Dear Beatles: A Love Letter and a Review of the film Get Back
This is my third iteration- I cut out about 2/3 of it - I realized that I need an editor, or else I write a thesis! If you want the full version, just message me: showrey3@gmail.com.
The subjects of the film Get Back are so iconic, and their breakup was so earthshattering, that it’s easy to get lost in the bookend questions of what drove them apart. But the deeper, more universal question, and the one that makes this film so special, is, “How do we proceed when the end is inevitable?” The film is mostly John’s and Paul’s story. It is also ours.
We begin with a nostalgic slideshow of video clips and music from the Beatles’ early days. It’s impossible not to feel their joy in being young and together, in creating and performing as a group. But as the music and memories fade, we enter an empty open warehouse space– a blank slate for a band whose private world has undergone some drastic changes.
Brian has been gone for over a year, and Paul is the reluctant heir apparent. Yoko has become the center of John’s universe. George is questioning whether or not he’s living a life of authenticity. Ringo, who just wants peace and love is depressed.
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Nonetheless, they begin the sessions by trying gamely to get back to where they once belonged. They pull out their old stuff. They try a few new ones. But soon they all realize that it’s just not fun anymore, and the creative juices are not flowing. George’s guitar ominously falls down, and the cymbals on Ringo’s drum kit come crashing to the floor. Everyone looks miserable.
George tentatively shares a song-in-progress, and the response is lackluster, if not plain rude. He announces that he’s quitting the band.
“It’s just that being together thing,” says Paul, looking into the distance.
Many times I've been alone
And many times I've cried
Anyway, you'll never know
The many ways I've tried
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Where to go from here? They try to convince George to return, but It Did Not Go Well, the filmmakers tell us. Only Ringo and Paul show the next day. “And then there were two”, says Paul, his eyes a confusion of thunderstorms and rain clouds.
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door
John finally shows up, and he and Paul have a private chat.
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox they
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
They return to the studio, and get to work. Ringo does his part, but the songs still aren’t coming.
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Paul and John try to out-clever one another with sarcastic barbs.
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George returns. The band still sounds like shit. John sings the end of a beautiful friendship. Paul, fed-up, retreats to his newspaper and reads aloud, like a newscaster:
‘Everything in the Beatles garden was rosy…but that was a LONG TIME AGO. They went their own private ways, found their OWN FRIENDS, and became LESS RELIENT on each other for GUIDANCE and COMRADESHIP’.
John begins to play over him, Geoge and Ringo join in, intending to drown him out, but Paul just reads louder. Paul reads on, unabated:
‘They’ll stay together because of the economic necessity…. IT”S ALL OVER. THEY WILL NEVER BE EXACTLY THE SAME AGAIN.’
The road crew looks away, and it is clear that the band has hit bottom. And this, I believe, is the point at which the Beatles may have quit entirely, or, worse, produced music the equivalent of stale bread.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, they created some of their best work of all time. Because, I believe, at this point John decides to listen, really listen, to Paul, and this is what he hears this, though perhaps not in so many words:
The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here?
Let me know the way
And then, I think, this is what this happened in John’s mind:
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
And then the equivalent of this:
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe
He sings Don’t Let Me Down – just the one line, and takes it to heart.
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The next day John shows up on time. He directs the stage crew and the sound engineers and pretty much anybody else in the room. He sashays around and does funny voices. He advises Ringo and George, and he asks Paul’s advice. He eats a piece of toast with his mouth open.
He starts to sing: Everybody had a hard year, Everybody had a good time…Yeah I’ve got a feeling, a feeling deep inside. He looks over at Paul, who is looking glum and not singing.
“Sing Paul!” John commands. And Paul joins in.
And then Billy Preston walks in, like a grace note from heaven, and gets on the keys. They go into Get Back. “I was thinking of you doing two solos,” John says to George, whose confidence is beginning to come back.
Everyone listens to the replay. Paul’s voice is soulful. George’s solos sing. Ringo is at his swinging best. Billy’s keys increase the funk factor exponentially. It’s joyful, and it rocks. You’ve given us a lift, Bill,” says John. Billy’s smile lights up the room.
Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me
John sings a few bars of a slowed-down version of Help: Now I’ve changed my mind and opened up the door.
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The next day, John and Paul sing Two of Us.“It’s like we have to get back,” says Paul, “There’s a story. ..it’s ‘don’t let me down’. Oh darling, don’t let me down.”
“It’s like you and me are lovers,” says John. They sing Fancy Me Chances in comical voices. Paul is grieving what they both know is happening - the impending end of a friendship and creative partnership that means everything to the world and the world to Paul.
Paul talks about the film of their trip to India. “It’s great, just incredible…it goes through all sorts of changes and stuff…it’s all of them…against the sky…and it changes to someone else…” The next day, Paul works on Let it Be: And though they may be parted, there’s still a chance that they may see: “I mean that’s the end of the song, as much as I have,” he says. It’s clear he just can’t let go. John knows, and he is quietly working behind the scenes to bring him through.
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The next day, George helps Ringo with his Octopus song. John helps Paul on the Long and Winding Road. Everyone helps George on Something. Paul returns to Let it Be:“It’s just mourning and slow,” he says.
“It takes a long time to get out of it,” John says.
“I can’t sort of think how to do this one at all. I don’t know. I don’t know,” says Paul running his hands through his hair and rubbing his eyes.
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As they finish going through the final set list, Paul and John sing: You and I have memories/That stretches out ahead/We're going home /Better believe it/Good-bye. They sing through gritted teeth, making angry faces at each other, but they are laughing, and there is love in their eyes.
And it all ends on the roof, under the open sky. Like us, the people on the streets below can no longer see the band anymore. Only their music remains.
The credits roll with starts and stops of Let it Be, and then, finally, Paul’s finished song. The letting go, that was so hard to accept, is finally done. Was that good enough? he asks the man in the control room. The man in the control room says “yes”.
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There are so many reasons to watch this film: the music, the history, little Heather’s face when Yoko sings, and, of course, the birthing of songs borne of raw emotion in real time.
But the best reason to watch is because it answers this: How do we proceed when things must end? Was Long and Winding Road really just about Linda, I wondered? Was Across the Universe really just about Yoko?
Maybe we can’t ever get back to where we once belonged, we learn, but we can move forward in love. And what is love, really? It is carrying the burden when it becomes too heavy for your brother. It’s helping people to laugh and have fun together. It’s acknowledging unexpected blessings when they come. It’s reminding people of who they were, who they are, and who they may become. It’s encouraging people to keep going, and it’s helping them to let go.
Love was John’s parting gift to the band, and especially to Paul, and, as love is wont to do, it multiplied a million ways, like stars across the universe, a time warp that starts in the slice of space and time captured by the film and ends fifty years later in our living rooms.
Many months after the sessions, George said in an interview: “John is a saint…but at the same time, he’s such a bastard – but that’s the great thing about him, you see?” That’s what makes the story so relatable: We are all saints, and we are all bastards. We are all capable of hurting, and we are all capable of healing one another.
And so, we find, amidst their music and the memories, the Beatles’ greatest gift of all: showing us that although all things must pass, love will get us through.
All you need is love, they said. Love is all you need. If ever there were a way to capture a sentiment so ethereal, this film does.
Get Back is available on Disney Plus. The film was directed and produced by Peter Jackson and Apple, Corp. treimmed to around 9 hours selected from 60 hours of film and 150 hours of video.
