The Beatles were the Internet of the 1960s: In defense of Glyn Johns' version of the GET BACK album - by Harold Lepidus
The Beatles were the Internet of the 1960s:
In defense of Glyn Johns' version of the GET BACK album
by Harold Lepidus
(The Peter Jackson extended edit*)
I’ve been watching Peter Jackson’s “documentary about a documentary,” The Beatles Get Back, for the fourth time. I wasn’t planning on it, but some virtual friends are following the movie’s “calendar” and watching each 20-ish minute chapter on the same date it was originally filmed, only 53 years later, so that was enough of an excuse for me to join in on the fun. I’m also teaching a class online next month about the influence the Beatles and Bob Dylan had on each other, so I’m taking notes this time. As you can see, it’s not because I’m obsessed. I’m doing research. (FYI it’s even better if you choose to add the “subtitles” option.)
There have been many, many articles reviewing and analyzing the film, and the ones that studiously chronicle the contents are essential. However, I’ve avoided most of the opinionated articles, as the contents usually do not appear to add anything to the Beatles’ story that most fans could just pick up on their own by watching it themselves, or are sensationalized to provoke outrage and clicks. I hope this article does not add to that list.
THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, 1970
I remember the anticipation of waiting for the Let It Be album and movie to arrive. I go into more detail below, but there was the Sunday, March 1, 1970 (or possibly February 15, depending on the source), "Beatles Songbook" episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, which featured two clips from the upcoming Let It Be movie - “Two of Us” and the title track. The rest of the show filled with mainstream artists covering Beatles’ songs, including Dionne Warwick, Peggy Lee, Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gormet, and the Muppets. The next day, I heard “Let It Be” on the radio when my mother dropped my sister and me off at elementary school. Excitement was building!
There are so many things that I could say about The Beatles Get Back, but they would either be superfluous, or of little interest to anyone other than me. I’ll just say that I think it was brilliantly done, changed the narrative, and gave a unique insight into the creative process. Unexpectedly, George Harrison’s constant input gave the impression that he was far more part of the decision making process than previously thought, and he’s the one often seen as the one doing the pre-song count in. There were certainly poignant moments, particularly when photographer Linda Eastman, who would soon marry Paul McCartney, was taking pictures of the band, trying to capture and preserve these moments, a reminder that so many of those we are watching on the screen are no longer with us. There are also about a thousand more images of this magic time, but I’ll stop and move on from here.
What I wanted to concentrate on was Glyn Johns’ original planned vision of what the resulting album from these sessions could have been, and almost was. Many of the comments online dismiss the bare bones LP version of Get Back, which Johns’ cobbled together for release later in 1969. I have a special love for, and connection to, this version of the album, and think of what an amazing artistic statement it could have been, if seen in context.
THE BEATLES, THE MONKEES, & BATMAN
First, let me put this in perspective. I’ve loved the Beatles since February, 1964, although they were temporarily eclipsed in my book by the Monkees while they had their weekly TV show. I remember my parents reading an article in the New York Times to me, probably in early 1967, about how the Beatles were a real band that played their own instruments and wrote their own songs, while the Monkees were a manufactured outfit that rarely played their own instruments or wrote their own material. However, a boy’s record collection doesn’t lie, and I certainly owned more Monkees albums in mono than those by Beatles, so the pre-Fab Four had a slightly greater appeal than the actual Fab Four to the preadolescent me. For a while, the Monkees’ TV show was aimed at kids, which was a welcome respite for pre-teens like me while the Beatles got progressively weirder. All that and having Batman on TV twice a week, at the same Bat time, same Bat channel. Life was good!
However, in 1968, all of that changed. Batman was canceled, The Monkees TV show was canceled, and the Beatles put out the White Album, which scared the crap out of me. Of course, it all reflected the times, with assassinations and the Viet War and social unrest, it almost had to be reflected in the music of both the Beatles and the Monkees, and things would never seem as innocent again. Post Help!, the Beatles were no longer a comforting presence. I remember seeing their elongated images on the cover of Rubber Soul, for instance, and finding it creepy, which seems silly now as it’s such an iconic image. However, at the time it was considered quite the artistic leap, and one of the first cracks in the Beatles’ just-a-pop-band facade. They were no longer limiting their appeal to kids. They were growing up, and were hoping to take their audience with them, or failing that, possibly find a newer one.
It’s not like I was unaware of the brilliance of the music, it’s just that at such a young age, I had to learn to appreciate it, educate myself about it, and mature with it, instead of just rocking out to it. That thought process is probably a major factor why I write about music. I’m trying to understand it myself, even though in some ways it will always be a mystery, which is fine by me.
