Documentaries!

[Kirby101]

I've watched 2 of the 3 episodes. Love it! Been a Beatles fan since I Want To Hold Your Hand hit the airways. I think this is brilliant. And the amount of work to put it together and make it fit is amazing (they had separate video and audio tapes they had to pair up). I am glad it is showing something different from the original depressing film. I think Hogg was upset with them that he didn't get his big TV spectacular and made the film more about the breakup then what was actually happening (this might have been unconscious on his part).
It is amazing how they come in and say, here is a little song I wrote last night, and it's the raw form of a classic.
Another takeaway, they were much more affected emotionally by Brian Epstien's death than I had thought.

[Jim Kelly]

I'm not a Beatles megafan but of course like their music. (I think it was said in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia that "not liking the Beatles is akin to not liking the Sun" ) And have found Get Back to be pretty fascinating. Have to admit I was astounded to watch Paul sit there with his bass, noodle around for 5 minutes in front of a bunch of people and cameras and essentially write Get Back on the spot. Just amazing.

When I was watching that, the hairs were standing up at the back of my neck, as it dawned on me that "Get Back" was being born right there in that moment. An absolute miracle.

[inisideguy]

When I was watching that, the hairs were standing up at the back of my neck, as it dawned on me that "Get Back" was being born right there in that moment. An absolute miracle.

It was interesting Paul treating George like crap. George was a really good song writer. And never got the respect he deserved. They show the band playing All things must pass. And they actually decided not to release that as a song. Amazing. Also they rehearsed Gimmie some Truth by Lennon. And didn't lay it down for an album. Sheesh.

[Jim Kelly]

The Beatles were doing something they had never really attempted before for this project. All the songs they were composing and arranging were intended to be performed live--and in a narrow window of only two or three weeks from when they started. There couldn't be any overdubs or edits. Each song had to be conceived within those limitations. Any other instruments included had to be performed by them or someone else sitting in on the live performance.

They also mention in GET BACK the difficulties of switching from one instrument to another. So if they included a new instrument on a particular song, then they'd have to work out the mechanics for doing that in the live performance. In today's world this is not a problem, but live performances didn't have that degree of sophistication. And you can see in the rooftop performance, they even dropped a few of the songs they had already completed--either because they were too slow, too difficult, or perhaps because the extra equipment wouldn't fit on the roof and might be too heavy.

Granted they didn't succeed in putting together a complete album with 14 tracks as they intended--but it's what was in their mind as they worked on these songs in January 1969. Which is why the Phil Spector LET IT BE rings false. Had the Beatles been recording from the get-go for that Spector type of album, then they wouldn't have recorded the songs the way they did, they wouldn't have arranged them how they were and they probably would have worked on a lot of the other songs that were better suited to dubs, edits, recording trickery. They certainly would have recorded vocals and instruments separately so they could all be mixed later.

I really admire the intention of LET IT BE. Had it worked, it would have been a radical departure from their previous albums--something on the order of Springsteen's NEBRASKA. I can only imagine what would have been the reaction if, in 1969, the Beatles had released an LP devoid of the artifice of SGT. PEPPER or MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR--an album where all four Beatles are playing together in one take, on each track.

They had managed to pull together 13 tracks for A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, but they were jammed together in hotel rooms for weeks on end back then, where working on songs was their only goal. Doing that in less than a month seems next to impossible. But because they were the Beatles--who kept doing the impossible--no one was going to tell them different.

[Kirby101]

Paul had finally gotten Ringo and the other's families to agree to re-release Let It Be as they recorded it. It is called Let It Be Naked and a world better than the Spector Album.

The other thing seen from the rooftop concert, they were a hell of a live band. Great seeing them just rocking out without the screaming drowning them out. You could see how much they missed performing.

