I felt just a little left behind when I began hearing about all the fuss over the new Beatles: Get Back documentary that's now appearing on the DisneyPlus streaming service. I did check out several Youtubers' comments to get a feel for how good the doc is, so I could make a proper decision about whether to re-activate my Disney account just to watch this. As it turned out, everyone who talked about Get Back online was a Beatles fan to begin with, so they found the documentary fascinating, if not great from start to finish.
My two CD bootlegs of the music, in various forms, produced in the Get Back
sessions in 1969, intended for what would become the Let It Be album.
I really only waited about a week or so after it first aired to finally get on board. I began my Beatles journey on a Friday, immediately after I got home from work. While I wasn't held rapt to the thing for long stretches, I could see that this was a golden opportunity to look into the minds and lives of the Beatles and their close associates as they created the songs that would be played in their "big" upcoming performance and appear both in a film and on an album. So I knew I was in it for the long haul, and broke up those three marathon episodes (2.5 to 3 hours per episode) into several viewing sessions. And I completed the whole near-eight hour thing over the course of that weekend. The final hour or so was the culmination of all that goofing around and - late in the game - hard work to make things all come together.
I must admit that there were spells where I was, not bored, but kind of just existing with the Fab Four and their people in that room... watching and listening to their ideas and everyday chitchat. Thankfully, it wasn't a whole lot (very little, in fact) of technical mumbo-jumbo. The Beatles were somewhat unschooled, at least with formal theory training, in music, being mostly self-taught, learning songs by ear, and refining their skills through tons of practising and gigging. This meant that they spoke in very understandable words as they tossed ideas back and forth, hashing out songs bit by painstaking bit. I have only a small amount of music theory under my belt, most of it related to guitar only, so I easily got the gist of what they were talking about.
It was certainly an unbelievable undertaking putting this documentary together. I believe about sixty hours of film were shot and about 150 hours of audio recorded at the time (1969) and it was up to modern day director and producer Peter Jackson to whittle all that material down to the "tight" eight hours we ended up with. A labour of love, to be sure. Jackson had this on his To Do List for ages, and it took him nearly four years to edit the thing into something that viewers could digest without bursting their brains.
Get Back dispelled the notion that the Beatles hated each other by this point in time. Sure, there was a bit of drama, but it was mostly surrounding George's dissatisfaction with his part in things. And even that wasn't as big a deal as we thought it was prior to this fly-on-the-wall look at the reality of it. George, after his temporary quitting the band, came back with valuable musical contributions that saw some of his best work come to fruition. We didn't see any true nastiness from John and Paul toward George, or each other. George wanted to feel good about what he was doing, but also needed more of a democracy in the group, with less of Paul telling him what to play. A secret recording captured John revealing as much to Paul, and how he could cut George some slack and be a bit less of a "boss" in the band.
The shared leadership of The Beatles became more apparent here, too. John was the leader, at least historically, since Paul joined John's exisiting band in the early days. Over time, and especially in these 1969 development sessions, Paul stepped up to organize everyone and get the ball rolling... faster... since the clock was ticking and they hadn't produced much for weeks. But they all got on the same page eventually and hammered out some of their finest songs before the final bell.
Though it was cool to see producer George Martin hanging around in his tailored suits, enjoying some of the group's shenanigans and participating occasionally in musical ideas and technical set-up, it did seem odd that he was there so much, day in and day out. He and the recording engineers and other technical guys were ever-present, sometimes fiddling with wires or bringing in yet another new "toy"... ah, we've got the money, let's get another keyboard in here, sometimes sipping tea or pouring drinks for the band as they jammed and joked about.
Ringo was quietly in the background for pretty much the whole thing. He did pipe up once to announce that he had "farted. Just wanted to let you know". Over time, the boys began to bring their wives in to spend the days hanging out while they "worked". Yoko was there from day one, and though she definitely looked extremely out of place, an unnecessary presence in the room, she rarely spoke a word and never caused problems. I have to wonder if the other guys felt a bit put off by this extra body - not participating or part of their work - right up in their faces all the time. But no matter, Yoko wasn't the nuisance that I previously thought she was. At least during this filmed period of activity.
The arrival of Billy Preston was the game-changer. He casually dropped by one day and started jamming with the guys. When they got down to the song Get Back, a troublesome tune to develop, there was magic in the air. You could see and hear the room light up, and the expressions on all their faces said it all. The final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. Billy, the gifted pianist, was exactly what The Beatles needed to make that song - and others - really shine.
Get Back was informative and somewhat entertaining, though mainly for a major Beatles fan. A few friends of mine, only casual fans, lost steam after only one or two episodes. I totally understand that because these lengthy episodes are jam-packed with not very much going on. It's stuff only a true fan would lap up and fully appreciate. I've been a Beatle-head since I was a kid, collecting their music as well as reading many books about the band. Though I haven't been quite as rabid a fan as the decades wore on, my love of their music never went away, and since Get Back is something rare and special, I realized this was a long time coming and needed my attention. Peter Jackson's pristine film and audio restoration makes this look like it was shot yesterday, with all the latest technology. You feel like you are right there in the room with The Beatles.
I'm happy I watched The Beatles: Get Back, but I know I'll never drag myself through it again. It's just too damned long for what it is. Yes, it's an important document of what went down in the final days of the most famous and successful musicians of our time (all time?), but it didn't make for scintillating viewing. The final hour of the final episode was the culmination of all that sitting around, and made it worth the long wait. But once was enough for me. I've other Beatles stuff to watch and listen to. In fact, I plan to re-watch Ron Howard's excellent documentary, Eight Days A Week: The Touring Years, sometime soon. Also a passion project, this captures the excitement of The Beatles on the road... on planes, abroad, on-stage... before they quit performing live and became exclusively a studio band.
Fab Four forever!
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