By the end of 1968, I had my own little battery operated transistor radio encased in leather, and I’d alternate my listening between New York City’s WABC and Long Island’s WGLI, both Top 40 AM stations. By the following summer, I had a real stereo phonograph record player. It was a glorious time for music, as it was not yet as segregated as it would soon become. I became a fan of Tommy James and the Shondells, the Temptations, Johnny Cash, the Cowsills, the Grass Roots, Jackie DeShannon, Sly & the Family Stone, the Archies, Ray Stevens, the Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, the 5th Dimension, and so many others - it was all a big, wondrous stew, and I’d save my weekly one-dollar-a week allowance and go to Kresge's department store and stock up on 45’s, then play them in my room to my heart’s content.
Soon, some information about a new Beatles record emerged. In mid-April, the Beatles released their new single, “Get Back” b/w “Don’t Let Me Down.” It was back to basics, I loved both sides, and all was forgiven. The Fabs were my favorites, again. My father, trying to teach me the value of a dollar, said I should wait until their album comes out, thus saving me $.69 plus tax. So I did. And I waited. And waited. And waited.
TV GUIDE & BEATLES MONTHLY, 1969
The Beatles famously played their last concert on the roof of their own Apple headquarters on January 30, 1969. There was a two-page spread about that appearance in the April 19-25 issue of TV Guide, back when periodicals like that were necessary. The text was accompanied by an aerial shot of the band playing in the cold English air, high above the crowd, which I of course saved. Titled “Four Cats on a London Roof,” it promised an upcoming TV documentary about their most recent recording sessions. I couldn't wait, but I had to. Now remember, when you’re that young, as I was, waiting weeks, let alone months, seemed like an eternity. So I waited. And waited. And waited.
During that summer, my mother, my sister, and I, were spending the summer with my maternal grandparents on the Belgian seashore. When my father arrived at a later date, he saw a copy of The Beatles Monthly Book, possibly at the airport, issue number 72, July, 1969, and picked one up for me. There was an article with further salivating information about their next release, titled “THE BEATLES GET BACK - August LP Surprise.” It featured a track-by-track listing of the songs expected to be included, written by Beatles roadie Mal Evans. It was the album as originally compiled by Glyn Johns. and finally included in the recent Super Deluxe version of the new Let It Be box set reissue.
In some ways, it’s my favorite Beatles album. Now, I’m not saying Get Back is better or greater than Revolver as an album, or Sgt. Pepper as a thing. I’m just saying it as a fact. It’s the one I can go back to without the weight of it being a polished Beatles masterpiece, certainly more than the official Let It Be. It was the Beatles as nature intended. A peek behind the scenes, a look at how the Fabs created their magic.
THE GET BACK/LET IT BE “CURSE”
To me, “Get Back'' is the only Beatles’ “solo” album, if you’d like. It's organic, with no extra additives, probaby grass fed. Just the Fab Four, “live” in the studio (mostly), with honorary fifth Beatle Billy Preston on keyboards. There were no embellishments from their regular producer, George Martin. This is not a knock against Mr. Martin, who is probably my favorite producer ever. It’s just interesting and enlightening to experience the way the greatest and most popular band in the world shared their recording techniques, something not really common in those days, as Rock Music had only recently begun to be taken seriously as a legitimate art form.
These recordings appear to be cursed. There were problems associated with the original Let It Be album and film, unfortunately released just after Paul McCartney announced that the Beatles split up (sort of) in a press release. John Lennon, in a scathing attack on the sessions, and just about everything else, also cast a shadow over its reputation in a wide ranging interview in Rolling Stone at the end of 1970. The poor visual quality of the film, the editing choices, and, in the press, the eternal squabbles among the formerly Fab Four, added to their perceived collective misery. There were a couple of attempts to rehabilitate the public perception of the album, with many of the unadorned tracks included in The Beatles Anthology series of the mid-1990s, and the sterile, Pro-Tools, de-Spectorized, update from 2003, Let It Be … Naked, a major missed opportunity. Not to mention McCartney’s numerous attempts at recording newly stripped down solo versions of “The Long and Winding Road.”
Speaking of missed opportunities, the recent Let It Be box set was an incredible let down. It’s about two hours and 45 minutes, spread out over five CDs. Not only could it almost fit on two CDs, but most fans have hours and hours of bootleg recordings from these sessions already, and we’ve seen plenty of that material in the 7.8 hour Peter Jackson documentary, The Beatles Get Back. (FYI: The Let It Be box set is only a few minutes longer than the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 combined, and that was contractually obligated to be expanded to four CDs total.) The least they could have done was include the complee Rooftop Concert. In this case, we, the Beatle people, knew better.
It’s a bit too easy to dismiss Get Back as an unpolished album, not worthy of the caliber of excellence we’ve come to expect from the Beatles. But that’s the point!
