The Beatles: Get Back--Inspiring, frustrating, and could Paul not get a left hander?

[reeve21]

I really wish Billy was alive to see this movie come out.

His solo performance of an old tune I can't remember the name of right now was a highlight. In fact they ran it again over the credits.

Get Back was a song waiting to be born, and Billy delivered it.

[MrDB]

Like a lot of people I was surprised at how unorganized and unfocused they were. One would think that if they were going to get together to record an album that they would have got together at someone's house a few times to flesh out some song ideas prior to getting in the studio.

A few minutes of working on a song and then off on some tangent goofing around on covers or just acting silly, all while a dozen people are getting paid to help them record an album. I guess when you have truckloads of money none of that matters.

Then there is the movie director thinking what a great idea it would be to film a concert at seaside ruins in Libya, not thinking for a moment about the logistics of getting the band, the equipment, and an audience to that location in 3 weeks time. Not a critical thinker that fellow.

And finally they can't decide about a location for a live show to the point they run out of options and stage it on a rooftop in London. In January.

I enjoyed it very much just to see the whole thing come together, very interesting to say the least.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Let's be a little realistic about whether the Beatles were really 90% goofing, 10% working. Jackson had 60 hours of footage over 22 days. Granted there were weekends and several days where no work was done due to drama (like George leaving). We were presented around 8 hours.

Many here talk about how they found some (a lot) of it boring. That's certainly their right. But I think Jackson wanted to focus on the environment and emotional swings of the band rather than just showing take after take after take (which I presume comprises a significant portion of the unseen 52+ hours).

How many takes did they do? Well listen to the words straight from the horse's mouth:

It's just an 11 minute clip and it's the Abbey Road/Let It Be portion of the interview with Sir George Martin, the Let It Be questions start at the 3m18s mark. At 5m53s he points out John's demand about making an "honest album with no overdubs" and he references a song (unnamed) taking up to 53 takes.

Now did we want a documentary of them doing 53 takes of a song because they wanted to get it right with no editing?

[seannx]

Watched part two tonight. Am really enjoying the content, and watching them have so much fun. The segment about their trip to India is so good, with Paul commenting about how the time with the Maharishi was kind of like being in school, and the movie clips.

[jricc]

Originally Posted by LakewoodM32Fan

Let's be a little realistic about whether the Beatles were really 90% goofing, 10% working. Jackson had 60 hours of footage over 22 days. Granted there were weekends and several days where no work was done due to drama (like George leaving). We were presented around 8 hours.

Many here talk about how they found some (a lot) of it boring. That's certainly their right. But I think Jackson wanted to focus on the environment and emotional swings of the band rather than just showing take after take after take (which I presume comprises a significant portion of the unseen 52+ hours).

How many takes did they do? Well listen to the words straight from the horse's mouth:

It's just an 11 minute clip and it's the Abbey Road/Let It Be portion of the interview with Sir George Martin, the Let It Be questions start at the 3m18s mark. At 5m53s he points out John's demand about making an "honest album with no overdubs" and he references a song (unnamed) taking up to 53 takes.

Now did we want a documentary of them doing 53 takes of a song because they wanted to get it right with no editing?

Yes 53 takes, but a lot of those takes were the Beatles learning the songs. Remember, the original premise of the Get Back project was to present new songs from the writing stage, learning them and then performing them live. Nobody had done that before. Years later, Jackson Browne did the performing new songs live before anyone had heard them with the Running on Empty album.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Right. My point was that people see the movie and think the Beatles were mostly horsing around most of the time and I contend we are shown the less serious parts because that served the narrative of a documentary, but that they actually did do a lot of hard work on writing and recording the songs. As evidenced by Martin’s comments.

[619TF]

Originally Posted by LakewoodM32Fan

Right. My point was that people see the movie and think the Beatles were mostly horsing around most of the time and I contend we are shown the less serious parts because that served the narrative of a documentary, but that they actually did do a lot of hard work on writing and recording the songs. As evidenced by Martin’s comments.

If you want to see less "horsing around" then watch the original Let It Be movie. A little bit of fun but mostly focused on infighting and the self destruction of what was the world's greatest band at that time. A little less boring but far more tragic than PJ's version.

[Bob from Brooklyn]

I've heard soundbites from the EMI recording sessions but I don't think I've seen any video. I think this was a different environment from the EMI days especially while they were still touring.

