The giant heads of John, Paul, George and Ringo covered most of a wall of my sisters’ bedroom when we were kids. Paul sang “Meeee-shell, ma belle” endlessly from their portable record player.
The Beatles were mostly Wendy’s thing, at first. Meryl was a little old. I was a little young. Once, for a block party in Gertie and Seymour’s yard, my friend David and I wore cheap mop-top wigs and sang “She Loves You” while strumming toy guitars, but we were less into the music than the spectacle.
Then came Sgt. Pepper. I can picture the moment my friend Andy pierced the album’s plastic seal with his thumbnail and put the record on his turntable for the first time.
I remember – it embarrasses me even now to disclose this – bringing the cover to the barbershop to show the man with the smock and scissors how I wanted him to cut my hair. I liked George’s ‘do best, but in my bar mitzvah pictures I look more like Ringo. It took work. My hair was curly.
By then, three of the Fab Four had mustaches, so I wanted one too. I couldn’t grow one yet, so – this is pretty embarrassing also — I discreetly borrowed my mother’s eyebrow pencil and sketched one in. I thought I looked great. I even considered going outside that way, but wisely realized I’d be a laughingstock.
The catalyst for this chain of Beatles memories was watching “Get Back,” the documentary on Disney+ that squeezes 22 days in the life and near-death of the band down to 7 hours and 48 minutes and should have been squeezed down a lot more.
I loved it.
Oh, it had its boring bits, but after decades of hardly ever listening to or thinking about those lovable longhairs from Liverpool, I felt like an attendee at a family reunion: We – my sisters and the whole Baby Boom generation and I – have known these guys our whole lives! We loved them, growing up. Watching them clown, compose, rehearse and feud in “Get Back,” I found them lovable still.
Personal associations aside, what’s most compelling about the documentary is that it lets us observe the creative process. In fact, it’s the best window onto the creative process I’ve ever seen. Songs take shape, musically and lyrically, right in front of our eyes, practically.
The most written-about sequence is the one where Paul, with John’s help, gropes his way toward the lyrics for “Get Back.” He’s got “Jo-Jo left his home in Arizona,” but needs more syllables. They try “Jo-Jo Jackson left his home in Arizona,” but the stresses are wrong.
At that point, we who have known the song for 50 years are yelling at the TV, “Tucson! Tucson!” We’re almost exasperated at their slow-wittedness because it’s so obvious to us that those two syllables have to be Tucson.
Then, when they finally come up with the magic word – “Jo-Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona” – it snaps in like a missing puzzle piece. Duh! We’re relieved. It’s like watching a quiz show contestant solve the puzzle after we, playing along at home, have solved it. Took him long enough! Whew.
The other fascinating thing about the doc, not surprisingly, is the Lennon-McCartney dynamic. Whether John is stoned, or twitterpated (Yoko hangs around the studio much of the time) or generally tired of the whole Beatles phenomenon (he often seemed amused by and even a little disdainful of how easy it was to please their fans once they’d hit the big time), he’s pretty checked-out in the early going.
Paul, meanwhile, is a creative cyclone, so much so that the band may as well have been called the Paul McCartney Quartet. The problem is that everyone else feels a little left out. Or in George’s case, more than a little. (He actually announces he’s quitting and has to be persuaded to come back into the fold.)
Then, for whatever reason, John checks back in. It’s like he can’t help himself. The joy of making music with these three guys finally becomes irresistible. At one point, he and Paul stand toe to toe grinning from ear to ear, playing their instruments and, like longtime NBA teammates who know each other’s every move, quickly singing their way into mind-melding harmony. It’s thrilling to behold.
The joy carries over to the climactic concert on the London rooftop. The four of them look like they’re all plugged into the same power source and having the time of their lives.
That joy is what makes “Get Back” worth the tedium of those 22 days in the studio. It shows us what living our best lives looks like. We don’t have to make music, necessarily, or even art. We just have to connect with other people in a way that makes us feel fully present and appreciative and appreciated.
