exONOrated?

          Yoko did not break up The Beatles was seemingly unanimous Internet buzz in the wake of “The Beatles: Get Back.”
          Because she sat quietly next to John Lennon, seldom speaking, knitting, rolling joints (at one point, doing some Japanese calligraphy) as The Beatles worked, viewers concluded that she was a benign presence.
          Well, one could draw the same conclusion about another inveterate knitter, Madame DeFarge. Point being: all kinds of people have hobbies.
          It is well documented and beyond dispute that the band had considerable difficulty adjusting to Yoko Ono affixed, barnacle-like, to Lennon. And although the others did indeed eventually adapt---Paul McCartney’s graciousness and accommodation, seen repeatedly in “Get Back,” was extraordinary---she was an intrusion into, and disruption of, their workplace. The only such intrusion in their history.
          But we are not merely speaking of knitting. When the cameras were not rolling, a very different Ono was in evidence. She not only was in attendance at the Jan. 12, 1969 meeting at Ringo’s home, held ostensibly to talk George into returning to the band (which failed), and to discuss business, but she did almost all of the talking for Lennon. Exclamation point.
          Here is quote from McCartney, caught by Michael Lindsay-Hogg's crew, after the meeting:
          “Yoko was saying yesterday, ‘This is my opinion. This is my opinion how the Beatles should be.’”
          And, in another instance, McCartney said:
          “John didn’t talk. Yoko talked for John.”
          This is my opinion about how The Beatles should be.
          That quote gibes, by the way, with the anecdote in Beatles engineering wizard Geoff Emerick’s autobiography, Here, There, And Everywhere, in which Ono---speaking from a bed Lennon had moved into the EMI studio during "Abbey Road"---took to getting on the studio PA, and instructing the band how to play. (Wearing a tiara, no less.) “Beatles will do this, Beatles will do that," her commands went, grating to the point where an McCartney once passive-aggressively retorted, “Actually, it’s The Beatles, luv.”
          Imagine no humility. Or more to the point, imagine the audacity of this person, to, in essence, appoint herself as Lennon’s representative in the band at business meetings, and then to instruct The Beatles as to how they “should be.” This is quite incredible, and certainly not the behavior of a benign presence. There is more:
          Yoko did “so much talking,” said Linda McCartney, who was at the Jan.12 meeting, but did not participate. Paul further noted that when Lennon told George he did not understand George’s desire for a Yoko-less meeting, Harrison twice responded, “I don’t believe you.” He was joined in this skepticism by Beatles right-hand man Neil Aspinall, and McCartney. It was during that discussion, ahem, that George Harrison quit the band a second time. Yoko (or at least the Yoko issue) breaks up Beatles, quod erat demonstrandum.

          But back to audacity. First, is it unreasonable to think that Ono should never have acceded to Lennon’s nutso request that she be with him every second, everywhere he went (except the bathroom)? Is it unreasonable to think that she should have had the common courtesy---and common sense---to tell him that she simply would not intrude, or become a distraction, to the band? I don’t think it is. I think anyone with a modicum of graciousness would have behaved this way. To do otherwise is simply, uh, what's the word? How about rude. I’m sure she knew very well the pressures that her presence was creating for Paul, George, Ringo.         
           And who would have the nerve---the nerve---to sit in George Harrison’s rehearsal spot after he walked out in a huff? Let alone pick up a microphone and start with the “performance art” screeching (the kindest way I can describe it)? Would you?
          Yet many a newspaper and website declared that Ono was an innocuous part of the proceedings while The Beatles rehearsed and recorded---simply because the footage showed her (mostly) sitting quietly. One Amanda Hess wrote in a New York Times commentary that she found Ono’s omnipresence, “bizarre, even unnerving,” but then drew the insane conclusion that Ono was executing “performance art.” I see. Silly me. And here I thought the documentary was all about The Beatles. I didn’t realize the entire “Get Back/Let it Be” project was a Yoko Ono artwork. Urp.
          Even Ono herself---or, more likely, her representatives, seeing as she is reportedly suffering from Lewy Body Dementia---crassly got into the act, re-tweeting an article from uproxx.com with the headline, “Beatles Fans Think ‘Get Back’ Dispels The Idea That Yoko Ono Broke The Band Up And Peter Jackson Agrees.”
          Yawn. Isn't fighting that battle rather moot at this point?
          As to the b-word, the break-up question, yes, there were many factors that led to the dissolution of The Beatles. Lennon told the others he was leaving after they refused to record “Cold Turkey.” Was that the trigger? Seven months later, McCartney announced he was no longer working with The Beatles, violating Lennon’s request that he and the others keep his departure under their hats. Was that the trigger? How about Ringo informing people in the documentary that he had just farted?
          As for Ono, sure, she might not be the single reason that The Beatles broke up. Lennon, after all, was a Trilby waiting for a Svengali to happen, his personality characteristically glomming on to the next big outre thing. Ono was as outre a thing as he'd ever found. (Remember how, when told of trepanning---a Medieval “health” practice of drilling holes in the skull---he was gung-ho to try it right away.) But the issue will always remain: had Ono not imposed herself on the proceedings, presuming to behave as if a vested member of the group, dictating their business. . .that enormous complication and pressure would not have existed.
          As the New York Times commentator, Hess, put it:
          “And yet there is something depressing about the recasting of Ono as a quiet, inconspicuous lump of a person. Of course her appearance in the studio is obtrusive."

