Unlike now, he didn’t have 20 years of reality TV to fall back on, which has conditioned viewers to the idea of nothing much happening.
Ghastly as some of his ideas were, Lindsay-Hogg was probably right about trying to construct some kind of narrative. Photograph: Linda McCartney Reality TV primed us for Get Back Unfiltered and direct … The Beatles in Get Back. He chips in with song ideas for The Long and Winding Road, and almost immediately after Harrison announces he’s leaving, Evans checks he’ll be OK for money and says he’ll speak to Apple about his residual payments. An hour or so later, Evans is sitting there smacking an anvil during an early take of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. McCartney casually mentions, as he’s walking off for lunch, that maybe it would be good to have an anvil. The Beatles’ road manager would have done anything for them, no matter what they asked. Whether mustard, thigh-length and double-breasted, big, white and hairy, black vinyl proto-puffer, maroon crushed velvet or navy blue with a deckchair stripe, the man dressed like more of a rock star than anyone in the room. Glyn Johns dressed incrediblyĭespite the best efforts of Harrison in a purple shirt, pink striped trousers and furry boots seemingly made of carpet, he can’t hold a sartorial candle to engineer Glyn Johns in his various coats. Above all, maybe it’s that Preston was totemic, a friend from the Hamburg days they talk of so fondly throughout Get Back, and a reminder of friendlier, happier times. They are on fire when playing with Preston – perhaps inspired by his skill, perhaps liberated by the shift from Twickenham Studios to Savile Row, and finally jettisoning the idea of performing a concert in Libya to close the film. “It’s interesting to see how nicely people behave when you bring a guest in, because they don’t want everybody to know they’re so bitchy,” remarked Harrison in the 1995 TV documentary Anthology when asked about bringing in keyboardist and Little Richard band member Billy Preston for the Let It Be sessions. “She’s great, she really is all right.” Billy Preston could solve any crisis They just want to stay together,” he says of her and Lennon. Yes, there were tensions – complicated, deep-seated and long-running – but, as McCartney says in part two, Yoko’s presence was only an obstacle if the rest of the band allowed it to be.
Blaming it on her constant presence was always an absurd, lazy accusation grounded in misogyny and racism (seeing Paul, Ringo and George’s partners and various guests wander in and out of the studio really hammers home those double standards), but hopefully we can once and for all put to bed any nonsense about how she brought about the band’s decline. Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy The world owes Yoko Ono an apology He wasn’t as creatively involved as the other three, but when needed, he was there – drunk or hungover if Get Back is anything to go by – whether bashing a piano lid, slapping his thighs or caressing his drum kit – and better than anyone. But once again, his input is here for all to see. Let’s blame Jasper Carrott for adding fuel to this particular fire. Starr is not some journeyman who got lucky – he’s one of the best drummers ever and the Beatles wouldn’t have been as good without him. Ringo is an amazing drummerĪnother long-running non-debate that really needs putting to bed. For those of us seeing this for the first time, it looks like some kind of witchcraft. The fact that Ringo Starr is sitting opposite yawning and Harrison looks equally bored suggests McCartney did that kind of thing a lot. One second, the song doesn’t exist the next, he’s playing it and improvising the lyrics, bringing it into being by sheer force of will. Macca’s songwriting skill was hardly in question prior to the release of this documentary, but watching him muster Get Back out of thin air is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Blaming it on her was always an absurd, lazy accusation Paul McCartney is really good at writing songs “Not one where they’re really sick,” he adds, as if that makes his awful idea any better. He just will not quit with his idea for a trip to Libya, and at one point suggests filming in an orphanage, or a children’s hospital. Throughout Let It Be, no matter what’s happening, he’s there, puffing on a cigar, chiming in with unhelpful comments and directions, or stories about working with Orson Welles when he was a child actor. Sometimes you need to know when to shut up and listen. Michael Lindsay-Hogg made a terrible film and had a lot of bad ideas Yesterday – it’s a wound that festered even deeper, and we didn’t give him any bandages.” While it was thrilling to hear that secret, candid chat, I can’t have been alone in feeling slightly cheapened by the experience. “It’s a festering wound that we’ve allowed. “George said he didn’t get enough satisfaction any more because of the compromise he had to make to be together,” says Lennon.