Monthly Archives: January 2009

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.

As the morning of January 13 goes on Paul, Ringo, Linda, Mal and Glyn continue their various conversations. Ringo and Paul spend a little time quizzing one another on the whereabouts of various old Liverpool acquaintances–this is, for me at least, pretty insidery stuff and gets a bit difficult for me to follow. When Neil Aspinall, who has seemingly spent the morning thus far trying to get the three remaining Beatles to the rehearsal studio, arrives to find two Beatles already present, conversation turns a bit more serious.

Finally, Paul gets into a bit of what went on at the fab meeting the night before (I’m sorry, I have to do this-–lame, I know), but just as he does, Michael’s voice comes over the tape loud and heavy. It seems as though he is in the process of recording his end of a telephone conversation. It is so intrusive and comes at such a juicy point in the conversation (Paul can be heard saying “John does bullshit. I bullshit. Ringo bullshits…” just as Michael comes in) that in order to replicate how irritating it is I will transcribe it here.

“…Twickenham. Which is just so hard. –Probably this week or maybe next week. I’ll call you this week anyway to let you know how it’s going and then we can make the date for this week or next week. Okay. Bye. um. um.”

When Paul again becomes audible, he is in full flight and the topic is Yoko. It turns out that the meeting at Ringo’s went well until John’s refusal to speak and, moreover, John’s insistence on speaking through Yoko sent George storming out the door. This is interesting because until I heard these tapes I always followed the conventional wisdom regarding George’s departure: that he left because he found Paul’s bossiness insufferable. This version of the events has most likely passed into semi-official story due to this minor though legendary argument between George and Paul that was included in the Let It Be film. As Paul complains about Yoko, Glyn reminds Paul that the sensitive topic is being recorded. This doesn’t faze Paul. What he is going on about is insanely insightful. He is describing his attempts to write songs, specifically “I Will,” with John while Yoko is present. Yoko, it seems, throws off the Lennon/McCartney dynamic because her presence causes Paul to come in on what he calls “a Yoko beat…writing songs about white walls just because [he thinks] that John and Yoko would like that–but they wouldn’t…they’re very straight.”

Next, more of what went on at the band meeting at Ringo’s house is revealed. John, of course, arrived with Yoko who did most of the talking for both of them. Paul brought Linda and Heather along, a decision that he now regrets, though Ringo is quick to point out that Linda “stayed out of the way.” This is interrupted by someone (probably Mal) arriving with a breakfast of toast and tea. The conversation briefly changes to talk of diets (Michael, it seems, is constantly worried about his weight; Paul’s trying to not eat so much toast). The talk of toast and butter brings Paul back to singing another chorus of “Build Me Up Buttercup.” The guy is a fucking genius.

Paul bitches a bit about John’s nonverbal “heightened awareness” (some nonsense that Lennon was then practicing–he seemed to think that one didn’t need words to communicate) saying it “screws things up totally” because they “aren’t ready for vows of silence” and it results in no one knowing “what the fuck each other is talking about.”

Paul lays out the state of the Beatles at the present moment. He lists the problems within the band and “Yoko is very much to do with it.” The non-Lennon fabs have two Yoko-related options: either to “fight it, and…ask her to sit down at the board meeting” or to accept that she is not going anywhere–making her “not so much of an obstacle as long as [they’re] not trying to surmount it.” He insists that it is “not so bad” but it seems as if he is trying to convince himself that Yoko is not a big problem or convince the others or the documentary crew–since Michael followed the tea trolley back onto the rehearsal space, this has become something of an interview.

Macca equates the halt in fab sounds to a workers strike with George striking because work conditions aren’t right–a situation that he insists John is aware of. “We’ve done a lot of Beatles now, we’ve had a lot of Beatles, you know, and we’ve got a lot out of Beatles…so I think John’s thing now if it became a push between Yoko and Beatles, it’d be Yoko [who’d stay].” Neil, Michael and Paul continue the Yoko conversation while Linda and Ringo discuss their children’s love of animals. Heather is “animal crazy.”

The other problems within the fabs are that since they’ve finished touring, John and Paul aren’t around one another enough to write songs together; there is no Epsteinesque “daddy figure” to tell them “nine o’clock…Leave the girls at home, lads;” and that they aren’t working hard enough or playing music together often enough.

After listing the problems within the band for twenty minutes or so (and it should be pointed out that George is barely mentioned at all at any point during the day), Paul sums things up quite nicely by saying, “It’s going to be such an incredible, comical thing, like, in fifty years time, you know, ‘they broke up ’cause Yoko sat on an amp.’”

