10
by Johnny Doglands
I have plenty of thoughts on this, probably more than can fit into a single post, so - long post(s) incoming...
Long post, long film. Peter Jackson's only gone and made a LOTR trilogy type film about the Beatles!
So here is my Silmarillion;
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Big Beatles Fan here (isn't everybody?)
Firstly it was the Beatles who taught me how to play. I'd been banging around on my guitar making a noise for over a year when I got my bass. I decided I was definately into this music thing and If I wanted to get in a band it was time to learn how to play. I dug through my Dad's record collection for things I would like to learn, starting with his two thirds complete Beatles collection...
People are often disparaging about the stereo Beatles records (Yes I know, they didn't ever bother to attend those stereo mixing sessions) But they were really useful for someone who started out almost completely tone deaf to do ear training and learn how to play a song they like without needing the (often wrong) tab or sheet music.
Because of the extreme panning, you could turn the balance control hard left or hard right and get the bass on it's own. Sometimes with a tiny bit of guitar, sometimes not. I learnt all the basslines and then moved on to the other side of the balance control and started trying to work out if the guitar chords were major or minor. Then when I came to try and learn keyboard, I already knew bass and chords, so just had to learn to simulatneously do a bassline with my left hand and a chordal part with my right.
They were my music teachers. Once I had learnt all the Beatle music I liked, I started moving onto the kind of records that influenced them. When I got my first 4-Track recorder, George Martin's book Recording the Beatles had lots of stuff about experimenting with the new(!) four track technology, and how they did things.
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Original film Let it Be 1970, Dir. Michael Lindsey-Hogg -
I have watched it many times, although it can be a hard slog and uncomfortable to watch in parts. From the way Let it Be was edited, the impression I got was this; McCartney was creatively on fire at this time and had lots of really great songs. Lennon not so much, it seemed he was just making thing up on the spot. Harrison was at a creative high point in his life, but struggling to get L&M to even play any of this stuff. Ringo is the quiet one here, not much to contribute apart from some great drumming and at one point says "someone write me a song, so I can have one number to sing on the record". That didn't happen on Let it Be.
They were talking over each other, singing over each other, and not listening to each other very much. The arguments were edited to make them seem more dramatic than they were. The way the Let it Be film narritive flows is that it gives the impression that all they had was shit in the beginning but it all comes together in the end for the rooftop show. The police stopping the show was edited to make it look more dramatic also. Once the police arrived they actually wanted the band to get dragged away to make a cool ending to the movie.
Michael Lindsey-Hogg talks in Get Back about how they're making a documentary, you've got to tell the truth, you can't lie to people, etc. Bullshit. Let it Be was edited into a certain narrative, edited to seem more dramatic. It's all very much a contrivance, more a film narrative than a music documentary.
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Get Back 2021, Dir Peter Jackson
Part one...
....might not be the best place to start for a non-musician. I remember putting on the original Let it Be film and my Dad came in. He started watching and wasn't as into it as he thought he would be. It can be a frustrating watch if you just want to hear some Beatles songs played through in full. Get Back Part one is no different. For anyone who has played in a band, it's a great insight into their rehearsal process, though.
I've always thought of myself as more of a John Lennon, I looked like him in my teens, but it turns out I'm more of McCartney. Someone has to run a rehearsal, or nothing gets accomplished. I wouldn't do things the way he did though. If something's not working, three tries is enough then it's time to say "we'll move on and come back to it later". Doing the same song 20 times and not getting it 'right' is soul destroying. I will suggest musical ideas, especially for things that I've written, but if the other people can come up with something better, I'm all for it. I'm not insistant that my song be played exactly how I want it, collaboration is better. I only step in when I think things are sounding a bit bland. I try to be diplomatic and not make it seem like I'm criticsing someone else's playing. McCartney needs to be more accomodating of everyone elses needs here.