BOOTLEGS
To place this in context, remember that there had not been any rock bootlegs at the beginning of 1969, when the Get Back sessions took place. The first one, GWW (a.k.a. Great White Wonder), featuring Bob Dylan and the Band’s “Basement Tapes” recordings and other unreleased recordings, would appear later in the year. Bootlegs of the Get Back sessions would appear soon after.
The Get Back sessions, and the eventual 1970 film and album Let It Be, were an attempt at being a groundbreaking example of stripping away any artifice, and getting back to basics. One aspect of this was the Beatles coming full circle, back to their first album in 1963, or even further back to the days of the Star Club, the Cavern, and the Top Ten. However, what I think of as a more important aspect is how it reflected the social and political climate of these very volatile times. Post WWII, the mainstream arts were initially all safe and comforting. By the mid-1950s, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley got things all shook up for a few years. Although the incendiary power of the Rock and Roll “fad” was soon to fade away, the seeds of a subversive revolution had been planted in Liverpool and Hamburg, among other places. To oversimplify history, after the assisination of President Kennedy and follow up killing of Oswald, and the doubtful single-bullet theory of the Warren Commission Report, concurrent with the ongoing VietNam War, the lies of the “All men are created equal” promise coming to light with the Civil Rights and other movements, all we wanted was some truth. It would come from the arts, because it certainly wasn’t coming from most mainstream sources.
John Lennon once said that the Beatles “turned out to be a ‘Trojan Horse’,” sneaking into our consciousness by being a cheeky little pop combo, then changing our heads, both internally and externally. As their power and popularity grew, they used it to expand our minds, including speaking out against the U.S.’s involvement in the VietNam War, and changing the way we see and feel and look and think about everything. This led to a musical revolution, which led to a cultural revolution.
Records, by definition, are artifice. It’s not really a “record” of anything other than a series of attempts to reach perfection to present to the public. Starting with an underground press and FM rock radio programming, and the San Francisco psychedelic movement of the mid-1960s, an alternate way of living emerged, disregarding the status quo, and mind expansion was the new mantra. After the so-called “Summer of Love'' of 1967 came the assissinations and riots of 1968. Everybody wanted to withdraw, and following the lead of Bob Dylan and the Band’s back-to-our-roots music, people wanted to get back to the country, back to nature. (Again, this is an oversimplification.)
GETTING BACK TO “GET BACK”
So, let’s get back to Get Back. After the Beatles’ psychedelic era of 1966-67, the Beatles simplified things considerably in 1968, with the 50s inspired “Lady Madonna” single, the stripped-down “Hey Jude”/”Revolution” 45, and the relatively unadorned The Beatles double LP, it’s white album sleeve the polar opposite of the elaborate Sgt. Pepper cover from the previous year.
So Paul McCartney, the reluctant de facto workaholic leader, decided once again to come up with a project for the Beatles, this time to write new material for an album, and perform the songs live in front of an audience, something they hadn’t done since the summer of 1966, except once for a promotional film to promote the “Hey Jude” single.
One of the best things to come from the Giles Martin remix of the 1970 album Let It Be is that it really improves the dynamics, with the symphonic overdubs more pronounced. That is also one of its disadvantages. With the new mix, you can really hear what producer Phil Spector added. For years, aside from the obvious lush backing on “The Long and Winding Road,” the overdubs hadn’t seemed that particularly intrusive. To be fair, there are many positive things to say about Spector’s vision. Most importantly, the original audio mix is crisp. Most of the album followed the original back-to-basics credo, including three tracks from the rooftop gig, and some studio tracks with some chatter interspersed, which we now know was artificially manipulated. However, the orchestration on “Across the Universe,” “I Me Mine,” and “Let It Be” is so prominent, it now sounds like those posthumous Hank Williams and Buddy Holly albums, where glops of pathetic, unsympathetic, senseless, sonic mutations engulfed and buried whatever artistic and aesthetic sensibilities existed in the original recordings. It’s like a mashup that doesn't quite work.
THE BEATLES WERE THE INTERNET OF THE 1960s
So let’s talk about the Glyn Johns version of Get Back. As I wrote above, with 20/20 2022 hindsight, to many, it sounds like a bad idea, and of course the Beatles agreed, or else we would have seen the official release of this album 53 years ago. However, I’m here to defend it, in all its ragged glory.
What I think is important to remember is how important and influential the Beatles were in the 60s. The fandom of the Beatles became a common gathering ground, the epicenter of our cultural universe. It was how we shared experiences, our thoughts, our feelings. It showed us the possibility of what could be. It influenced our politics. They were fun, virant, witty, exciting! They were global. Even as we admired them at home alone in our bedrooms, it was something that connected us. Love them or hate them, they could not be ignored. It was part of our culture. The Beatles were the internet of the 1960s.
