The Beatles Thread

I loved in Get Back when Ringo walked into the studio with the beginnings of "Octopus's Garden" but didn't know where to go from there, and George showed him how to figure out the chords for the bridge between verses.

 

Cool video here, Chad Smith and Tre Cool talk about Ringo being left handed and playing a right handed kit:

 

Happy Christmas from the McCartneys

 

Sorry to say but Ms. McCartney was much more attractive before this haircut.

 

Mr. McCartney, too.

 

Just finished the doc. Am I the only one who was hoping the cops would pull the plug so I wouldn't have to hear "Get Back" again?

A few overall reactions...

1. The material they had to work with here was amazing. The band interaction, watching the songs develop, seeing Yoko and Linda's presence... that was genuinely fascinating to watch.

2. The documentary -- and I think I'm being conservative here -- is about five hours too long. I think it would have been much better if Peter Jackson wasn't such a massive Beatles fan, because he included stuff that really belongs in a reel of deleted stuff for Beatles honks only. I don't need Lennon singing a Hank Williams song in a goofy southern accent, amid the endless clips of John and Paul singing their own stuff with silly voices. The film has literally hours of outtake-quality stuff that does nothing to tell their story. Part two was 3 hours long and could have been 20 minutes without losing anything of value.

3. McCartney is an absolute musical genius, which is not really an opinion I held going in. Watching him create songs like "The Long and Winding Road" and "Let It Be" was really fascinating.

4. McCartney is also insufferable most of the time. Lennon clearly loved the guy and was the only one willing to gently call him out on his shit. (And early on John drove me nuts -- his need to constantly perform is just wearying, with the dancing and jumping and screwing around. As it goes on, though, he becomes much more likeable.)

5. Was a big Harrison guy going in and like him even more now. And Ringo is just a wonderful guy.

6. Favorite moment may have been when McCartney is prattling on and on about how they need to just keep working until they have all 14 songs ready for performance and film it then, and Glyn Johns calmly tells him "Well, you've been playing the same three songs over and over for a week now."

7. People who wonder why The Beatles broke up are clearly asking the wrong question. The remarkable thing to me is that they stayed together as long as they did. As much as this film kind of seemed like the death of the band, they did Abbey Road after this. And to me Abbey Road is an infinitely better record. Let it Be has its moments but is one of my least favorites in their catalog.

 

Except for you 2nd point, i completely agree. This is the longest time of being able to observe TheBeatles be themselves, or at least as much of themselves as they were willing to be. They clearly had lives and interests outside what they were doing. But they worked long days and came back in the morning and each, except Ringo, say “wrote a song last night’.

Brilliant, geniuses. I get the agreement between John and Paul that they share credit on any song that either does. And they apparently stand in large contrast to pop stars today who put their name on the credits if the change a note on a bridge. Other wise George would get significant writing credits.

They were good friends, they had each other’s backs. They certainly wanted their own music made and played but they weren’t derisive about The Beatle and respected the work and each other.

 

Ringo brought in Octopus’s Garden.

 

I've watched it a couple of times now -- both because I really love watching talented people make things (whether it's music or woodworking or whatever) and because I can't find much else I want to watch.

The whole Yoko thing is fascinating to me. She just sits there for hours and hours saying nothing, doing nothing, and with Paul, Ringo and George basically acting like she's not 18 inches away from John the entire time.

 

And they don’t kill her when she’s “singing.”

Interesting moment when she got word her divorce had come through.

 

Actually, while Heather (See, later McCartney) was running around the studio in the second half of the doc, while she was cute and funny at first, very quickly she became 10 times as disruptive as Yoko.

 

no different from the housemate whose unpaying girlfriend is hanging around way wayway too much. There is a defect in not knowing you are annoying the shit out of someone.