                                     
  Was the Harrison affair due, in part, to. . .an affair?

            Seems George Harrison's separation from The Beatles Jan. 10, 1969 coincided with another separation---from his wife, Pattie.
          Yes, it's time for another installment of the George and Eric Show, that famed rock 'n' roll sex-romp sitcom. . .
          Seems that Eric Clapton became disenchanted with a young French woman he had "dated" for a couple of years. Why? Layla, of course---that is, Pattie Harrison---or Clapton's crazy obsession with her. So he kicked out 20-year-old waif Charlotte Martin, and naturally, she fled straight to Harrison's house, Kinfauns.
          Huh?
          Pattie tells the story in her autobiography, Wonderful Tonight:
          She was always flirtatious with George, but so were a lot of girls and he, of course, loved it. Then she and Eric broke up — Eric told her to leave — and she came to stay with us at Kinfauns. It was January 1, 1969, and George and I had seen in the new year at Cilla Black’s house. … We arrived home in good spirits but then everything went swiftly downhill. The French girl didn’t seem remotely upset about Eric and was uncomfortably close to George. Something was going on between them, and I questioned George. He told me my imagination was running away with me, I was paranoid.
           Exit Pattie, who went to stay with friends.
          This little marital "hiccup," as George's second wife, Olivia, referred to George's dalliances, went on for ten days. The day he quit The Beatles, he also quit Charlotte Martin, and reconciled with Pattie. This little background has seldom been given ink.

         So it seems reasonable to surmise that destabilizing forces in Harrison's
private life could have exacerbated destabilizing forces in his professional life. It has already been made apparent from Jackson fully contextualizing the on-camera confrontation with McCartney (played up, out of context, by Lindsay-Hogg in "Let it Be") that this legendary "I'll play whatever you want me to play" tiff was a relatively routine "band argument." Not necessarily the "band-quake" that prompted George's departure. As McCartney sang, many years later, in "Ballroom Dancing," But it wasn't always such a pretty sight / 'cause we used to fight like cats and dogs. . .
          After all, they kept right on rehearsing---for another four days, before George's famed "See you around the clubs" farewell. He would quit a second time, or at least reaffirm the initial departure, at the Jan. 12 meeting at Ringo's house---largely over Ono, it appears. George then went home to Liverpool to stay with his parents, perhaps to get some counsel from his beloved mother. . .certainly to put some distance on recent troubles.
          Telling? It seems so. At a second meeting at Ringo's home on the 15th, he rejoined the group on the condition that sessions continue at Apple, and that the idea of a live show was scrapped.
          As for Charlotte Martin, no worries. She took up with Jimmy Page.

                                           
EXCLUSIVE:
Yes, there was/is a setlist!
        
          "To date, no (rooftop concert) set list has ever been found," Rolling Stone reported Jan. 29, 2016. And there has been nothing to contradict this since---until now.
          I have seen the setlist. It is written in heavy pencil (grease pencil?) on Ringo Starr's hi-hat. (See "My Brush with 'Get Back' History on page one.) I sat at his drum kit, and there it was, plain as the nose on Ringo's face. (Or mine, to be fair.) This was in 1997, when I interviewed Mark Hudson for Ringo's "Vertical Man" album.
          My notes are long gone, but my memory is that the list was comprised only of the songs played on the roof that Jan. 30, 1969. Why is this significant? Here's the big reason:
          In that Rolling Stone piece, "Beatles’ Famous Rooftop Concert: 15 Things You Didn’t Know," one such thing was that there were more instruments at the ready during the concert---including a piano, microphone for an acoustic guitar (for McCartney), lap steel guitar, , suggesting that the band was ready to perform more songs.
          "Were folky songs like 'Two of Us' originally in the mix?" the RS article, by one Jordan Runtagh, asks. "Was McCartney going to try out some of his piano-based ballads like 'Let It Be' and 'The Long and Winding Road'? Could Lennon have used the lap-steel guitar as he did on 'For You Blue,' giving Harrison his first (and only) solo vocal of the day?"
          It's possible that roadies were given general instructions to just bring whatever instruments were already at hand in the studio. It's also possible that someone in the band asked for the added instruments to preserve the option of doing additional songs. It's possible that the very polite and accommodating bobbies' gentle threat of arrest put a damper on the proceedings, and cut things short. It's possible the setlist on the hi-hat was provisional. And it's possible there were no plans to play anything more than they did.
          Strange no one has apparently asked Paul or Ringo about it. Hint, hint.

                                         
 Just How Many "Get Back/
Let it Be" Albums Were There?

