![]() The Beatles by this point were the most famous band in the world, having left touring for years because they were unable to perform publicly in any kind of sensible way due to fan mania. It reminded me a bit of 2001 when one group of hominids touch the monolith and learn how to use tools & weapons: this was evolution happening RIGHT in front of your eyes! The cynic might say that the band were trying to get an album together in 2 weeks for a live performance, so any new shape was fair game… but in this case Get Back has gone on to become a mainstay of the catalogue and a cornerstone of musical culture, so it’s gripping to see it be born & grow up. Taking a chord shape, working it over, playing with it – then eventually hanging some words off of it. One of the biggest moments people have written about is the sequence where you’re watching McCartney write Get Back as it’s occurring to him and developing as an idea in his creative consciousness. For the most part she’s not really paying any attention to anything other than John – and certainly not interfering! There’s a couple of recordings of – ahem – “freakout jams” which, though not really to my taste, seem to indicate she was at least happy creating and interacting with the band. ![]() However watching this, all you see is – admittedly, odd – a woman sitting quietly near her boyfriend, because that’s what he must need to get by. The Yoko Ono thing – again, the headline folklore was “Yoko broke up the band”. ![]() You can read about it… but in this documentary, you SEE it! Maybe it’s naivite on my part, and I’ve read enough biographies and the like to know the band members’ birthdates, but another sweeping revelation which seeing footage captured in-the-moment brought to me was that this concert/album – among the band’s final – was recorded when they were all in their late 20s! Maybe it didn’t register because when I was in my Beatles phase I hadn’t hit my own late 20s… but to see these… KIDS! The most famous band ever, and they were all done by the time they hit their 30s. Why? Who knows! It was probably just funny at the time. So it was an absolute joy to see them in this film just being a band! They jam with each other, they play songs they know, they play other bands’ songs… songs from their past… noodling on new songs… fucking about on their songs… One highlight for me was Lennon & McCartney singing at each other with their teeth locked in a grimace: teeth bared, no lips moving. I guess I only really discovered The Beatles properly in around 1992 – so by the time I’d discovered them they were The Most Influential Band In History, etc. The source material for this documentary was over 60 hours of footage and 150 hours of audio, so while inevitably you DO get the public face of the Beatles at various points, as they’re mainly interacting with each other and close associates you get to see them genuinely being themselves. However I thought I’d outline why for me it was the diametric opposite.įirst & foremost, ever since I learned that there was a difference between people being themselves, and being “on” or “in persona” I’ve been fascinated to see the former wherever possible. There are some people for whom this would be the worst thing you could make them sit through.
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