I think it deserves one. Just finished watching it and am really amazed. I don’t know too much about the band’s history or their music, but after watching them basically writing a whole album and becoming a band again, I feel like I really know the people and how they brought this music into the world.
There’s so much to say about the film but I will stop it here for now. Everyone who hasn’t watched it yet, it’s definitely a great film about how it’s hard work to make music until it suddenly isn’t anymore.
it’s amazing stuff (even moreso when you realize it was all taking place FIVE years after they first broke in America on the Ed Sullivan Show). some bands today take that long just to record one album and they packed an entire career into less than a decade
and i know some of this is created in the edit, but when Billy Preston shows up at Abbey Road it’s like Han Solo flying in to save Luke Skywalker at the end of Star Wars.
Yes, the shift from part one to part two and the vibes changing are maybe the greatest thing about the film. And the scenes where Preston eventually breaks the ice altogether are the highlight of that phase for sure.
The natural next evolutionary step would have been to make Billy Preston the fifth Beatle—it could have been good in so many ways. I don’t know if the movie talks about that.
I haven’t seen the film but want to sometime; always liked the album, it has feeling.
I mean I am way too biased but imo it’s a glorious testament to the creative process. Paul finding the riff to Get Back in that 3 minute bass jam is jaw dropping.
We can probably thank Billy for getting us 1.5 more albums, but that band was done. Nothing was saving it. They all had very good reason to let it go.
Christ what a documentary. I’ll have to watch it after horror movie month before my free Apple trial is over.
They’re talking about this at one point, I think George or John are suggesting this.
It’s also interesting how they (Paul?) realize that Preston‘s doing pro level work for free which they usually would have to pay a studio musician for at high rates. And George mentioning how Preston sees this gig as his big chance to launch his own projects.
How do you feel about Paul in the movie? I don’t know what people were saying about him, but I got the sense that he was the least liked of the bunch. I think the documentary makes clear that he’s a genius that kept the lights on for two more albums with his work ethic. He doesn’t like the role he‘s been given but knows he has to play it.
Yeah, I also had to remember that at times when they were making music, seemed more like old masters at the top of their game.
My favorite scenes probably were from the day when Linda brought her daughter and she’s playing with the boys, dancing around the room and imitating Yoko. At one point Ringo is about to fall asleep and she hits his snare, poor dude almost falls from his chair.
@xidnpnlss: Is it on Apple? I‘ve watched it on Disney.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I have seen LET IT BE, which documented some of the events of that time, and done some reading.
fwiw, my sense is that Paul had a lot of talent, a lot of ambition, and a lot of confidence and charm. In a band, that combination of qualities is usually a double-edged sword, sooner or later. Someone has to make the group go, push things forward. That takes a lot of ability and a lot of ego, and eventually there is pushback against that person even if the band succeeds.
(It’s very rare to find a group that lasts, because that usually requires that the star of the group, the most gifted one, has to not act like a star, but share the money and decisionmaking with the others, for the sake of unity.)
I‘m also a big fan of Ram, which I‘ve discovered two years ago. It warms my heart to read Paul‘s approach to that album:
„Unlike his former bandmates’ early solo statements, McCartney’s sophomore release wasn’t produced by Phil Spector, and it wasn’t intended to be a grand artistic statement. The goal, McCartney said in Ramming , was “to just see what forms out of the bare elements instead of thinking, ‘Oh, after the Beatles, it’s gotta be important, it’s gotta be super musicians.’ This is more like, ‘No, let’s just find ourselves.’”
I mean Paul is clearly the most nostalgic and sentimental of the bunch. The whole “Get Back” project was his idea, and at that point the others seemed to be feeling neutral to disdainful about the band itself, and Paul is really trying to hold on. So he’s going to face some pushback. But he never once came off to me as clueless to the situation; just gently nudging along for old times sake. Plus, regardless of his ostensible leader status, that was John’s band through and through, and he wasn’t about to overpower John’s already disbelief in the Beatles.
I’m glad George took a stand. Both and Paul and especially John (what an asshole) were so rotten to him, I was glad to see him walk out. That mic in the plant recording (whomever chose to do that should be awarded) was so wholesome and heartfelt.
Yes. For someone who loves “studio outtakes”, this was a heap of manna from heaven.
You’re right. Then Ill have to watch before Disney shuts down password sharing
Great comment here re John and Paul as leaders in the early days vs the psychedelic era. One thing I’ll add is that Paul stepped into that role partly to fill the gap left by Brian Epstein’s death in 1967. Epstein managed the Beatles through the touring years and served as a sort of father figure for the band. He had less to do once the tours stopped and the band took a more psychedelic, studio-focused direction, but remained important.
The other factor is that as the group began to work out material in the studio, Paul got along a lot better with George Martin (the band’s other father figure) than John did and was more interested in the nuts and bolts of production. So Paul is in more of a position to set projects and direct things.
Really, though, the main thing is that Paul really just wants the whole thing to go on forever like the early days of tight friendships and fun, and it can’t quite because everyone’s tired and jaded and married and whatever else. He tries to rebuild this dynamic with Wings, touring universities for small stakes door money. You can hire great session musicians but you can’t hire people you grew up with. It must have been such a loss to him to not have those three guys in his life all the time.
Beginning of the end. Maybe only Epstein would have been able to reconcile 4 at that point very different geniuses, but I seriously doubt it.
Understatement. John hated him. Represented everything about old stodgy British culture he was trying to get away from. In Get Back, any comment from Martin was greeted with absolute vitriol from John. It was something to behold.
What a great sentence that is, captures the whole dilemma!
I also really enjoy reading the other comments here.
Now if I wanted to learn more about these dynamics talked about here, what would be good suggestions for books or other media? I‘m afraid there’s a lot of music press idiots and business figures taking them selves to seriously writing about it when it comes to such bands of that era and all of the decades of rumors.
