viewing for all Beatles fanatics; this book is, unfortunately, beautiful and unnecessary.