The Beatles - Get back Documentary

Listened to a podcast on the documentary and hadn’t realised that Mal Evans was shot dead by Police in LA in 1976. Quite haunting to think that 2 of the main characters were both shot dead within 11 years of filming.
 


GTG said:
I've only seen the first part so far but what surprised me most is how many fantastic songs they were trying out which didn't actually appear until they started knocking out solo albums. Another Day, All Things Must Pass, Jealous Guy/Child Of Nature, Gimme Some Truth ........ (2 years before Imagine came out!). Add those to Abbey Road and/or Let It Be!?! Mindboggling.
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There’s a few people on the internet have done that last thing. Pretended they nivver split up and tried to figure out which solo songs would be on which future Beatles albums. The next one was due to be called Everest irl. After that it’s all invented stuff. A strange but interesting listen.
 
riffraff said:
There’s a few people on the internet have done that last thing. Pretended they nivver split up and tried to figure out which solo songs would be on which future Beatles albums. The next one was due to be called Everest irl. After that it’s all invented stuff. A strange but interesting listen.
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An album released in 71 would have been brilliant.Probably a double.
 
Exapno Mapcase said:
That is harsh on George. The Beatles were the sum of their parts and he contributed massively to the records they made of the songs by Lennon and McCartney. Before fame he sang as many as the other two. Arguably he performs best at their Decca audition. He was cut out of the songwriting team but added lines and huge musical invention, only more recently has Paul talked about his guitar on And I Love Her.

Watch the Paul doc with Rick Rubin and George's importance shines through. In Get Back he is seen to be a big contributor to where songs go. Almost every night he seemed to be going home and writing a new song, coming in and being met with little reaction. Old Brown Shoe is the exception. At this point John came with few songs, George had a load - and mostly very good ones.

Paul often talks about Something as the first time George wrote anything really good. Ignoring While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Think For Yourself, I Want To Tell You, Within You, Without You, Long, Long, Long, and personally I think Don't Bother Me holds its own on With The Beatles. He was undervalued and in the film, Paul and John acknowledge it.

He was often the voice of common sense "we can't even get a free amp off Fender". Aye, he was exploring his spirituality and sounds a bit naive at times, but he was 25, with the eyes of the world on him at the peak of his personal creativity.

We all see things in different ways so you are only wrong in one respect - likening him to Joey Barton is abominable ;)
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WMGGW is one of the best songs on the White Album.
 
Squirrel said:
Loved it. Just compelling viewing all the way through. Always liked them but the last few months been getting more and more into their music.

Can anyone recommend the best Beatles book? Got a few weeks off work soon and fancy reading about them.
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Hunter Davies, Philip Norman and Ian McDonald cover just about everything a sane person with a Beatles interest needs.

Mark Lewisholms planned three volumes looks like a loons undertaking. Does he genuinely expect to live long enough to finish it? Thirty years to publish Vol1! I’m gonna have to presume that has included the research for all three volumes? I don’t think he’s gonna even bother with the solo stuff. He’s obviously after his own place in history.
When vol1 came out a review mocked summet like: Vol 1 ends after 900 pages with Ringos great grandfather shopping for a hat to wear on his honeymoon. Makes Guralnicks Elvis job look like a scribble on a post it note.
 
riffraff said:
Hunter Davies, Philip Norman and Ian McDonald cover just about everything a sane person with a Beatles interest needs.

Mark Lewisholms planned three volumes looks like a loons undertaking. Does he genuinely expect to live long enough to finish it? Thirty years to publish Vol1! I’m gonna have to presume that has included the research for all three volumes? I don’t think he’s gonna even bother with the solo stuff. He’s obviously after his own place in history.
When vol1 came out a review mocked summet like: Vol 1 ends after 900 pages with Ringos great grandfather shopping for a hat to wear on his honeymoon. Makes Guralnicks Elvis job look like a scribble on a post it note.
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Went to Lewisohn's show about Abbey Road and he found the newspaper article re. Mean Mr Mustard. He certainly goes into great detail.
 
EDGE said:
An album released in 71 would have been brilliant.Probably a double.
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Do yourself a search for “ imagined album Beatles Everest solo songs”.
Half hearted dude is particularly good on it. It was gonna be called Everest which presumably is why that’s nivver been used by another band. Then he works his way through their solo careers compiling great lost Beatles albums. What he doesn’t know about music and where to find it ;) isn’t worth knowing.
 
Exapno Mapcase said:
I still rate the only authorised biography, by Hunter Davies, written during Sgt. Pepper so a unique fly on the wall for that. It gets criticised for a little bit of whitewashing but he needed the agreement of the band. It originally ended 67/68 but has been updated often. I have probably read it around ten times, though not in a while It remains a good starting point.

Shout by Philip Norman is an ok read and rattles along, but very negative on Paul, and treats George and Ringo like idiots. He is also a pompous man

The Beatles Anthology accompanies the tv series (worth getting the DVDs if you want mire to watch), and is full of quotes from the band with fantastic illustrations, secondhand cooies can be relatively inexpensive. Large format so awkward to read.

