Get Back

Peter Jackson's editing of the three weeks of footage of the Beatles at work, leading up to the rooftop concert, provides some interesting insights into the creative process and team dynamics.   

First, the creative process. It was quite remarkable to hear how some relatively vague initial ideas quickly came to sound like the songs everyone knows ("Get Back", for example).  While the emergence of an almost finished product seems miraculous, it is a function of, and a testament to, their experience of working together and their skill at coming up with parts that fitted so well. In the end, their competence as a group of musicians allowed them to turn in an almost perfect performance in minutes rather than the hours or days it takes less seasoned players.

The other fascinating aspect of the film is the team dynamic. In the first episode, McCartney is trying to take a leadership role (something Brian Epstien provided, at least regarding work schedules, until his untimely death) but McCartney is clearly struggling. George Harrison seems to have retreated in to a passive aggressive relationship with McCartney. McCartney's belated and rather ham-handed and attempts to placate him only make matters worse and Harrison walks out of the film (and, at least temporarily, the band).

Also interesting is the relationship between Lennon and McCartney; in a secretly recorded conversation, Lennon admits to having acquiesced to whatever McCartney wanted and seems resigned to it. Lennon also comments on how Harrison feels undervalued. It is not clear to me from that conversation whether McCartney quite understood how his behavior had affected the other members of the group.  I imagine the dynamic between Lennon and McCartney had evolved over the years (since McCartney was "hired" by Lennon into the Quarrymen and was also younger than Lennon).  

I was struck by the contrast with the Amadeus String Quartet which formed while its members were also quite young (in their mid 20s - not quite as young as the Beatles). The Amadeus Quartet remained productive, cohesive and amicable until Peter Schidlof's death led to the remaining members' decision to stop performing after 40 years together. One big difference, of course, is that Amadeus Quartet formed when its members were in their mid-twenties while the Beatles came together in their late teens.   

Peter Jackson commented on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert that his film, despite being crafted from the same raw footage, tells a quite different story from that of the film "Let it Be".  I'm not sure it does. While it is true that the members of the band were still having fun playing together at least some of the time, there are clearly big issues that aren't being addressed; George Harrison's feeling under--appreciated, Richard Starkey in some sense resigned to being "just the drummer", even tension between Lennon and McCartney over creative ideas. The joking, seemingly a throwback to their early, more care-free days as teenagers, may make the day-to-day bearable, but does nothing to resolve the underlying tensions. 

And while Jackson tried to downplay the effect Yoko Ono had on the dynamic, he may be missing the point. It's true that Yoko didn't insert herself into their work but Jackson misses two things - first what Ono says to Lennon when they are at home, although given that it was McCartney who finally called it quits that may be lees of the issue than simply her presence in the studio. She may not have said anything but while she was there, Lennon's attention was divided between her and McCartney; and since McCartney had been used to Lennon's undivided attention when they were creating together in the early days, that may have been what convinced him that they could never get back to the close collaborative relationship they once had.  The Get Back sessions were, it seems, an attempt to go back to the band's creative roots working less experimentally and more simply and collaboratively and a big part of that was the Lennon-McCartney writing partnership. If McCartney felt that they could never get that back because Lennon wasn't as completely focused on the band as he had once been, McCartney may have felt that the experiment had failed and it was time to move on. 

Returning to the issue of the dynamics and personalities, Lennon seems much less goal-oriented than McCartney and seemingly would have been happy to continue to working. But my sense is that McCartney wanted to keep moving forward, keep putting out records, keep in the limelight, and didn't see the Beatles as being able to deliver on his schedule.

Might things have turned out differently had Yoko Ono not come into their lives or had McCartney recognized his attempts to lead the groups after Epstien's death were not working? Perhaps: but the question is rather pointless.  What really matters is that, in the end, the Beatles gave us a catalog of extraordinarily creative work for which we should simply be immensely grateful.