When I saw the Beatles movie “Let It Be” on its release in 1970, I left the theater depressed. It was a largely dour document about the recording of the album of the same name – the final long-player issued by the Fab Four, though they made it prior to Abbey Road, which, thankfully, provided a magnificent coda to the group’s magical career together. By year’s end, The Beatles were no longer a band.
Much media trumpeting has preceded director Peter Jackson’s three-episode documentary fashioned from the “Let It Be” footage, “The Beatles: Get Back.” It’s not exactly a revelation, per se, to a devoted Beatles buff like me, but certainly a sumptuous feast of behind-the-scrim moments that correct the historical record in satisfying ways and features a number of delightful scenes, tidbits and epiphanies.
The American debut of The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb. 6, 1964, about a month after my 10th birthday, was like a slingshot firing me off into what I can only conclude now was a fortunately-fated life well beyond my wildest dreams as a widely and prominently published music journalist who has also worked as a music business publicist, album producer, road manager, indie record label executive and consultant and more. Even for the millions of my fellow boomers, whose career path wasn’t as rock’n’roll as mine, The Beatles (along with all the music that followed) were life changing if not mind-and-soul altering alongside being a profound cultural force that also in some ways transfigured the world. Not bad for a rollicking two-guitar, bass and drums combo which could sing with spirit and harmonic elán, and had one of pop music’s finest songwriting teams at its core.
“Let It Be” exposed the rising cracks, fissures and conflicts that led to the band’s break-up. “Get Back” thankfully shows how also, even as the swirling flood waters of unprecedented fame and success churn away at the foursome’s foundations, the potent esprit de corps that The Beatles forged, playing hour after hour late into the next early morning in the rough’n’rowdy clubs along Hamburg’s Reepeebahn sin strip, plus nearly 300 shows at The Cavern Club back home in Liverpool that still crackled among the Fab Four.
The object was to record an album that was as live-in-the-studio as possible, and stage their first concert in three years as movie cameras were shooting all around them — get back to their origins and document the process. Once they move out of the cavernous Twickenham sound stage (which in the “Let It Be” film felt like watching paint not dry) and into the basement studio in the tony Saville Row townhouse that was the HQ for the group’s Apple Corps business operation, their lively lingo and banter, informed by the boho weirdo BBC radio comedy show, kicks in alongside their well-honed collaborative connectivity. Although the chinks in the armor of their media myth were growing larger – George Harrison even quit the band for a few days; yeah, Paul’s a wee bit pushy – we now see what the “Let It Be” movie left on the cutting room floor: a lively interplay among a band of near-brothers forged in the trenches of the second wave of rock’n’roll that The Beatles launched ‘round the globe.
It’s enlightening and often jolly good fun to witness the boys in action, albeit with the flashes of tensions. Yes, Yoko Ono was often seated right next to John Lennon, but was a largely silent and benign presence; no, she did not break up The Beatles. Linda McCartney was hanging around too (her daughter Heather deserves some kind of film award for Most Charming Chatterbox Child in a Documentary).
Those like me who deep dive into the playing and recording of music will find much to savor, such as John Lennon – generally the rhythm guitarist driving the band with his muscular chording while George usually took the leads – swooping and slipping around quite handily on lap steel guitar on Harrison’s song “For You Blue.” On that same song, paper was threaded through the strings of a grand piano to make it sound like an upright honky-tonk one.
And, by all rights, “Get Back” should finally silence any fools who still throw shade on Ringo’s drumming. Much like the late Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones, Ringo has a dead aim for the magical groove and the swing that the inherent hip sway in uptempo rock all but demands, and he tastily makes every fill, roll and percussive filigree serve the song (while, as a lefty playing a right-handed drum kit set-up, he always imprints his own trademark). Whenever the band starts a take, he’s right there.
The big winning moments here are the rooftop concert songs. It’s hard to not ponder “what if” the group had stayed active performers long enough to enjoy the advances in live music amplification and monitoring that lifted the stadium and arena shows from the drudgery that caused The Beatles to stop playing live. In the moments when they become the taut li’l combo that conquered the popular music world, there’s an infectious joie de vivre in their musical bond.
Some half a century after it was all filmed, “Get Back” still manages to enchant and delight, proving how the four Beatles and their music are eternally winning.
Musical Album: Let It Be (Super Deluxe) – The perfect companion to the “Get Back” movie: 45 tracks from the session with some cool mixes new and old, alternate takes, romps through some early rock gems and more.
TV Documentary: “Marketing the Messiah” – Alternating between comments by esteemed Biblical scholars and gently amusing animated snippets, this film is a superior education in how the New Testament was written and how Christianity grew from a small Jewish cult into a dominant global faith.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2022
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