Revolution In The Head by Ian MacDonald gives the story of all the songs and has the strong opinions of the author. It inspires you to listen to the music and form your own opinions, I have read it about four times.

The first volume of Mark Lewisohn's projected three volume biography All These Years: Tune In is staggering, though it covers up to Love Me Do. I have read it twice and will likely read it again before the next volume is published. His Complete Recording Sessions is a mine of facts about what was recorded when.

A very early book by Michael Braun Love Me Do. The Beatles' Progress is a brilliant snapshot as their fame begins.

The Longest Cocktail Party by Richard Delillo (the house hippy at Apple) captures the madness and excess of Apple.

One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time by Craig Brown is in bite size chunks and has stories of Beatles encounters. It is a celebrated book but I didn't like Brown's sneering about people doing their jobs, about foreigners and unreconstructed unpleasantness about Yoko (I am no fan but he talks about her like the worst of the popular press at the time).

An lp sized annotated discography The Beatles : an Illustrated Record by Roy Carr and Tony Tyler is a funny, passionate companion to the records. Published in the mid 70s.

There are loads of books by those who worked with them. Derek Taylor their press officer is best of these with As Time Goes By.

There are more niche titles too and I enjoyed Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year by Steve Turner of more recent boooks.

Sorry, that is a ramble
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You read the Bob spitz book? I haven’t but have read a few you mentioned so would be interested on your take. Pretty obvious you know your stuff. Appreciated your defence of George too. Joey Barton ffs 😂
 
Lovemore said:
You read the Bob spitz book? I haven’t but have read a few you mentioned so would be interested on your take. Pretty obvious you know your stuff. Appreciated your defence of George too. Joey Barton ffs 😂
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DeLillos is a perfect illustration of the Apple lunacy.
 
Exapno Mapcase said:
That is harsh on George. The Beatles were the sum of their parts and he contributed massively to the records they made of the songs by Lennon and McCartney. Before fame he sang as many as the other two. Arguably he performs best at their Decca audition. He was cut out of the songwriting team but added lines and huge musical invention, only more recently has Paul talked about his guitar on And I Love Her.

Watch the Paul doc with Rick Rubin and George's importance shines through. In Get Back he is seen to be a big contributor to where songs go. Almost every night he seemed to be going home and writing a new song, coming in and being met with little reaction. Old Brown Shoe is the exception. At this point John came with few songs, George had a load - and mostly very good ones.

Paul often talks about Something as the first time George wrote anything really good. Ignoring While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Think For Yourself, I Want To Tell You, Within You, Without You, Long, Long, Long, and personally I think Don't Bother Me holds its own on With The Beatles. He was undervalued and in the film, Paul and John acknowledge it.

He was often the voice of common sense "we can't even get a free amp off Fender". Aye, he was exploring his spirituality and sounds a bit naive at times, but he was 25, with the eyes of the world on him at the peak of his personal creativity.

We all see things in different ways so you are only wrong in one respect - likening him to Joey Barton is abominable ;)
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Did George's son Dhani say half-jokingly something about he was going to watch his father get the blame for breaking up the Beatles again when he was interviewed before the 'Get Back' premier?
 
Lovemore said:
You read the Bob spitz book? I haven’t but have read a few you mentioned so would be interested on your take. Pretty obvious you know your stuff. Appreciated your defence of George too. Joey Barton ffs 😂
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Not read Spitz, keep hearing it mentioned on US podcasts and plan to get it at some point. Mostly been reading fiction the past couple of years so have a non fiction pile up.

Sure he just got a bit carried away with the Joey reference :)
riffraff said:
Hunter Davies, Philip Norman and Ian McDonald cover just about everything a sane person with a Beatles interest needs.

Mark Lewisholms planned three volumes looks like a loons undertaking. Does he genuinely expect to live long enough to finish it? Thirty years to publish Vol1! I’m gonna have to presume that has included the research for all three volumes? I don’t think he’s gonna even bother with the solo stuff. He’s obviously after his own place in history.
When vol1 came out a review mocked summet like: Vol 1 ends after 900 pages with Ringos great grandfather shopping for a hat to wear on his honeymoon. Makes Guralnicks Elvis job look like a scribble on a post it note.
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I sent him some minutae he used :)
riffraff said:
Sorry. Everest was a rejected title for Abbey Road.
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Geoff Emerick's favoured brand of tabs.
 
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GTG said:
Come on then, share your insight. You're not making much sense at the moment.
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I don't think I'm leaving my opinion open to interpretation. Yoko is riding John Lennon's coat tails, even after his death. I don't think she had any input into the documentary other than signing off some papers allowing access to footage which she had no part in. Likewise Olivia Harrison. How am I not making sense to you? Why not share your own insights, rather than speaking in riddles?
 

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