Getting it Back

Right before the 2021 holidays, director Peter Jackon bestowed upon us all (as long as we were Disney+ subscribers) one hell of a Christmas gift: the 8-hour-long Beatles documentary Get Back, which chronicles the meandering creation of the last songs the Fab Four would ever record together.
The adventure began a long time ago, and would unfurl personal ramifications I did not suspect at all.

In early 1969, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg joined Paul, John, George and Ringo on a film soundstage (before the band eventually relocated to a proper recording studio) to shoot and record the musicians as they worked. The crew accumulated 50 hours of film and over 150 hours of audio throughout the creation/rehearsal/jamming/bickering sessions meant to give birth to classic songs like Get Back, Across the Universe and Let It Be, as well as spawn a live TV concert, a film documentary, a musical journey aboard a cruise ship, a mythical show amidst Roman ruins in North Africa—you name it. 
In the end, the footage was turned into an 80-minute "feature" that, back in 1970, helped fuel the tale of strife and general hatred surrounding the final Beatles album.

Enter Peter Jackson, 50 years down the line.
His team of wizards spent years cleaning up the footage like you wouldn’t believe: watching this on a 4K screen, you feel like you’re right there in the studio with the boys. But as miraculous as their achievement was on the visual side of things, what they accomplished with sound defies the imagination. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the team taught computers to train themselves in recognizing a human voice, an electric guitar, a drum kit, ambient noise, and so on.

You see, one of the problems with the original material was that everything was an aural jumble, with conversations constantly drowned by one musician or another noodling on his instrument. What the Peter Jackson treatment made possible was to “demix” the audio and build a multi-track recording decades after the fact. Want to lower the volume of the drums—or mute them altogether? No problem. You’d like to hear exactly what John is playing under that loud crash of crockery? Here you go.

Armed with those magically restored findings of visual and audio archeology, Jackson then put together the shortest cut he could that featured everything he deemed essential in understanding the creative process of the Beatles, circa 1969. The result is a can’t-miss, once-in-a-lifetime happening.
Yes, the blasted thing lasts over eight hours, but I’d have stared at my TV screen for twice as long with excitement and fascination. It’s that good.

I’ll spare you any kind of insight or analysis: the web is overflowing with those. What I wanted to put in writing was my personal reaction to that exceptional document.

Of course I was thrilled to see the Beatles up close and personal. To hear Harrison express his desire to have more of his songs appear on Beatles albums (and the secretly taped Lennon/McCartney conversation about how George was right); to see how much Starr was the backbone of the band, always the first to show up in the morning, never missing a step, 100% devoted to the band; to witness the creation of Get Back, from nothing to an almost finished hit song in a scant few minutes; to blink in disbelief at just how good Billy Preston was at the piano, completely unfazed by the presence of his iconic hosts; to see that charming and disarming Lennon smile, like the guy was still 10 years old and dreaming of becoming a music legend. It was an exhilarating journey all the way through. What I wasn’t prepared for—at all—was listening to the Let it Be album after having watched the Jackson documentary.

And so, about a week after that momentous event, I grabbed the black album off the shelf and popped it into the player. (Yes, I still listen to physical music, which sounds way better than those crappy MP3 files.)

The first thing that struck me was the humor. Of course, I’d heard Lennon’s antics before and after a variety of songs on Let it Be countless times: each intrusion is part of the actual track when you play it. But this time around, I remembered “being there” when the joke happened, watching Lennon look straight at the camera and mutter something silly under his breath. Before, I’d always thought those quips had been thrown in to add some color after the fact, but I knew now they’d always been there, spontaneous utterances let loose during the recording and which they’d just decided to keep on the master.

One of those jokes struck me more than the others. Right before McCartney launches into Get Back, Lennon says, “Sweet Loretta Fart she thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan.” (Whereas the actual lyrics are thus: “Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man.”) It always sounded to me like a joke someone would make after hearing (indeed, playing) the same song over and over again. But to us, the audience—at least the first time you hear it—the track is brand new: you get a parody of the song before you’ve even had a chance to listen to it. And that feels very strange, almost like an editing mistake.
Well, that was back then, before the Jackson revelation. Now? It makes perfect sense. Lennon goes into his “Loretta Fart” joke precisely because he’s been playing the song over and over again in the studio, and we’ve seen that happen. Brilliant.

I started to get emotional when I heard the three tracks recorded on the roof of Apple Music on that cold January day (One After 909, Dig a Pony, and I’ve Got a Feeling). I remembered seeing the actual setup, with passersby in the street wondering what the hell was happening, neighbors stepping out on their own roofs for a peek at the action, and the ever-so-polite English cops banging at the door and asking if perhaps, by any chance, they could cut that racket out. I listened in amazement—feeling like I was hearing those songs for the first time in my life—thinking about the band playing in those silly fur coats, McCartney hurling his voice against the wind, Lennon’s fingers freezing on the strings, and always that smile of pure joy to just be doing what they were doing, against all odds (many of them of their own making).
How glorious is that Peter Jackson presentation of the rooftop performance, showing us multiple camera angles simultaneously? It’s an idea that nobody back then could have conceived of (except maybe Abel Gance with his avant-gardiste Napoléon—but that’s a story for another day), and yet a risk-free proposition in an age when most people have at least one giant screen hanging somewhere in their homes.

The Long and Winding Road started to tug at my heartstrings with a little more insistence, and by the time Get Back rolled around, tears were flowing down my cheeks, into a graying beard I was still decades away from growing when I heard the album for the first time. I was crying. Because I was discovering something new in that old collection of tunes. Because I could better understand where they were coming from. Because it was the ultimate destination, the final resting place of a long journey, many hours of which I had been privy to.
But mainly, and I could feel this in my gut, because I was free.
I realized then what I’d always held back before: that each of my innumerable listens of Let it Be had taken place with guarded ears and veiled heart. Remember, we were always told that the final Beatles album had been created amidst animosity, with band members at best tolerating each other’s presence, and recording sessions held together with chicken wire and a hefty supply of duct tape. So how could I in good conscience let myself bask in the joy and love I imagined oozing from every track on that album? It was show business, smoke and mirrors. I felt I owed the Beatles some respect for their creative suffering, and thus unconsciously kept my enjoyment of their last opus locked up in my brain and away from vital organs, as a cerebral experience that I quite enjoy on the occasional Sunday afternoon, thank you very much.

But it was all a lie. What Peter Jackson showed us was the happiness and camaraderie and brotherhood plain as day, on vibrant display as far as the internet can reach. When Lennon closes the album with “I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition,” it’s not a crack aimed at livening up a broody atmosphere, but rather a genuine expression of joy at the conclusion of their rooftop escapade. Not only are we all allowed to see that, but we also understand it, because we were along for the most significant moments of the ride.
And so I cried. Not an unstoppable torrent of tears; rather, a silent trickle of deliverance and gratitude.

What I myself "got back" from all of this is the right to listen to Let it Be, the last hurrah of a band near and dear to my heart, without feeling an ounce of guilt for enjoying the songs so much. How can I ever thank Peter Jackson enough for this?
If I ever cross paths with the man, I’m liable to kiss him on the mouth.

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