Beatles Get Back 23: Afterwards

So now that we know January 1969 wasn’t a complete waste of time in Beatledom, what happened to the proposed TV special and accompanying album?

Well, lots of things. First, the boys contracted Allen Klein to manage Apple (read: their finances) with the firm of Eastman & Eastman (Linda’s father and brother) to consult on various legal issues. Paul shaved off his beard. George had his tonsils out. John and Yoko performed a few “happenings”. Ringo went off to do his film, as planned. They did occasionally get together to work on music, with the idea to build on what they’d started; John’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” was the focus of a few sessions. Glyn continued mixing some of the tracks from the Apple studio as well as the roof to see if they could flesh an album out of it, to be called Get Back. In April, the “Get Back” single, with “Don’t Let Me Down” on the B-side, was released with a George Martin production credit, and the label reading “The Beatles with Billy Preston”. Both recordings were from the Apple studio, and not from the rooftop gig.

But by March they had become very scattered, as Paul had feared, with extracurriculars. Both he and George helped Apple artists with sessions, and then Paul married Linda, and then John married Yoko. Once those two came back from their first Bed-In, the group gathered for a photo shoot to coincide with the “Get Back” single. With George and Ringo elsewhere, John corralled Paul to record “The Ballad Of John And Yoko”, joined by George two days later to record “Old Brown Shoe”, and both were released as a single while “Get Back” was still atop the charts. As April turned to May, more songs were freshly recorded, including “Octopus’s Garden”, “Oh! Darling”, “Something”, and Paul’s new “You Never Give Me Your Money”. All but the last had been tested during January, but the focus of “finishing” what they started had vanished. Not only were these songs not recorded live in a single take, as had been the idea in January, but they also overdubbed new vocals and guitars on the final take of “Let It Be” from January 31.

By the summer John had become sidetracked again with another Bed-In, which resulted in his solo “Give Peace A Chance” single, and the band’s financial situation continued to be a gigantic mess. It was during this period that there was pressure to have Allen Klein manage everything, dire warnings from the Eastmans, and a new wrench when Dick James—remember him?—decided he’d had enough of the boys’ petulance and sold his shares of their publishing out from under them. Yet somehow John and Paul managed to work together completing the two-year-old track “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)” for future release.

With the footage from January already dated, Paul corralled the other Beatles to press on with a newer album mostly from scratch, returning mostly to the EMI studio on Abbey Road with George Martin producing. In addition to the handful of songs they’d amassed in the last few months, they managed to complete would become the superior Abbey Road in a matter of six or so weeks. Interestingly, all but five songs on the album had been attempted at least once in January.

Feeling justifiably accomplished, they decided that once that was out of the way, the film of them working in January could be expanded into a feature film, and had Glyn give another go at compiling a soundtrack of sorts. Abbey Road would come out in the fall, so the film and its album could follow in early 1970. By now, Michael’s rough cut of the film included performances of both “Across The Universe” and “I Me Mine”, so the former was remixed from its abandoned February 1968 recording, and the latter was recorded fresh by George, Paul, and Ringo in January 1970. Other than those two, Glyn’s selections still leaned on recordings from the studio, with only “One After 909” coming from the roof. George and Paul also continued tinkering with the tracks, embellishing “For You Blue” with a new vocal and ornamenting “Let It Be” even further. (“Teddy Boy” had been thankfully removed from the running, since it wasn’t seen in the film.)

The album still wasn’t quite there, unfortunately. Along with the wrinkle of “Don’t Let Me Down” appearing on the Hey Jude compilation of stray singles released worldwide except the U.K. in February 1970, necessitating its exclusion now, back in September John had told the others he was leaving the group and had begun actively recording as a solo artist. Somehow Phil Spector ended up producing John’s “Instant Karma” single—which likely spurred Paul to ramp up his home recording experiments to create the one-man-band McCartney album of actual songs—and was tasked with finalizing what was now called Let It Be. He used nearly all different takes than the ones Glyn had chosen, including two further songs from the rooftop, though it must be noted he was not the first to deviate from their “no overdubs” policy. Whatever one’s opinion of his selections or his mixes, Spector’s Let It Be is the one that remains in the canon today.

As for the film, it was finally released in May of 1970. It has its moments of fun, it can be tense and depressing, and the rooftop segment is the undisputed highlight. And if it weren’t for Michael Lindsay-Hogg filming, recording, and cajoling as much as he could, often with zero cooperation from his subjects, Peter Jackson wouldn’t have been able to present the incredible extravaganza that The Beatles: Get Back turned out to be.