The discussion is still on the problems within the Beatles as Paul presents an amazing idea of how to end their current project. The plan so far was to film a documentary of the fabs rehearsing for a television concert that would be recorded and released as a live album of all new material. Some debate remains on how exactly the film and television special would be filmed and edited.
A few nights ago, Paul and Neil came up with what might have been the perfect ending to the television special which ultimately was canceled altogether in favor of only a documentary and LP. Paul suggests that while the Beatles were rehearsing for the TV show, they should have along side them, “say, the editor of The Daily Mirror [or] someone as good as him–a real hard news nut– rehearsing a team of really hard incredible news men with films, writing, so and so and so and so, so that, on the night of the show, in between all of [The Beatles’] songs is news, but the fastest and hottest from every corner of the earth… ‘We’ve just heard that there’s been an earthquake in so and so.’ Just, like, incredible news in between each [song] so that it’s like a red hot news program and at the end, the final bulletin is that The Beatles have broken up.” The others like the idea but not the ending as no one present wants to see the end of the fabs.
There is a little more talk about what is to be done with Yoko as Michael suggests that one way to get John away from Yoko would be to “drug her herb tea or something and put her away for a minute or two.” No one seems too amused by this. He goes on to refer to Yoko as the “yellow peril” and suggests that things might be better if she were to stay in the black bag.
Someone has been sent to ring John and conversation slows as everyone apparently waits to see if John is going to turn up or not. Paul breaks the silence saying, “And then there were two.” Ringo responds with “Tom and Jerry.” Causing Michael to say “Simon and Garfunkel.” To which Ringo replies “I know. I said it because you told me.” Linda asks what they are talking about and Ringo relates the story Michael told earlier about Simon and Garfunkel’s earlier teenage incarnation. Linda is not only aware of this but also sings a bit of Tom and Jerry’s 1957 hit “Hey Schoolgirl” and compares the sound of their records to Jan and Dean. So it turns out that Ringo wasn’t far off when he said they were surfers. I stand corrected. They were a lot of things.
Michael is next concerned with where the band’s lack of productivity leaves the status of the film and concert. It seems as though up until George’s departure, everyone was under the misguided notion that the concert might occur as early as the eighteenth. There is no definite answer given to Michael’s inquiry. This leads to a very lenghty and somewhat tedious discussion about what exactly the look of the film and television special would be. Paul envisions the film as “a study” of the band. He doesn’t want a lot of quick cuts or shots of anything but the band. In describing what he wants, he brings up a film of Picasso painting, possibly this:
Paul wants the concert to be covered as a news crew would cover an event. “If you see an event happen and the really good coverage, you know, is the shot of the fellow with the gun to his head and the fellow who got that shot, that’s the fellow–that was the man who covered the event. But the fellow who got the guy on the ground afterwards with the blood coming out of his head missed it…”
Michael somewhat convincingly argues that he knows what he’s doing and asserts that it is his job to “help the act” by serving them with the camera as the various band members do their various things rather than plunk the camera down and shoot their act in long shot. He says that plunking the camera down is what Warhol does.
Paul disagrees and in doing so makes Michael aware that he didn’t much care for The Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus or the Beatles’ own “Hey Jude” clip, both of which Michael directed. Paul goes on to predict that the film that Ringo is about to begin filming, The Magic Christian, won’t be any good. He’s mostly right about that one. This conversation goes on and on, nothing is ever really settled and the tapes get increasingly choppy excluding what might be large chunks of dialogue. At one point the tape cuts out and comes back in on Paul insisting that the TV special should have “camera movements the most fluid ever to be seen on TV, the most incredible camera movements. You had your lenses, your special lenses got from Japan, for really micro lenses and you had special and–and–the actual technical side of things is what we got into…obviously the answer is to do this thing I’m saying with great fluid movements in the desert, you know, and have all the cranes in the desert…Steadiness so it’s like a dream. You can shoot this thing like it’s a dream.”
At some point as the tape cuts in and out, it is established that John will arrive in an hour. Everyone present head over to a screening room on the lot to view rushes of the previous days’ filming. There is no audio of this and when the tape picks up again it is clear from the clatter of plates clanging against one another that the cameras have moved to the film studio’s cafeteria where the fabs, including a very vocal John and Yoko, are apparently eating lunch. On the first day of filming, Harrison was pretty insistent that cameras don’t film them eating so apparently they are taking advantage of his absence to capture a lunch break on film. Unfortunately the din of clanging china and silverware is such that most of what is said is unintelligible aside from a few tantalizing bits. The tape of this lunch lasts a half hour.
After lunch we finally get a bit of music. Rehearsals stick mostly to Paul’s “Get Back” but Lennon sneaks in a tiny bit of his “Dig a Pony.” “Get Back” began life during a jam session on the seventh and nearly every moment of its development can be heard on the bootlegs of these sessions. On this day, just before they begin playing the song Paul is heard instructing Mal to be at the ready with a pen and paper to transcribe any new lyrics that Paul might extemporize.
John and Paul play around a bit with the lyrics to “Get Back,” specifically trying to assign last names to the Loretta and Jojo (Jackson? Mary?) characters in the song and trying to make out what Jojo left his home in Arizona for (“looking for another blast,” “looking for a blast from the past,” “looking for the greener grass”).
After an hour of “Get Back” rehearsals that don’t yield any major breakthroughs, the threetles call it quits for the day. Before Paul leaves, Michael tries to nail down the schedule for the next week or so and Paul tells him to “stay flexible.” In order to guarantee to Michael that at least John and Paul will return the following day, they both agree to leave their instruments behind. I have no idea what John was playing that day but it might be safe to assume that he was on this beautiful thing:
Meanwhile, Paul tells Michael, “What greater faith can a man have than to leave his list? ‘She’s A Woman,’ ‘If I Needed…’, ‘…Tripper,’ ‘Baby’s in…,’…’I Feel Fine,’ ‘Yesterday’ ‘I Wanna Be Nowhere Man,’ ‘Paperback Long and Tall,'” This list is the one affixed to Paul’s old touring bass, which had been taken out of mothballs for these sessions, and happens to be the set list of the fabs’ last concert, or their last concert until the 30th of January of 1969.
chained and perfumed 
