I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

the other thing is all of those amazing songs I could hear a million times over and over

agree re: Evan's post, particularly the second graf (tho the first one is otm, too). that scene where he finds his way to the beginning of "Get Back" is cool, for sure. but the reaction to it as if we're seeing some sort of once-in-a-lifetime magic is a bit over the top, i think. to me, it just looked like a very familiar process of playing some chords and trying out melodies - how most rock songs come to life. it just happened to turn out to be "Get Back" ... the big difference is that Paul did that hundreds of times.

of course, you can't really say that out loud because it sounds like you think Paul McCartney writing "Get Back" is no big deal or something. it's obviously a big deal, and it was cool, but it wasn't like unearthing some never-before-seen artifact.

i actually thought hearing him plunk around with "Let It Be" while John and MLH were discussing plastic set pieces was more interesting.

Jackson did frame that "Get Back" bit well, playing up how humdrum writing an enduring mega-hit can be w/ Ringo and George half-asleep 8 feet away.

Sweet Loretta Fat
Thought she was a cleaner
but she was a frying pan

it's Loretta Fart

i think its specter/"overproduced" sound actually helps the songs by a huge margin

The same friend *hates* Let It Be ... Naked for the same reason. As if it was Spector that somehow made it bad, and not the fact that it's just not that *great*, at least as far as the Beatles go. Clearly Spector is a huge part of "All Things Must Pass" and Lennon's solo work, too. Hell, his work on "Instant Karma" is what got him the "Let It Be" gig in the first place.

It's probably tied in to the revisionist "what does Specter even *do*" discourse, but just as George Martin had a huge role in the other records, so did Spector in this.

Spector did more than add strings, horns, choirs, etc. He listened to all of the tapes -- with some guidance from Lennon, I think -- to pick out the best or most complete takes for each song.

As a friend noted, it was Spector that rescued "Across the Universe" from abandoned outtake and fleshed it out into a song, and a lovely one at that.

That same take, in a different mix, was recorded before they went to India, and released before Spector got his hands on it.

Clearly Spector is a huge part of "All Things Must Pass" and Lennon's solo work, too.

According to engineer John Leckie and others at the sessions, Spector was barely present for John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (to the degree that Lennon took out an ad in Billboard that read, "Phil! John is ready this weekend.")

it's Loretta Fart

It's my understanding that he's saying Fat, but his accent makes it sound like fart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytXFwhBPdg

This video confirms it

odds on the Glyn Johns mix of Get Back getting an RSD vinyl release with the original cover? I'd buy one.

John suggesting that George just sing "Something in the way she moves, attracts me like a cauliflower" until he can come up with something better.

its always been amusing & fascinating to me how it seems like that was the dominant mode of lyric writing on LIB, just kind of randomly coming up with word-forms that scan nicely, and sometimes it results in completely natural and inevitable-feeling lines like "get back to where you once belonged" and just as often results in wtf clunkers like "you can indicate any boat you row"

replying to ye mad puffin,

yep, totally. i don't hate let it be, but i can say i don't really like it in general

so, by derivative, i just mean it has a song structure that sounds too conventional. take out the fun production, and you're left with a song that resembles classics a bit too much or something too familiar

listening to both versions, i think long and winding road naked vs original is a good example of this. the stripped down version sounds very conventional. the overproduced stuff is trying to do a bit more. but the song itself is ... not very good, in my opinion

ha, sorry, that should be josh in chicago, sorry ye!

And that's the alchemy right there. It's not that Abbey Road is better, a step in the right direction, it's that it's *massively* better.

ts always been amusing & fascinating to me how it seems like that was the dominant mode of lyric writing on LIB, just kind of randomly coming up with word-forms that scan nicely, and sometimes it results in completely natural and inevitable-feeling lines like "get back to where you once belonged" and just as often results in wtf clunkers like "you can indicate any boat you row"

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open)

but this is how most songwriting works, no? Hurry and put down what you got, finish the rest as you go.

btw the "cauliflower" moment comes off much better than I expected. For years I'd assumed based on transcripts that John was catty and impatient about it; onscreen he sounds like he genuinely wants to help.

from Jackson's film I get the impression that Let It Be as an Album was pretty much an after-thought. It was about the Film and the Concert. George seemed to be the only one bothered about making it into an album.

but this is how most songwriting works, no?

yeah its just funny to see it in action, and the undercooked nature of the LIB material puts it on display a little more (uh) nakedly than you usually get

the "Get Back" moment is great, but of course it's just an above average melody over some basic blues chords at that point. To me, the magic comes from McCartney's obsessive arranging once the initial pieces are established.

This is it - the scene where they're working hard to turn the three-chord rocker into this pulsating, intricately structured rave-up with hilarious lyrics is amongst the most satisfying in the whole thing.