[Albert1981]

I've seen bits of the documentary. It's REALLY long in my opinion. I do appreciate the creators of the documentary ditching the usual "talking heads" for this production. Maybe because I'm not a huge Beatles fan, I don't have much patience to see the four of them talking about stuff not related to music? It's pretty clear Yoko Ono was not a disruptive force at all and I thought the Fab Four were surprisingly disciplined. I might be the only one on this forum who actually LIKES Phil Spector's contributions to the Let It Be. I always liked songs like "To Know Him Is to Love Him", "Be My Baby", and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" amongst other Spector productions WAY more than the Beatles' output. I'm more of Spector fan than a Beatles fan so I liked what he did with what was given to him by the Beatles (sans Paul). I even really enjoyed Spector's work on Lennon's and Harrison's solo projects as well. I do think the Beatles should have toured more. By hunkering down in studios, the Stones really became the dominant "live act" of that era in my opinion. But I also think Elvis should have ditched movie soundtracks in favor of live performances for the very same reason. Again, the documentary is very insightful, but a bit exhausting for my tastes.

[inisideguy]

I've seen bits of the documentary. It's REALLY long in my opinion. I do appreciate the creators of the documentary ditched the usual "talking heads" for this production. Maybe because I'm not a huge Beatles fan, I don't have much patience to see the four of them talking about stuff not related to music? It's pretty clear Yoko Ono was not a disruptive force at all and I thought the Fab Four were surprisingly disciplined. I might be the only one on this forum who actually LIKES Phil Spector's contributions to the Let It Be. I always liked songs like "To Know Him Is to Love Him", "Be My Baby", and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" amongst other Spector productions WAY more than the Beatles' output. I'm more of Spector fan than a Beatles fan so I liked what he did with what was given to him by the Beatles (sans Paul). I even really enjoyed Spector's work on Lennon's and Harrison's solo projects as well. I do think the Beatles should have toured more. By hunkering down in studios, the Stones really became the dominant "live act" of that era in my opinion. But I also think Elvis should have ditched movie soundtracks in favor of live performances for the very same reason. Again, the documentary is very insightful, but a bit exhausting for my tastes.

I think its hard for many to grasp how huge the Beatles were. They literally couldn't tour. It was to crazy. As great as the Stones, The Who, The Doors etc were they were not even in the same league as far as celebrity status as the Beatles. They were a different universe. And when you hear the guys from the Stones and The Who talk about how huge the Beatles were you get a perspective. They were like Gods. They were insulated, because they almost had to be.


Think of it this way. The Beatles had 20 #1 songs in their 8 years.

The Rolling Stones have had 8 #1 songs in 60 years

[Kirby101]

I do think the Beatles should have toured more. By hunkering down in studios, the Stones really became the dominant "live act" of that era in my opinion. But I also think Elvis should have ditched movie soundtracks in favor of live performances for the very same reason. Again, the documentary is very insightful, but a bit exhausting for my tastes.

The Stones did not become the dominant live act until after the Beatles broke up, the Beatles were filling stadiums when the Stones were still playing clubs. In the 70s the Stones became the biggest touring band in the world. If you want to see what it was like for the Beatles to tour and why they stopped, see Ron Howard's doc Eight Days a Week.

And Elvis was primarily a live act the last ten years of his life, he played Vegas and toured. He died in the middle of a tour.

It was so great to see that final performance in full, the boys playing their heart out, without the screaming fans drowning them out.

[Albert1981]

That's right. Elvis was mainly a live act and not a studio act in the last decade of his life. I did a bad job of expressing myself. I meant Elvis practically disappeared from live performances during his "Hollywood years" in the 60s. I don't think he even did any television appearances during that time! I saw bits of the Eight Days a Week tour. It was interesting. I think they just lost the motivation to play live because they couldn't hear themselves. But screaming audiences could give bands like that lots of energy too. If they had done the Tripoli concert, it would have been a HUGE television event. I actually liked the Beatles (and the Stones) more when they covered American artists. They didn't have to perform and record their own material exclusively in 1969. They didn't do that earlier in their careers. I don't think they had enough songs of their own to do that television special and they didn't have enough time to write new material before they lost access to that studio. It was interesting Jackson's documentary clearly showed that the Beatles did NOT hate each other. But Ringo was really quiet and I had no idea he played the piano.

