A few more words on the Beatles- Get Back and Let It Be

I took on and finally finished the near eight hour Peter Jackson helmed Beatles documentary The Beatles: Get Back. 

As a teen, I loved 1982s The Compleat Beatles- the Malcolm McDowell narrated biography that has since been replaced by newer media. In many ways, my complaint about Get Back is that I would love to have seen it as a narrated story. That’s not Jackson’s goal. He wants to present these 21 days with minimal intrusion. 

 This doc has been covered extensively but I do want to add my thoughts. As the biggest band in the world, you can’t blame the Beatles for wanting to do something magnificent as they discuss a concert in front of the Sphinx, Primrose Hill, Parliament or in Asia. There surely is something to those bizarre “Rattle and Hum” moments like making a movie where you play gangsters, farmers and knights or filming your rehab and band’s therapy session. Equally, one can feel that any band surely would just rather make music than something grandiose (and surely even more so if you had been recently forced into some Ken Kesey bus role play ) 

Famously, we know that George briefly quits the band. To an outsider, it seems they surely could have talked it out. Surely, the cameras and pressure and having your songs pushed to the side would do a number on anyone. Lennon suggests (probably not seriously) that they can replace George with Eric Clapton. As often occurs in these types of stories, one wonders if a hiatus would have solved some issues. (The answer here most likely is that the band was chartering new territory and the idea likely never popped into their heads coupled with the animosity of the ensuing years). 

 I think the one thing everyone picks up on is the presence of Yoko. It’s clear that teenage John and Paul did everything together as but as inevitably they grew, they started to share their songs first with their girlfriends before bringing them to each other. It’s nothing nefarious. It’s surely the natural evolution of any young band. This doc debunks the Evil Yoko myth we have heard for decades but we do see politics starting to pull apart the seams. Paul and John play to their stereotype. Paul the hard working musician with his eye on the prize. He creates the song “Get Back” in literally a matter of minutes. John is the creative dreamer who probably needs to be reigned in. To be fair, I like both but it feels like they’re solo careers bear this out even more The transition to “Paul McCartney and the Beatles” is probably a story that comes up in a lot of bands breakups. 

Another thing most everyone brings up is how things seem to improve when Billy Preston shows up. It is interesting to ponder how adding someone like Preston might have changed the sound of the band had progressed. I suppose the biggest revelation of the doc is just how music is made in the studio (in this case, specifically the Beatles in the late 60s). Hard work, boredom, jams, laughter, creativity.

I thought I should next watch the now restored and re-released (and maybe now redundant) 1970 Let It Be film (now added to Disney +). Again, without some background narrative, it feels a bit formless. The contemporary criticism may have been on the money. It is just footage of the band in the studio. Not that doesn’t hold any interest in itself. I have said I am not a fan of the bands later work but listening to it again, I feel like it would be similar to complaining about Achtung Baby or Metallica’s black album. The band is anticipating the music of the next decade and chose to change to the future instead of staying in the past. The finale of course is the rooftop concert which we know would be the last performance. 

Let It Be transitions with no explanation. We know from Get Back that the concert was the final decision to get something done before the studio time was up. The crowd reaction is quite fun. It’s happening in real time and there isn’t that gravity of the situation which would be added with time.