The Disney+ series highlights the group’s still growing musicality and the intuitive interplay producing the unique Beatles sound. It’s easy to forget how young they still were despite six years of chart domination with John aged 28, Ringo 28, Paul 26 and George just 25. Whether they’re at cavernous Twickenham Studios (episode one), the cramped basement at Apple HQ in Savile Row (episode two) or its rooftop stage (episode three), they’re like kids in a sweet shop around their instruments and mics.
So you think you might know The Fab Four well because their songs from Love Me Do to Let It Be have sound-tracked our lives for six decades.īut if you spend the full seven hours and 18 minutes of this documentary in their company - which I’ve done and now I need a lie-down - you’ll feel as if they’re your best friends. There’s an exquisite moment when George sings a verse of Bob Dylan’s Mama, You Been On Mind as Paul’s girlfriend, later wife, Linda smiles on.Īnd we see Linda’s six-year-old daughter Heather, later adopted by McCartney, dancing around and engaging Lennon in a conversation about tigers. Peter Jackson’s documentary is comprised of restored footage filmed in 1969. “Yes, like Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” replies the “quiet” Beatle. Harrison exclaims: “I’ll ask Dylan to join The Beatles and he would,” and Lennon pipes up: “We’ll call it The Beatles & Co.” In another scene, they’re discussing making American keyboard whiz Billy Preston, who’d joined their sessions, “the fifth Beatle”. When they’re rehearsing Across the Universe and it comes to the chorus of “nothing’s gonna change my world”, Lennon leans into his mike and adds, “I wish it f***ing would.” “We’ve been very negative since Mr Epstein passed away,” he says.īut, in general, The Beatles: Get Back tells a story of friendly banter, biting wit and laugh-out-loud situations – albeit with undercurrents of tension.
McCartney, who clearly feels he’s having to drive the whole shebang “without much support”, decides this is to do with the death of their manager. Early in the documentary, Lennon says: “The Beatles have been in the doldrums for at least a year,” a surprising comment seeing that the period yielded the freewheeling White Album.