A rehearsal session needs a bandleader. That would have been John Lennon in the early days, but it's not here. Probably drugs, like mentioned above by FM Twelvepoint. It doesn't need to be a ego thing. Sometimes at practise, I'm not the frontman or the leader in any shape or form, but I just chip with suggestions to keep things moving. Playing something familiar can be a good idea to get things going, rather than starting in with unfamiliar material. The stuff the Beatles are messing about on, doing different styles and funny accents - you'll notice it's the material they've done to death and know inside out. It's mostly not material for the record or planned concert, so it's fine. They needed to lighten up and have fun. Good Idea.
Part two/three...
Glynn Johns, wow. 'Magic' Alex Mardas aside, no wonder it took so long to set the studio up. Aside from bringing the desks and tape machines in, he has to split a lot of the mics three ways, hear me out here...
In those days recording sound for a concert film and recording sound for a record were two different disciplines and there was not much overlap. If you see a concert film from the 60s or 70s a lot of the time you will see two mics, often taped to each other on the stands. One, with a foam rubber pop filter of some sort - that's the film sound recordist's one going to their desk. They knew to use those when filming outdoor concerts. The other one goes to the recording engineer's desk and on to the tape machine for the studio record or soundtrack. Glynn Johns is likely splitting the mic three ways...
The mic needed to go to the desk, the PA, and the film sound recordist to go on the audio track of the film. There was no SMPTE in the early days to sync things up. Those guys never went to the same schools, rarely worked together and were seperate entities, so taking a feed from the studio or live sound desk was often not done. I've split vocal mics to go to the PA and recording machine before at the PRF UK shows, and I can Imagine setting all that up and getting impedances right, banishing hum etc, to be a total pain in the arse.
Mics - I'm not a mega microphone nerd like some here. I see them as tools to get a job done and try not to fetishise about them too much. I can't afford the expensive stuff anyway. Some others may have some more astute observations than me here, and I'd like to hear them.
Here we see the first really huge record to use the Glynn Johns drum mic technique, and the first Beatles record to have drums recorded in stereo. The vocal mics are tiny, they must be about the size of a strawberry. I can't see what type they are, they are covered in foam rubber, anyone know? I might see if I can find out at some point. Large Diaphragm Condensers* on the amps. That's the opposite way round a lot of people would do things nowadays. If you had a great vocalist today, a lot of engineers would normally use LDCs on them, and have the dynamics on the amps. I can't criticise though, because it came out great. I'm surprised those tiny mics ended up sounding so good.
*I can't help thinking that the electric shocks George was getting in Twickenham in Part One might well be because someone tried to send phantom power down all the mic cables, not just to the condensers. I've had it happen to me before where a switch turns on PP for two channels, and I accidentally put a dynamic mic in one channel instead of a condenser resulting in a tiny shock. It's only a small voltage, but I would guess it's something you would want to get fixed if you were recording the Beatles. The sound team must have had their work cut out for them working with such a massive act.
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Personality stuff -
I'll start with the Yoko Ono stuff because I've often thought the much touted idea that Yoko broke up The Beatles to be pure misogyny. It got even worse after Lennon died, because when the more popular half of a celebrity couple dies, the other one often gets shit on. I don't know if you've noticed that!
It's not as if Yoko ever thought she was in the band, or tried to tell them how to do their jobs. From watching Get Back, we see that she mainly sat quietly by John's side, offering little but the moral support of her prescence. She doesn't seem to be whispering ideas into John's ear very much to me. I tend to disregard the stuff Lennon said in the early 70s about Paul hating Yoko, he was drugged up and paranoid for most of that time. He changed his tune somewhat when they made up in '74 anyway. I don't see McCartney sticking around to jam with John and Yoko if he hated her. I don't see him writing an anti Enoch Powell song but at the same time being racist towards Yoko. I think some of this is bullshit sour grapes from John about their friendship and partnership breaking up due to the management and legal disputes they had at the time.