Forty years ago today the fabs were in an awful state. On Friday January 10, 1969, while the band were on the seventh day of rehearsals for what would eventually become the Let It Be album and film, George Harrison calmly announced to the others that he was leaving the group. Before departing the Twickenham film studios where rehearsals were being held, he suggested that the fabs might advertise in NME for a replacement. What followed on that day was a lot of ugly jamming with Yoko Ono on vocals. Toward the end of the day Lennon famously told Let It Be film director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, his intentions to soldier on without Harrison, “If George doesn’t come back by Monday or Tuesday…we get Clapton.”

On the night of Sunday the twelfth, the fabs including George and manager-of-sorts Neil Aspinall held a band meeting at Ringo’s house. The matter of George’s status with the group was still not settled when the meeting was adjourned, but, the following day, the remaining fabs turned up for work anyway.

The Let It Be film cameras’ audio reels were stolen and in the hands of bootleggers for over thirty years, because of this, four hours of audio of the events of January 13 are available on bootleg. Listening to the bootlegs, we get a pretty good idea of what happened or at least what was said in the studio on that day. Not a hell of a lot happened but plenty was said. The fabs trickled into work and did very little rehearsing. In the place of fab musical sounds was a different kind of fab sound, that of boredom and gossip.

The first Beatle to arrive was Ringo and he is joined in conversation by Michael, Glyn and Mal. In lieu of any music being played that morning we get a few mundane tidbits of information: Ringo had watched some of Mary Queen of Scots on television the night before (perhaps he was referring to this) and had watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane on Saturday. Michael watched “a bit” of a Tom Jones special “to see if it was as bad as [he] thought it was going to be, which it was.” Michael is of the opinion that Tom Jones’ career trajectory is “a real tragedy.”

Somewhere else on the TV dial that evening was a Andy Williams special featuring Simon and Garfunkel. Ringo had seen only some of it. He tuned in just as Simon and Garfunkel did a tune with Andy Williams, which I can only imagine is this:

When Michael opines that Art Garfunkel has a “great face,” Ringo asks whether or not Garfunkel is “the frizz.” Michael adds that he was “with someone on Saturday night” who told him that they were originally a teenage rock and roll act called Tom and Jerry. This is true. I am not so sure that what Ringo adds, that Simon and Garfunkel were also at one time a surf act, is true but Michael doesn’t dare correct him, “They were a lot of things.” He says diplomatically.

Conversation then drifts to a variety of subjects including some man who made the Guinness Book of Records because he weighed thirty-seven stone; Marlene Dietrich’s bandleader and how his on-stage mannerisms were similar to those of Lulu’s bandleader; Mike Love’s headwear (is it a turban or one of those Russian style hats?); whether or not Conway Twitty died in that plane crash with the Big Bopper; whether or not Tiny Tim’s cover of “Great Balls of Fire” is better than Jerry Lee Lewis’ original; whether or not Little Richard’s skin color is black or maroon; James Brown’s diamond watch; Paul being chased off a bench in Harlem by a cop; and whether Ringo prefers acting in films to playing drums—Ringo had recently performed opposite Brando in a film entitled Candy.

After forty-five minutes of this, King Shit aka Paul McCartney turns up with Linda. They are just in time to hear Michael inexpertly drop the needle on a 45 of Arthur Conley performing a cover of the fabs’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”. As the record plays, Ringo and Paul express their annoyance that whenever a band cover this song, they invariably drop the word “bra” from the chorus in favor of adding “woo” or “yeah.” Conley chose “yeah.” Despite his objections, Paul sings along a bit and debates with the others which of the covers of this song he likes best. He decides on The Bedrocks’ version. It should be noted that the original “Ob-La-Di” had only been released in late November of 1968, less than three months earlier. The B side to the Arthur Conley 45 is played next. It’s a slow soul number entitled “Sleep On Otis”. This prompts Michael to exclaim (a bit late) that Arthur is “trying to sound like Otis Redding!” Talk turns back to “Ob-La-Di” as Michael asks about the man who inspired the song. Paul informs Michael that the man who “gave” Paul the phrase ob-la-di, ob-la-da was a “spade bongo player.” Oh, yeah, Paul refers to blacks as spades–or at least he did then.

The music conversation continues as someone confuses The Equals with The Foundations. The Equals had had a hit with “Baby Come Back” in 1968. Paul admits to loving both The Equals’ “Baby Come Back” and The Foundations’ “Build Me Up Buttercup” and sings of bit of both. “Baby Come Back” is an amazing piece of pop. If you’ve never heard this one give it a listen. It kicks ass. The Equals, aside from having in their line up a young Eddy Grant, are probably best remembered today as the band whose “Police On My Back” The Clash covered. In Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s estimation, The Equals biggest problem is that they “really are quite ugly.”