That’s why Get Back would have been a groundbreaking statement if released in 1969. Would it have gotten bad reviews? Do you mean like Sgt. Pepper, The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be? Like “From Me to You”? Probably.
The album is raw and a bit sloppy, which is one of its charms. While we wouldn’t have “I Me Mine” or “Across the Universe,” (both added to a potential newer version by Johns in early 1970), we also wouldn’t have had the syrupy strings on “Long and Winding Road,” and the phony chatting.
Of course on Get Back, we would have lost the duet portion of “I’ve Got a Feeling” and a couple of rooftop performances, but we would have benefited from a longer (but still not long enough) “Dig It,” the “All I want is you” part of “Dig a Pony,” and the “Get Back” coda.
Most importantly, however, is the way the album was sequenced. Thematically, there was an electric side and an acoustic side. The songs are all connected and flow well together. “One After 909,” the only rooftop track here, should either begin or end this or any version of this album, and here it has the honor of being the opening track. It’s a song Lennon wrote as a teenager, and it was first attempted and abandoned during studio sessions in 1963. It certainly does not belong buried as the second track on side two. The only change I might have made in the running order was possibly moving “Let It Be” to the beginning of the second side, so that the album doesn’t end with two major McCartney piano ballads.
The release of Get Back could have changed the paradigm of musical trends from 1969 on.There was nothing really like it in the rock world, because there was only one Beatles, and they would have been the first. Look at all the archival box sets that have been released over the last few decades! Outtakes, demos, and live tracks are all the rage, at least for those of a certain age.
The thing to keep in mind is that the Beatles we were seeing in the 1970 Let It Be film were, for the first time, presented in a completely unglamourous light. It was a bit disconcerting, certainly not a light, cheeky, charming comedy like A Hard Day’s Night, although it’s not as dark as you may remember. By the time it was released, the Beatles had recorded and released the Abbey Road album, and each member of the band had solo releases scheduled for 1970. I remember my mother driving me to the Bay Shore, Long Island, movie theater on the Wednesday Let It Be was released, and again two days later. I was ready to go again the following week, but it was already gone. I'm fairly certain I saw it again at the Uniondale Mini-Cinema, then at a “Beatlefest.” I eventually got my own bootleg copies on VHS and then DVD.
I remember already having seen The New York Times article reporting on McCarney’s supposed announcement of the band’s split in April, 1970. He’d actually already mentioned that the “Beatles thing is over” the previous autumn in an interview, which he gave to prove that he was, in fact, still alive, but it was not sensationalized. My initial reaction to the split was not one of shock, since even as a kid, I’d heard the rumors. Nor was I crestfallen, since all four Beatles would be making their own records, which meant even more Fab output. If the initial solo material was any indication, things were actually looking pretty good.
It also meant that if the Beatles were never going to tour, then at least I might get to see them each individually in concert, which did eventually happen over the next 20 years. To give you some idea of how rare it was to see any of the Beatles in concert in the U.S., or anywhere else for that matter, I did get to see John & Yoko at Madison Square Garden, the legendary One To One Concert, the evening show on August 30, 1972. Those shows were the only fully rehearsed performances Lennon ever gave. There can never be anything else that could possibly measure up to it. To see John Lennon, one year after Imagine, two years after Let It Be, was indescribable. Although if the promised Some Time In New York City box set arrives as promised later this year, I might try.
FAVORITE MEMORY, AND LESSON LEARNED
But my favorite memory is the day my father brought the Let It Be album home for me. It must have been on a weekend, and we had company in the living room. I was up in the bedroom when summoned downstairs. My father had been building his own classical records collection since November, 1967, and had a very sophisticated stereo system setup. As I descended, I heard a very distinctive voice say, “I dig a pygmy by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids. Phase one in which Doris gets her oats.” Could it be?
Yes it was! Even though the grown ups were being entertained by my parents, I finally got to listen to the new Beatles album I’d been dreaming about for over a year. I stared at the gatefold sleeve, and watched the red Apple Records labels revolve. I absorbed the music. When side one was over, I turned it over and saw that the final track, “Get Back,” was listed as being 3:09 in length, while that elusive 45, version which I studied in every record store I visited, listed the time as 3:11. “Surely,” I thought to myself, “two seconds wouldn’t make much of a difference, would it?” So after a year, I finally had my own copy of “Get Back.” I already had “Don’t Let Me Down” on the Hey Jude album. So after all of this waiting and waiting and waiting ... the ending had been cut off!
Anyway, I won’t tell you how many copies of the original single version I now own, or how much money I haven't saved buying Beatles related products. So I guess I learned my lesson, although it may not have been the one my father tried to teach me.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
(C) 2022 Harold Lepidus
(*Not really)
