years after the event (january 26, 1969 part three)

The tape picks up again after lunch. Much of the next hour or so is devoted to extremely lengthy instrumental improvisations. When the jamming begins it seems as though the fabs are going to work on George’s “For You Blue” because they are on the appropriate instruments (Paul on piano, Ringo on drums, George on guitar, Billy on organ and Lennon on slide guitar) and Lennon plays a bit of the song’s intro. An thorough work out of “For You Blue,” far from my favorite song that the fabs endlessly rehearsed during these sessions, would have come as a welcome substitute for the uninspired noodling that the band engage in. The Beatles, as it turns out, aren’t the strongest “jam band” out there. While this instrumental goes on and on, Yoko can occasionally be heard very faintly doing that caterwauling shit that she does but thankfully it seems as though she is singing into a microphone that is switched off. No one in the control room bothers to tell her that the mic is off.

After the jamming ends, Paul seems to want to work on “Let It Be” some more but after five renditions, none any better or worse than the ones that they had done before lunch, the band decide to give that one a rest chiefly because Lennon wants to “give up singing [the harmonies] for a bit.” Heather uses this down time to cease the microphone and imitate Yoko’s vocal approach to Lennon’s amusement. Before the band can decide what song they’ll play next, there is more jamming. This time Harrison takes vocal duties and extemporizes typically grouchy lyrics (“I told you before not to come knockin'”) to another bluesy instrumental. Heather occasionally joins in with some moaning. This goes on for twenty-five minutes.

Finally, the fabs get back to serious business. Paul begins to play the opening of his “The Long and Winding Road” and this signals a transition back into rehearsal mode. John, again on bass, is still largely unfamiliar with the song. “What key is it in?” He asks. “E flat! Fucking hell, you must be mental.” Even though it is quite late into the sessions, this is the first occasion that the band devote much time to rehearsing this song. Up until this point, it had only been played by Paul alone, usually on days when he was the first to arrive at the studio.

There is a moment of debate as to whether the fabs should even bother recording this song at all as it seems to be something that needs a string quartet, which might require overdubs–something that the band had swore off when beginning these sessions. Paul is of the opinion that the song should really be given to Ray Charles. Despite this, the band work on the song for the next two hours.

The band make short work of getting familiar with the song and, like “Let It Be,” come reasonably close to nailing it but, also like “Let It Be,” they would not record the version used on the LP until the last day of the sessions. In the mean time, Macca and Lennon amuse themselves by imitating the announcers of some televised ballroom dancing program (“Rita and Thomas Williams…He’s wearing a dark beard and a sombrero…Her husband is wearing a crinoline skirt which he made himself.”)

“The Long and Winding Road” is another song from these sessions that has never been a favorite of mine, but it works a lot better here in the almost lounge-y arrangement that the fabs give it rather than with all of the shit that Spector hung on it (some of these rehearsals have the feel of Air’s “Playground Love“). The fabs weren’t treating it as a powerful enough song to require all of Spector’s bells and whistles. Despite repeating many times that he hates Spector’s mix of the song–even going so far as to name its corruption in the lawsuit that dissolved the band (Macca is so fucking awesome!)–Paul plays it in the Spector arrangement to this day in concert.

As the day comes to an end, the fabs and their producers pile into the control room for playbacks of the material they just recorded. Georges Martin and Harrison and Paul discuss the arrangement of “The Long and Winding Road” while Heather proposes marriage to Glyn whom she calls Mr. Sock while asking him to pull off her socks. She then kills him and then brings him back to life (“I see you’ve been dead and I’m the queen…”). There is still some question as to how to handle playing “The Long and Winding Road” live without overdubs. George Martin asks if he should book The Mike Sammes Singers, a white bread vocal group upon whose services the fabs occasionally call when they need some extra voices. That’s them singing “stick it up your jumper” and “everybody’s got one” at the end of “I Am The Walrus,” they’re also on “Good Night” and all over Paul’s Thrillington album. They never appear during these sessions but someone calls them in for postproduction. Paul abruptly announces that he and Linda are going home to put Heather “back in [her] box.” Heather will not be returning the next day because she has school. With the day’s work behind him, George Martin decides to have a drink–there is plenty of booze around.

The last bit of the tape features Harrison having a conversation with the seldom miked Billy Preston. They seem to be discussing plans to record a Billy album. He was signed to Apple a few days earlier. George tries to think of who is free to record some songs with Billy. He suggests Ringo (if he can squeeze it in with his work on Magic Christian) and Paul. Lennon isn’t mentioned. The very last thing on the day’s tape is Harrison explaining to Preston that he has to “go into hospital” after the Get Back sessions for some dental surgery. “You see I’ve got a tooth–and it’s a bad one…and they have to cut through the gum and scrape out all this shit and it’s very bloody…” and there the tape ends.

That’s the end of the Get Back sessions posts for now. Maybe I’ll do more someday. I also plan on doing a post or two on Paul’s 1980 arrest in Japan and maybe some other fab-related things.