Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3) (6 page)

On January 8, the group followed a similar pattern of working through new songs. They took many stabs at playing “I Me Mine,” and then tackled “Two of Us,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “All Things Must Pass,” and “Mean Mr. Mustard.” A morning run-through of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” and “One After 909” gave way to a return to the oldies hit-parade and a more recent song, Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.” Interspersed throughout the oldies were “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Oh! Darling.” The group then ran through many versions of “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” before coming back to “To Kingdom Come.”

The next day was dominated by Paul, particularly during its first half. “Another Day,” yet another song destined for a non-Beatles project, was one of the first songs done nearly all the way through, followed by many versions of “Let It Be.” “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” “The Long and Winding Road,” and “Oh! Darling” finally gave way to George’s “For You Blue,” before Paul and John launched into “Two of Us.”

Of the songs performed that day, two were never released and have generated considerable excitement over the years for collectors of unreleased Beatles songs. One of them was “Suzy’s Parlour.” Seemingly improvised on the spot, it has a 50s pop-rock feel. Lennon’s sly wit and adult lyrical content in the song dispel the commonly held notion that the Twickenham sessions were all gloom and doom. Also, John sang the song, which appeared briefly in the “Let It Be” film, in a hillbilly, old mountain-man style. The song was originally entitled “Suzy Parker” but its name was changed for copyright reasons.

More run-throughs of “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” “Get Back,” and “Across the Universe” were followed by yet another Carl Perkins number. Among covers of “House of the Rising Sun,” Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” and “Mama You’ve Been On My Mind,” and Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day” was the other song fans of unreleased Beatles recordings have talked about a great deal over the years—actually two songs, which were preceded by a “Get Back” reference to the subject matter. The two songs in question were “Commonwealth” and a short snippet of only 20 seconds or so called “Enoch Powell.” Both dealt with Conservative Parliament member Enoch Powell’s claim that continuing immigration into the U.K. would cause a race war. The issue was a contentious
one at that time in England, and McCartney was addressing it by parodying Powell.

The proposed live concert, a continual topic of discussion at the rehearsals, hung over proceedings as an unresolved issue and a source of disagreement among the four. “It was around the second week when the notion [came up] of what and where the public performance was going to be,” says Les Parrott, in regard to the ongoing discussion of the logistics of the live concert. He continues:

Slowly the notion—driven hard by Lindsay-Hogg, I think—of staging a concert in a ruined Roman amphitheater in North Africa, with a crowd of 1000 saffronrobed locals, grew. The means and cost of shipping the equipment were a major debating point. Huge mobile generators would be needed for the lighting and sound requirements. However, this was all solved by a suggestion from George. He said the production should ring up a U.S. Air Force general who ran a large part of the USAF in Britain, as they had once done a charity concert for him, and he had said anytime they needed help, he would help them. Well, the producer did call and an immediate offer was made to fly all and everything we would need in a massive Galaxy aircraft down to a another USAF base a few hours drive from the proposed location, from where USAF trucks would haul it to the Roman ruins. I think the answer ended with a salutation of, “Hell, we’ll just turn this into one big exercise; we just love those guys.”

However, one lunch time this all ended. We had all moved into the dubbing suite at Twickenham. I think we were looking at some sound/film rushes and a somewhat
ad hoc
meeting developed to discuss the pros and cons of the North African location shoot. It was certainly at one point well over the proverbial fifty percent approval mark, with the visual notion of one or more thousand saffron-robed Arabs being a major selling point. Then Yoko spoke up, “After 100,000 people in Shea Stadium, everything else sucks.” That was it in that short sentence; the idea evaporated. “Yeah, right; good point, of course,” chorused the other Beatles, and that was it.