Ringo's military march drum beat is what gives life to Get Back, imo. Without it, you're left with a Steve Miller tune.

ha wow never occurred to how midnight toker "get back" is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT2JGBeew00

lol I was thinking Rock'n Me xp

another 70s connection that jumped out at me watching this is that "Isn't It A Pity" is a direct precursor to "Goodbye Stranger" by Supertramp

It's interesting to see everyone interpret the 4 as a mirror of sorts. I don't see Paul being an asshole at all! He's just trying to get the thing together, man. John seems pretty easy going and down for whatever doing his corny British jokes (were Monty Python on TV yet?). Until that Peter Sellers monologue.. then I'm like "woah this is one dark motherfucker."

Paul is pretty pass agg and bossy, I can see why he would piss people off, but also he's generally right, is coming up with tons of classic material, and shaping a bunch of halfassed songs into something decent. Sometimes you have to put up with the bullshit if it means ending up with good material.

Paul is totally Robbie Robertson at this point

also when they are talking about staging this "around the beatles" thing and john starts talking about plastic walls and stuff...it just drives home to me how spinal tap was the most amazingly written movie

It's also interesting that Paul seemed the most concerned about the songs during their recording, but then he was ok with just dumping all the tapes on Glyn to make an album from it and rejected his efforts 3 times. Then he was upset with John and George for giving it to Spector to finish without his consent and publicly hated on the final results. I wonder if he just wanted to bury it or if he was holding out on the hope that they'd come back and re-record the songs the way that he wanted. I guess it all worked out in the end with the naked version and now this movie coming out after John & George had died. He got a lot of mileage out of what he seemed to consider a failed project at the time.

Well, apart from "long and winding" was there anything much wrong with Spector's finished article?

I can't stand the Spector 1970 version of Across the Universe. Although to be fair, that song really belongs in the context of 1968. Always bugged me that they tried to shoehorn a psychedelic artifact within a collection of bluesy numbers.

The Glyn Johns mix sux!

yeah the naked version of "long and winding road" is much much better, finally made me realize what people hear in that song

ringo is so fucking amazing

otm

otm

otm

I like how they keep teasing him about Jimmie Nichol.

I'm no drummer, but Ringo's the only musician besides Preston who doesn't make a mistake. He's always there.

Yeah, was going to add "Across the universe" to my 'apart from' list..

I met Ringo once and he was a genuinely sweet person.

Paul is totally Robbie Robertson at this point

Take a load off, Paulie

BTW I am a drummer and you are all exactly right. Ringo makes precisely zero mistakes. His playing is impeccable throughout, even when he's clearly tired and bored.

And he doesn't start stupid wanky time-waster jams (though he participates, because he's a good egg and a good sport and he's glad to even be there).

I like how they keep teasing him about Jimmie Nichol.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 30, 2021 2:47 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Loved that bit where Paul goes on about how Jimmie kept missing the count-in ("One! Two!" ... silence).

Not to get into this again, but I am a drummer, too, and the key to Ringo is that he does not *need* to be a great drummer, he just needs to be the best drummer for the Beatles, and in that regard he's more than perfect. And more to the point, no matter what anyone thinks of him as a musician, there is not a single Beatles song worse for Ringo.

I'm no drummer, but Ringo's the only musician besides Preston who doesn't make a mistake. He's always there.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 30, 2021 2:48 PM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Mark Lewisohn has said that out of the hundreds of false starts and incomplete takes over the course of their recording career, there were a total of six instances where Ringo made a mistake that necessitated another take.

One more thing, the whole time, RS has that stupid fucking tea towel on his snare drum.

Like, you're globally famous, universally beloved, and an acknowledged master of your craft. So we're just gonna take the main part of your main instrument and make it so you can only access it by going through something from the Woolworths housewares aisle.

Some Harrison Bergeron shit rifht there

Like hey, Paul, I heard you're good at playing bass, so you surely won't mind if I just place this clothespin on your A string at the seventh fret. Carry on, pip pip, cheerio, stiff upper lip and all that rot

By the way, the same musicianship gauge can be applied to ... well, everyone but Paul, really. Is George the best guitarist in the world. No, and thank goodness! Early in the doc he's complaining that he doesn't have the chops of Clapton, and all I can say is: phew! Especially his slide playing, which is super distinctive without being showy. And John, is John a great guitarist or piano player? No, not particularly, and it's always for the better. Imagine if all of the band was as good at their instruments as Paul is on the bass. It would be a wanky mess.

I'm no guitarist either, but George is damn good; I can always tell him apart even as a sessioneer. The ease with which his slide guitar incorporates what he picked up from India and the ukulele sounds like no one else's.

You can't argue with the snare sound though.