On Getting Back

Having watched my way through all 800 hours of Get Back, Peter Jackson's
documentary built (mostly) from the raw footage resulting from the filming sessions that resulted in Let It Be, here are a few random thoughts and extemporizations...

(1) It will be of little interest to anyone who is not interested in The Beatles, and in the process of how a band creates and refines songs, and records them.  

(2) If there was any mystery as to why and how The Beatles split (and there shouldn't be), this clears it up once and for all. It's clear from the start they're not  a band any more.  Only Paul seems particularly motivated towards making new Beatle music (albeit, with a heavy dash of wanting said music to be done his way). John is only interested in getting high and Yoko, and seems bored with the whole proceedings.  Ringo looks bored and tired.  And George is in a snit the whole time because John/Paul won't pay any attention to his latest songs (among other things).  So uninvolved are they that when George stomps out at the end of episode one, declaring his resignation, a concerned Paul wonders "do you think he means it?" to which Lennon yawns "if he's not back by Tuesday we'll get Clapton to play on it."

Interestingly, in a later exchange Lennon accurately articulates exactly what George is so pissed off about for a still-confused Paul.  I mean dead accurately.  Equally interestingly, despite clearly having a perfect understanding of what George's gripes are, Lennon still seems to have zero actual interest in the whole matter.

(3) Elaborating on 2, watching this got me reading a few Beatle books, specifically Mark Spitz The Beatles and Geoff Emerick's Here There and Everywhere.  What emerged from those reads plus watching the miniseries is that The Beatles hadn't been a band for a long time.  The Beatles as we know them from their emergence into celebrity effectively wrapped their story with 1965's Rubber Soul.  After that, with their decision to stop touring, they began new lives, and drifted apart pretty much immediately.  Revolver was less the sound of The Beatles than a post-Beatles collection (that happened to come together very nicely).  Sgt. Pepper, with its fictional band concept, was effectively an attempt to reinvent themselves completely as a whole new band.  The White Album was, as even Lennon noted at the time, a collection of solo numbers backed by the other Beatles.  And the sessions for same were legendarily fractious.  By the Get Back sessions, they were still acting as The Beatles out of habit, insecurity, and inertia.

(4) The Finale: The Beatles playing live together, one last time, in a 40-minute jam session on the roof of the Apple building.  It's worth the sometimes slow-moving previous 1,200 hours it takes to get there.  Freezing cold, fighting, burned out, Lennon doped up ... and they still kick like a friggin' mule.  Had they opted to stick it out and hit the road again, they would have been as formidable a live act as any of their peers.  

So did I like it?  Yeah, I actually pretty much enjoyed every minute of it. My only caveat is that, I suppose, in the end its more informative than strictly entertaining.  I mention an interest in how a band creates and refines songs, and records them.  That's pretty essential to getting anything out of this miniseries because that's what 90% of it is.  Hours and hours of John/Paul/George/Ringo (plus sometimes Billy Preston) taking a stab at a song, stopping, trying again, moving on to something else, coming back, and on and on it goes.  If you are interested in the process of how a song comes into this world (I myself am), you may find this fascinating.  If not, you're in for a very long ride.