While the January 30 Apple rooftop concert was probably the most famous date of the “Get Back”/“Let It Be” project, January 10 was probably the most infamous. After running through “Two of Us” and “Get Back,” the group performed “Hi-Heeled Sneakers” before lunch. It appears that by that morning, Paul was fairly happy with the progress he had made on the song “Let It Be” and played it for the group’s music publisher, Dick James. It was during lunch, just after a heated exchange between Paul and George and following the intro of Chuck Berry’s 1961 song, “I’m Talking About You,” that George walked out of the session and quit, saying, “See you ’round the clubs.” Dave Harries, one of two technical advisors from Abbey Road present at
Twickenham, recalled the haste with which Harrison left the film studio. George Martin had arrived just before Harrison left. Martin was driving his Triumph Herald and accidentally hit Harrison’s Mercedes. It must have happened just minutes before Harrison left, because when George Martin walked onto the soundstage, Harries said, “George didn’t have time to tell him ‘I dinged your car.’”

In order to keep the filming moving along, Denis O’Dell instructed Michael Lindsay-Hogg to shoot close-ups of John, Paul, and Ringo. Parrott says, “We were merely told George had gone home to visit his mother in Liverpool and we would resume filming after a short break.” The rest of the group returned and ran through, oddly enough, covers of “Don’t Be Cruel” and “It’s Only Make Believe,” before concluding with “The Long and Winding Road,” “Adagio For Strings,” and, from
The White Album,
“Martha My Dear.” “At the end of the day I was told to wrap the gear and take it back to the rental company and await instructions,” says Parrott.

Tensions had been evident in the studio, long before the “Get Back” sessions. Richard Langham, an engineer who worked at Abbey Road over many years, remembered how the mood at Beatles sessions changed over the years. “You could feel tensions,” he stated. “[The Beatles] were all very nice to us. We never got the brunt
of it all. A lot of people didn’t want to work on Beatles sessions. The in-joke sort of was, if you were naughty you were put on a Beatles session.”

Discussions ensued on how to proceed without Harrison. There was, oddly enough, almost a sense of complete denial of the fact that he was gone. Lindsay-Hogg even suggested that for the live concert they could simply say he was sick. As for John Lennon, his famous quote was, “If he doesn’t come back by Tuesday, we’ll just get Clapton.”

While Harrison’s departure in retrospect may seem cataclysmic, one doesn’t get that impression when listening to the bootlegs of that day. Some bootlegs reveal that the breaking point for Harrison may have come after a messy version of “Two of Us.” After the opening guitar chords of “I Saw Her Standing There” break down, it appears that Harrison is indeed leaving the group. He rather casually says, “I’m leaving the band now. You can place an ad in the
NME.”
He also seems to be making a comment about how Apple’s publicity department could deal with the reasons for his leaving the group.

Without missing a beat, the other three launch into ragged, rushed, near hysterical versions of “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” All the songs were done in an obvious jocular manner, and John and Paul’s vocals are sung in a feverish
and comedic way. John’s near-primal scream comedy vocal approach shows either his complete lack of concern that George has left or a nervous disgust over how much these sessions have completely fallen to pieces.

The seven days of filming were unlike anything the group had ever done before. With their live performing days behind them, they had not rehearsed in years. Also, there was no clear plan on what the rehearsals would lead to. The fact that they were being filmed at the chilly, fishbowl-like Twickenham soundstage obviously must have added to the tension of the rehearsals.

What was going through the Beatles’ minds while they played at Twickenham? Whatever tension there was, there still must have been a bittersweet feeling as well. As they played some of their old songs and especially covers of songs that were part of their early stage show, memories of their hungry years must have crossed their minds. As they spontaneously ran through songs like “Hippy, Hippy Shake,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” and “Money,” did they recall those sweaty nights in the dank Cavern cellar in Liverpool? Did they remember how tired and wired they were as they blasted out set after set at the Kaiserkeller, the Star Club, and the Top Ten Club in Hamburg, Germany? The incessant touring in the U.K., in America, and in the East, and all the television shows they had done must have come to mind as they played certain songs. Did it add to their misery,
recalling the exhausting schedules of the past, or did it inspire sadness, knowing they had now come full circle with the end clearly in sight? There had to be that sense of what happens when old friends, who have long drifted apart, get back together. As much as everyone wants things to be the way they once were, it simply can’t happen. By playing those old songs, the Beatles must have known they were tempting fate. Like characters in a Thomas Wolfe story, they were trying to get back homeward, but of course they couldn’t.