What I'm trying to say is that performing in front of your fans in person is a wonderful experience that can't be duplicated in a studio. Even after Brian Wilson had his nervous breakdown, the Beach Boys still toured (even though it wasn't the same).

[Kirby101]

You could tell by the way they enjoyed the rooftop concert that they missed performing live. But a combination of the complexity of their albums and the drudgery that touring became, they stopped playing live.

I think with Elvis it was more Col. Parker stopping him from playing than Elvis himself. His comeback special was done behind Parker's back.

[Albert1981]

You could tell by the way they enjoyed the rooftop concert that they missed performing live. But a combination of the complexity of their albums and the drudgery that touring became, they stopped playing live.

I think with Elvis it was more Col. Parker stopping him from playing than Elvis himself. His comeback special was done behind Parker's back.

That was a great performance. But they looked cold as hell though. I thought it was Harrison who hated touring the most and Macca was the most keen on the idea. Their albums got REALLY complex in the late 60s, I agree. I sorta wish they went back to their roots and did covers of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Ricky Nelson again. Those songs were great and not nearly as complicated as the things the Beatles were doing by the end of the 60s.

I wish Elvis would have put his foot down. The comeback special was wonderful, but I think he must gotten REALLY bored doing those movie soundtrack albums for so long. It really hurt his popularity and I think the music industry sort of lost their respect for him before 1968.

[Kirby101]

I sorta wish they went back to their roots and did covers of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Ricky Nelson again. Those songs were great and not nearly as complicated as the things the Beatles were doing by the end of the 60s.

I am so glad they didn't, since starting with Sgt. Pepper they gave us five of the greatest albums of all time.

You are right about Paul and George. In fact Patty describes George as having PTSD from touring. Paul was the one who toured the most post-Beatles.

[Jim Kelly]

After all their hesitation, when they finally get up on the roof and perform, they come alive. It's too bad that they didn't do a few more live performances after that, because they clearly got a buzz from doing that.

Seeing the clip where the police appear on the roof, they are looming just behind Billy Preston. I can't help thinking how this could have gone wrong--the police see a black man on a roof with a piano and that's the end for Billy.

The murder of John Lennon proves that the Beatles' fears were justified.

I was worn down by the first part of the documentary. They keep on and on about where they're going to go and what all of this is leading to. I'm not sure we had to get so deep in the weeds with all that. But I guess Jackson wanted to include that stuff so we could understand why things went in the direction they did. The second two parts are much more lively, so maybe the first part was done that way so we could feel how it wore down the Beatles, being on that horrible sound stage and the constant questions from the director.

But you can really see the resemblance between the young Michael Lindsay-Hogg and the young Orson Welles. It seems so obvious that Orson is the baby-daddy.

[Kirby101]

I did not know that about Hogg. Wow! One insight I had was maybe the reason his movie "Let It Be" was so much about discord, and not the more happy parts we see in this doc is that the movie portrayed how he experienced the events, rather than the how the Beatles did.

[Albert1981]

I am so glad they didn't, since starting with Sgt. Pepper they gave us five of the greatest albums of all time.

You are right about Paul and George. In fact Patty describes George as having PTSD from touring. Paul was the one who toured the most post-Beatles.

I always liked the earlier Beatles records because they were closer to the rock and roll music I prefer. You could clearly tell that they enjoyed the hell out of those old Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, Ray Charles and Fats Domino records because they are SO much fun to listen to! They weren't folk rock, prog rock or even classic rock. I also prefer the old Stones songs as well because they were actually covering some really cool blues/soul stuff. But it's just a matter of preference. I don't blame Harrison suffering from stage fright. I don't know of a single musician who doesn't get nervous before performances. No matter how experienced or successful. But by stopping touring, I feel it gave people ammunition to criticize the Fab Four as weak live performers. Paul seemed to welcome performing live more. But Harrison had to handle more difficult guitar parts so I understand his anxiety.

I think the sheer length of this documentary might scare viewers off. I'm hesitating to go back to it and I'm still on January 8th, 1969! This feels like the Hobbit all over again.