Beatles Get Back 22: January 31

With seven minutes left of Part 3, today’s calendar is marked “LAST DAY”. At the sound of the clapper the music starts (a cover of the railroad tune “Take This Hammer”) and we go to split-screen to accommodate the credits.

Anything would be an anti-climax after the complete rooftop gig, but that shouldn’t suggest their work today was less than important. With appropriate mood lighting in the Apple basement studio, this day was devoted to capturing usable takes of “Two Of Us”, “The Long And Winding Road”, and “Let It Be”, which were not performed on the roof. Paul sings each of these songs directly to the camera, in the same spirit as the “Hey Jude” promo. (A complete take of each will be featured in the Let It Be film, sequenced before the rooftop portion.)

For “Two Of Us”, Paul is standing with his acoustic, while George is seated on the amps in front of Ringo’s drums, now on a riser. We can also see that Paul’s Rickenbacker bass has been sanded down to the bare wood, removing the psychedelic design we saw only days earlier. He’s even sanded away some of the horn on the body, much closer to how it would look onstage throughout the ‘70s with Wings. John is seated on the floor facing Paul, Yoko at his side. There’s a lovely split-screen effect that shows John and Paul harmonizing on the verse. (As the captions confirm, this is the same take of “Two Of Us” that will open the Let It Be album.) In between takes we get jokey snatches of “Ten Feet High And Rising”, “Friendship”, and “Run For Your Life”.

For “The Long And Winding Road”, George is back in his usual chair near to Paul at the piano, while John is in the same spot on the floor but now playing the Fender VI bass. Billy is across at the electric keyboards. We don’t see or hear a complete take of this—tellingly, George is still fuzzy on the chords—though one of them was included on Let It Be… Naked in 2003.

They’re in the same positions for “Let It Be”, and the wine has come out. We observe several false starts and reel changes; at one point John asks, “Are we supposed to giggle in the solo?” Paul replies, “Yeah.” The visuals show us that such ribbing was good-natured, as they’re all smiling at each other. That said, for the take that will be used for the single and eventual album (in different mixes), John is shown comically mouthing the words to the first verse along with Paul, who can’t see him from where he’s sitting. By now John has also removed his denim jacket, and we can even see Ringo swaying his arms dramatically along with John and George’s “ooh”s before the drums start. (It’s also nice to finally have the film synced to the sound, so the notes George plays match up with his fingers—unlike the major glitch in the Let It Be film.)

As the final notes fade, George Martin and Glyn agree that that was the take. Paul wants to “do one more, just to cover ourselves… ‘cos we know we’ve got it now.” We fade to black, and John gets the last word: “We’ve got so many of the bastards.”