The timing of George Harrison’s departure may have been somewhat premeditated. While it has long been stated that George left because he had grown tired of Paul’s superior behavior, he was also apparently furious with John. He was not speaking to him because John was making a minimal contribution to the sessions. Yoko was often speaking on John’s behalf, and comments John had made in a recent interview about how Apple was losing money had just come out in
Disc and Music Echo.
George may also have had another reason for leaving the group. On January 12, the film
Wonderwall
opened in London at the Cinecenta cinema.
Wonderwall
was directed by Joe Massot, who would go on to direct the Led Zeppelin concert film
The Song Remains The Same
(which included camera work by Beatles album cover photographer Robert Freeman). The film had premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 1968.
George, who had supplied the film’s soundtrack, had attended the premiere with his wife Pattie, and Ringo and his wife Maureen. The soundtrack, released on Apple, was actually the first solo project put out by a member of the group. It was released in November of 1968 in the U.K. and in December in the United States. Featuring mostly Indian musicians, the soundtrack was recorded between November 1967 and January 1968 at Abbey Road and at EMI’s Bombay, India studios. The film premiere in London was perhaps just what George needed. He had long had to subsume his own creative impulses and toil in the shadow of John and Paul’s dominance over the group. Producing the music for a film must have helped give him the confidence to walk out at that time.

While Harrison’s departure would seem emblematic of the tensions of the Twickenham sessions, and while the “Get Back”/“Let It Be” project has generally been considered a depressing experience for all involved, Les Parrott’s distinct memories paint another picture. “To be honest,” he begins, “the atmosphere and strain between the Beatles that so many have said was so obvious … well, it wasn’t—well, not to the crew as such or myself.” He continues, “Firstly, they weren’t sitting that close and each tended to keep to themselves and their instrument. There were never any heated exchanges on the floor. Any emotional debates took place off camera.”

Parrott’s observation, when filtered through the lenses of the bootlegs of the Twickenham sessions, confirms his assertion that it wasn’t all so dreadful. There was considerable laughter throughout. Conscious of the ragged nature of many of the performances, all four Beatles nervously laughed at their lack of polish and the fact that they were continually forgetting lines of their songs or of the myriad covers that they were performing. Also, while working on a new song, the members often sang silly lyrics to fill in any gaps.

The fact that the Twickenham filming was often a fun experience was also confirmed by Glyn Johns in an interview he did with the BBC Radio 1 series, which was made into the book
The Record Producers.
Johns found the group during the “Get Back”/“Let It Be” project to be “hysterically funny … their humour got to me as much as the music, and I didn’t stop laughing for six weeks.” He continued: “John Lennon only had to walk in a room, and I’d just crack up. Their whole mood was wonderful. There was all this nonsense going on at the time about the problems surrounding the group, and the press being at them, and in fact, there they were, just doing it, having a wonderful time and being incredibly funny, and none of that’s in the film.”

Dave Harries also felt that there was considerable joy during the filming. “They did have a lot of fun,” he recalled. “I don’t remember any animosity. You argue
with your mates occasionally and walk off, but there didn’t seem to be any long-term nastiness going on.”

Anthony Richmond, who was the cinematographer for the film and had also worked with Michael Lindsay-Hogg on the
Rock And Roll Circus,
has fond memories of January 1969 as well. “There are moments where they’re having a rough time,” he begins, “but you could also see moments where they’re just mucking about and having a good time and laughing and joking, and Lennon’s dancing. I can only remember it as a good time.”

The verdict on whether the Twickenham sessions verged on being one big laugh or something close to a funeral for the Beatles depends on who you talk to and when you talk to them. Contradictions abound, as when one listens to John Lennon laughing, joking and having fun just jamming on the bootlegs and then hears him reflecting on the sessions. When Lennon gave a long interview in 1971 to Jann Wenner of
Rolling Stone
magazine, he remarked about the filming, “It was just a dreadful, dreadful feeling in Twickenham Studio, being filmed all the time, I just wanted them to go away. We’d be there at eight in the morning in a strange place, with people filming you and colored lights flashing.”