Yoko Ono is far from the only wife or girlfriend attending these sessions, as we see in Get Back. The only one I didn't see attending is Patti Harrison(?) perhaps if George had invited her she might not have run off with Eric Clapton. I enojoyed seeing Linda's daughter Heather do the Yoko impression, that was funny! Anyway, Yoko Ono is very quiet here. I see her whisper in John's ear occasionally, but that's no reason to think she was trying to run things. It never resulted in much so it's probably just personal stuff and not band stuff.
I always thought the Beatles entourage was too big, but now I see they needed the right people around them to stop it all falling apart due to egos and arguements. They brought people like Billy Preston in to stop them from wanting to have too much dischord in front of him. Like a four way marriage where they try and not argue in front of the children! It ended up working a treat.
John is a lot quieter here initially, maybe he's fucked up? Much like the Stones 'Sympathy for the Devil' film, recording seems to be mainly fueled by cigarettes and cups of tea. If they were doing anything much other than a little glass of wine or whiskey, they did it away from the cameras. Probably there is some grass being smoked during those listening sessions.
Ringo says the least out of all of them, perhaps he's envious of George leaving and wishes he could do the same. He already pulled that play on the last album so can't do it again. I wonder what he's thinking. Maybe he's wondering what his role in the band is, other than drummer. He doesn't get to contribute much apart from those beats and I always think he should be louder, especially during the rooftop concert. I just want to hear more Ringo.
George is very zen, but at the same time not going to stay in a situation that is harming him emotionally. He'd been jamming with famous musicians in the states and come back to a situation where he is not as appreciated by his bandmates as he was his peers. He and Ringo are also on a lot less money than L&M due to the royalty situation. Creatively, it's no wonder his post Beatles solo album is the best one. Why did they reject all those great songs he had? He just never wanted to push as hard as he should have, although by this point he knows he can put his foot down and throw a spanner in the works. He's also a musical sponge. See him here playing drums Ringo style and bass McCartney style. He's soaked all that up and more from the outside stuff he's been doing. He's probably right a lot of the time, they should have listened to him more.
Paul, as I mentioned before is at a creative peak in his life. He needs to work on his people skills (don't we all) because he obviously is upsetting the others. Perhaps he is a bit manic here, creative people often are. I may not like all the songs he's ever written but it's hard to fault him. Blaming him for breaking up The Beatles is stupid, going with Allen Klein turned out to be a bad idea for them all. They shouldn't have gone with Eastman and Son either, they could have found sympathetic and competent business management easily if they'd tried. It's a shame they broke up, but all things must pass...
George Martin. It's interesting to see his role as a facilitator here, he provides a bit of encouragement, nostalgia and a tiny bit of quality control.
It's interesting to see the Beatles lack of confidence here, they don't seem to have let fame go to their heads they way a lot of bands do. They are trying to be the club band they used to be, and record the way they used to in the early days. I think a lot of it has to do with the class system in British society in those days. If you were someone with a regional accent, you were seen as poor, stupid, uneductaed, etc. People in big business, TV, theatre and film, and probably anything above working class were encouraged to drop the accent and speak the Queen's English. Tom Baker and Anne Robinson were both Scousers originally, but they had to drop the accent to 'make it' or fit in in showbiz. Teachers like my Dad were forced to learn to speak Recieved Pronunciation or be put into remedial speech therapy. The Beatles did this a bit early on, If you've heard the proper Scouse accent, you will realise that the Beatle version is very watered down. Society was changing, the Beatles were trying to change with it and pushed some changes themselves without realising. It took decades for these changes to take full effect. They were the biggest band in the world and could have done whatever they wanted but they still were constrained by all-encompassing class system we had here in those days. Hence needing an upper class guy in Epstein as manager.
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To conclude...
Anyway... I've heard from a friend that he saw some kind of 'making of' interview with Peter Jackson, so I'd like to see that. I'll also probably watch the whole thing again in the coming weeks. Maybe some of my first impressions will prove incorrect. If I've made too many false assumptions, I don't mind being corrected. I really enjoyed it, though it's not my favourite Beatles album, that was a great time period and it's amazing to be able to see all those interesting little moments captured on film.
TLDR; The Beatles, don't you just love 'em?
NOT CRAP!