And here’s The Foundations with “Build Me Up Buttercup”, a beautiful piece of bubblegum:

As the conversation goes on it becomes clear that Paul is as good at talking about pop music as he is writing it. After a bit of debate over whether a song is entitled “Bella Linda” or a group is called Bella Linda (Linda was right, it was the song and she was correct that the band was called The Grassroots, although she also guessed that they were called The Seeds), talk turns to the first 45 that Paul bought. It was, of course, “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent in 1956. He claims to have “never bought that lot” when it came to skiffle as he deemed it “a bit British.” He liked it okay but it never got him “out to the shops.” Linda shows her priviledged upbringing when she states that she always bought the albums (as opposed to the more affordable 45s) and then goes on to list all of the bands that she saw play at the Brooklyn Paramount (she saw Buddy Holly–that’s nothing to spit at). Ringo admits he hasn’t bought many albums since Capitol began giving them to him for free. After a number of attempts to be heard, Michael tells Paul that the first single that he bought was “Quarter to Three” by Gary U.S. Bonds. This record was released in 1960 prompting Paul to laugh derisively as he tells Michael, “that was years later, years after the event.”

The Beatles, world famous pop group who forty years ago this month returned from the brink of break up to film a documentary of rehearsals for a live concert and LP.

Neil Aspinall (1941-2008), the fabs’ former road manager turned head of Apple Corps from 1968 until 2007; served as Beatle wrangler and troubleshooter during these sessions.

Linda Eastman (1941-1998), professional photographer; the future Mrs. Paul McCartney who occasionally turned up at the studio with her then-boyfriend; mother of six-year-old Heather Louise Eastman See.

Mal Evans (1935-1976), former roadie; friend of the fabs; put upon gofer (whose duties seemingly extended to procuring heroin for the Lennons); drink mixer; and the man responsible (or who was at least blamed) for nailing Ringo’s kit down in the wrong spot at the beginning of the roof top concert.

Glyn Johns, Rolling Stones collaborator turned sound engineer for the fabs documentary (as he had a filmmakers’ union card); prepared two rejected albums based on material recorded during the sessions.

Michael Lindsay-Hogg, director of the fabs’ untitled film project; previously the director of the Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus (the Stones’ shelved television special that was filmed the previous year and in which Lennon and Ono performed) and the director of the promotional clips for the fabs’ Hey Jude and Revolution. (Couldn’t find a period picture of this guy which is irritating because I’m dying to know what he looked like then.)
(Update: Made a screen grab from Let It Be:)

Alexis Mardas (Magic Alex), Greek television repairman turned head of Apple Electronics (and my personal favorite Beatles hanger-on); pioneer in voice recognition software; failed in his attempt to build a 72 track studio in the basement of the Apple building; squanderer of some €300,000 of Apple’s money.

George Martin, long time fabs producer; served as unofficial producer during the time the fabs spent at Apple studios (January 21-31) during these sessions; oversaw sound recording during the roof top concert; came to the rescue after Alexis’s failed attempt to jazz up the Apple recording studio; introduced to Billy Preston by John Lennon as the Beatles’ “A&R guy;” snazzy dresser.

Denis O’Dell, head of Apple Films; associate producer of Richard Lester’s Lennon-starring How I Won The War (1967) and Petulia; producer of the fabs’ Magical Mystery Tour (1967) television film; producer of The Magic Christian (1969), the film that Ringo was to begin filming on February 1, 1969 thus giving the Let It Be project its deadline; and future executive producer of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980), which, needless to say, is his last film credit. And most importantly, Denis served as producer of the as of yet untitled documentary that the fabs were filming in January 1969. (I couldn’t find a picture of this one, hopefully you know why I chose the image that I did. UPDATE: I found a picture of Denis circa the Get Back era.)

Yoko Ono, artist; avant-garde musician and filmmaker; “actress;” guest vocalist in George’s absence; fixture in rehearsal and recording studio; girlfriend of John Lennon; mouthpiece for John Lennon; future Mrs. John Lennon; source of friction between the fabs, but, at the same time, perpetual receiver of a bad rap.

Billy Preston (1946-2006), keyboard player and organist; acquaintance of the fabs since 1962; invited by Harrison to join the in-progress sessions from January 22 on; only non-fab to receive billing alongside the band on one of their recordings (as he did on the Get Back/Don’t Let Me Down single, which was credited to “The Beatles featuring Billy Preston”); future Apple recording artist and a man whom Lennon wanted to offer full time Beatles membership to.

Heather Eastman See (later Heather McCartney), daughter of Linda Eastman; little girl whom Lennon frequently serenaded with a (perhaps improvised) tune–the words to which go roughly, “you’re a little piece of leather, well put together;” hell raiser; animal enthusiast and impressionist; future adopted daughter of Paul McCartney; guess vocalist on Dig It!

Derek Taylor (1932-1997), Brian Epstein’s personal assistant turned Head of Press for Apple Corps; while serving in a similar position for the Beach Boys, he was the first to marry the words “Brian Wilson” and “genius” in print in a press release for the Pet Sounds LP.