[ghostnote]

A lot of it was mundane, like a work day that any of us might have - because that's what it was for them - a month of workdays. There were lots of little things here and there that were, in addition to the music, interesting. One little thing that lasted about 3 seconds cracked me up: at one point Linda's daughter grabbed a mic and started screeching into it. Instantly, John says, "Yoko!" I laughed out loud. It was also a little reminder that John was not oblivious to what Yoko actually sounded like, despite being blinded by love.
Overall, I loved the documentary. I thought it was a nice window into the life of a great band who delivered the goods under duress.

[Maicobmw]

I could've done without Yoko's caterwauling, but on the other hand that was part of the reality. Fortunately someone had the good sense to give her some paint and a brush to keep her otherwise occupied. Had a good laugh when in Pt. 1 George almost dropped his guitar but makes a nice save.

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Paleolith54

Like Twain, Lennon gets credit for things he never said. This is one of them.

Here's one source, there are lots of them out there.

https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/bea...-best-drummer/

Thank you for the education. I'd heard that quote attributed to Lennon years ago and I stupidly swallowed it whole. Something of a good thing to learn it wasn't so.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Also, while obviously the Beatles knew they were being recorded (it was their idea and they hired the director and film crew)...they did have moments where either they didn't know they were recorded (hidden mics, or unmanned cameras with the red recording light taped off) or thought they had figured out a way to have private conversations by strumming their instruments loudly to drown out their voices, so not everything we see is them "playing to the camera".

Check out the 3 minute mark of this interview with Peter Jackson on the Colbert Show. There's actually 4 or 5 segments of which this is the last, they're all worth a watch if you're interested in how PJ made certain decisions.

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by Hiro

Thank you for the education. I'd heard that quote attributed to Lennon years ago and I stupidly swallowed it whole. Something of a good thing to learn it wasn't so.

Certainly not stupid, I repeated it myself before I learned differently. I now check practically any quote I see. Like this one that keeps being incorrectly attributed to Hunter Thompson:

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”

[FrankHudson]

I finished it today, taking it in several 30-90 minute sessions, which the film's "day by day" overall structure made easy to do. In an early post in this thread I was already laughing at jokes about how long it'd be, Now, though I can see how that length won't be to everyone's taste, I appreciated the length. I think I could have cut an hour to two without harming it, but then I didn't do the movie and who knows what I'd find out if I tried.

I'm not a huge Beatles fan, but I've read a lot of rock bios and accounts, and there was stuff I didn't know. I didn't appreciate how versatile the group was with instruments. How much John played bass on these sessions. That John played the slide on "For You Blue." That George and even Ringo could hack a bit on piano. That it looks to me that Linda Eastman is playing a spare little two finger organ part on the take of "Don't Let Me Down" that ended up being on the "Get Back" single. That when George Martin asks Paul McCartney to try his Rickenbacker bass instead of the Hofner Paul pulls out what appears to be a flipped over right hand model -- and Paul seems have problems with the E string slipping out of the (presumably) still cut for a much smaller diameter G string nut slot! Couldn't anyone have setup his bass for left-handed playing? And then briefly on one take we see Paul quickly pickup George's famous rosewood Telecaster and play it upside down still strung righty -- which some left players usually do (Albert King for one) but McCartney didn't, and he just adapted on the fly. That George may have been trying to get more slower reflective numbers that he wrote in the mix, but anytime he was asked to play on a rockabilly number those high tempo licks were still in him and they came pouring back out. Lennon who was lobbying for the more rock'n'roll numbers earlier seemed to come alive when the move to the Apple basement, and then was flagging again just before the rooftop show and wondering how many songs he had energy to sing.

So lots of detail stuff for the gear and trivia obsessed, like us forum actives, but overall the human story of the folks in the room came through over the running time. Over the 8 hours you really think you've come to know them, at least in that time of their lives. I think Jackson edited to tell that story, and yes, the tedium and the grind was necessary to allow us to see that they could be worn down and having good as well as bad days like the rest of us.

[Cameron_Talley]

I'm not a Beatles fan at all, so I wasn't even familiar with the song Get Back. But I found the documentary fascinating, just as a look at someone's creative process. Not to mention group dynamics--it would be a fascinating study for a college class.