The Beatles: Get Back - Part One
I just got back from a freezing windy trip to Sainsburys to buy a packet of Digestives.
These days there is a much wider variety of biscuit and cake offerings than there was in the 70s England of my childhood, when I first savoured a McVities, but somehow today after watching ‘Get Back’ part one with a good friend and fellow Beatles fan, the humble digestive seems more appropriate accompaniment to my afternoon tea, seeing as such basic fayre was clearly a staple part of the diet of the Fab Four, along with copious cups of tea, what looks like orange squash in wine glasses and fish ‘n’ chips. It seemed almost wrong to indulge in a packet of Jules Destrooper Almond Thins, lost as I currently am mentally, somewhere in 1969.
On the way back from Sains I ducked into the Record Shop to have a chat about the documentary. The shop was very busy and it seemed half of the people in there had seen part one sometime over the last two days and everyone including me was buzzing from it and couldn’t wait to share their thoughts and feelings. We were all talking about it as though it were last night's latest instalment of some really popular reality TV show; the incredible restoration job on the visuals and audio certainly helped make it feel like it was all far more recent than 50+ years ago and there is some serious technology that has helped to erase these decades. If this were attempted even 10 years ago, it would not be of this near magical quality. Demixing mono is something Apple’s electronic wizard ‘Magic Alex’ may have been capable of dreaming of, but not much more.
It was way back in 1980 when I first saw the original Let It Be film on television, watched intently with my mum and brother. Back then I saw the Beatles as proper grown ups and probably thought they knew everything about everything and were completely mature; Watching it last night I was struck by how youthful they all seemed, in body and mind, that they are actually, contrary to what my 7 year old self thought, not people who have all the answers, but ones who are finding their way in life as most 20 somethings, famous or otherwise are. There are definitely some echoes of playground politics at play, teasing, taking sides, bullying and upset (It’s no secret that there were tensions and that first Michael Lindsay-Hogg cinema release film had an bleak tone overall,) but there is also joy and wonderful creativity being born before our very eyes and ears.
An example of said creativity: George comes in one morning, he plays a song that he says he wrote last night ‘I Me Mine’. It's a brilliant song and no doubt he was excited to debut it. (I wonder, did he just write this sat on the sofa with the telly on in the background. If only the film crew had followed them home).
His fellow bandmates however, are quite dismissive of it, Lennon half joking that ‘we are a rock n roll group’ and there wasn’t a place for this waltz.
Paul’s songs seem to get the most consideration, refining and rehearsal time although they seem to switch between half crafted songs so often, those finished tracks that we hear played so well and definitively up on the roof of 3 Savile Row not too long after, seem far from complete and they can barely get through a song without larking about, singing in silly voices or changing the lyrics almost as though they are misbehaving in the school choir.
The Beatles clearly didn't know their own songs anything like as well as we all know them now. At one point Paul is trying to recall a past song of theirs that sounds like a new riff he is working on, but they all struggle to place it. At one point he does say he listened back to Sgt Pepper’s last night, but I can well imagine they hadn’t spent much time playing back Beatles records at home.
They would have recorded these post-touring era songs in the studio, probably never played them again and rarely heard them since. I may have heard Magical Mystery Tour many hundreds if not thousands of times and know it off by heart, and no doubt many fans at the time would have too, but nobody in the band would likely be anywhere near as au fait with their own work.
They seem, thankfully, far more interested in creating something new and clearly have more material than could go on one album, we hear early versions of Abbey Road songs as well as Paul, John and George future solo works.
How could they be so creative we might ask? I think a big part of it is 'less is more', in terms of the distractions offered by that era.
In 1969, there were far fewer distractions. Smartphones, tablets, mobile phones, video game consoles, none of these existed. There are many sections of footage where one or more of them look bored, with nothing much to do, but they are all to some degree, engaged. Nobody is mentally detached by tending to their Instagram account. I always think that boredom gets a bad rap, boredom can lead to creativity.
Part one takes place at Twickenham studios. Cavernous, probably freezing (January in England) bad acoustics and not conducive to harmony in more than one sense of the word.
At least it was well ventilated, anyone under 40 might be astonished by the near constant smoking of cigarettes in the film. Not just the band, all the staff. It could easily be sponsored by Rothmans. Talking of the various staff and assistants, it’s quite notable how most of them are nowhere near ‘hip’ and most of them don’t look like creatives in any way we think of now. Nearly all men, they look like they would be at home working on the railways or in an insurance office, not with the coolest cats in town.
Part two will see the move to a more intimate studio setting, the arrival of Billy Preston who adds a new exciting dimension, quite likely many more cigarettes, more drama and more glorious creativity.
Break out the Digestives.
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