          Well, it depends on how you count. Officially, they are:
          *The first version of the original "Get Back" album, produced by Johns, famously rejected by The Beatles, now officially released on the new "Let it Be" boxed set.
          *The original boxed set "Let it Be" album, finished by Spector, with the huge photo book of the sessions inside, released in 1970.
          *The original gatefold "Let it Be" album, finished by Spector, released at the same time as the original boxed set. (Same songs as in boxed set.)
          *"The Beatles Anthology, Vol. 3," disc two, which is largely comprised of alternate "Get Back/Let it Be" songs, released in 1996.
          *"Let it Be. . .Naked," McCartney's pet project to correct the mess made by Spector, released in 2003. No orchestras, new mixes.
          *"Let it Be" remastered. The original Spectorized album in improved sound quality, released 2009.
          *Let it Be," remixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, released in 2021.
          And, if you want to include unofficial albums:
          *The original "Get Back" bootleg on Lemon Records, leaked in September, 1969, consisting of mostly earlier takes of the songs from the sessions. (Note: there were several bootlegs at this time, with varying content, but this one was the most complete.)
          *There were four attempts by Glyn Johns to compile a finished "Get Back" album. All were rejected. The first and fourth passes were bootlegged in superb quality in the mid-80's. The fourth includes the original version of "I Me Mine" and "Across the Universe," neither of which are on the first. There are other, lesser differences.
           If you tally all these up, you get. . .
          Num-buh NINE, num-buh NINE, num-buh NINE. . .
         (To see all album covers, click here.)
         
                                    
The One That Got Away. . .

          The biggest "one that got away" of the "Get Back/Let it Be" sessions was certainly Harrison's "All Things Must Pass." In the end, All Beatles Did Pass on it, for reasons unknown, but probably having to do with Lennon's lack of enthusiasm. After all, he seldom even played on Harrisongs, and in one instance, told poor George that his tunes were all "daft."
          “I don't know… I think it's all right, you know," Lennon said of the song in the infamous Rolling Stone interview in 1970. "Personally, at home, I wouldn't play that kind of music, I don't want to hurt George's feelings, I don't know what to say about it.”
          And yet Lennon, for some odd reason, played organ as the band learned "All Things Must Pass," rehearsed it, even tinkered with the background harmony vocal arrangement. To listen to the brief sessions, one would not doubt that the group had accepted it. In fact, later, when Lennon was improvising words to the "Dig it" jam, he sang the full list of planned "Get Back" titles, including, yes, "All Things Must Pass."
          Best guess: the epic song was implicitly tabled, along with "She Came in Through the Bathroom" window and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and never revived. So much for a Beatles version?
          No.
          Thanks to Peter Jackson, an excellent Beatles version of "All Things Must Pass" is now entirely do-able. Really. Here's how:
          As part of Jackson's meticulous work on "The Beatles: Get Back," he had smart people invent new Artificial Intelligence technology, in order to isolate Beatles conversation from guitars. Seems all of them, but chiefly John and George, would deliberately noodle around on their instruments in order to keep the cameras---which recorded in mono---from picking up their words. Jackson's investigative instincts kicked in.
          “So a lot of our movie," he told Guitar.com, "or certainly some key parts of our movie, feature private conversations that they tried to disguise or tried to cover up at the time he was recording them. But we’ve been able to strip those-those guitars away now, which is a little bit naughty!”
         You see where this is going. With this astonishing new AI, mono recordings can now be divided into totally discrete individual parts. Translation: multi-track. It's a minor miracle.
          “And so then we can take a mono track of them in Twickenham performing and we can say, ‘Just give us the vocal track,'" said Jackson. "And the machine learning will render a vocal track only. So, you’ll see Ringo in the background playing the drums, but you don’t hear the drums.  Not one bit of drum noise – just the vocals clean.
          “So the big breakthrough for us was actually not [restoring] the pictures, even though that’s what you obviously look at, it was the sound. The way that we managed to split off the mono recordings in the mouldable tracks.”
          Ah, but what, you say, of the fact that the run-throughs of "All Things Must Pass" featured guide vocals from George---rough, sometimes out of time, words not finished? Simple. On Feb. 25, 1969, Harrison's 26th birthday, he went to Abbey Road and recorded splendid solo demos of "All Things Must Pass," "Old Brown Shoe," and "Something." So. . .
          Using the new AI, you assemble the best possible backing track by The Beatles, complete with the three-part harmony choruses, and mix in George's polished studio demo (on which he accompanies himself on electric guitar.)
          Voila! New Beatles song!
          A fan has made a crude argument for this, overlaying the studio demo on to one of the raw mono takes. Listen to it, and there is no doubt but that a Beatles version of "All Things Must Pass" can be rescued---and a splendid version, at that.
          Or should I say, should have been rescued.
          Why Giles Martin and Sam Okell did not create this mix, and place the song in the running order of the new "Let it Be," or, at minimum, a bonus track, is unfathomable. (It does sound like they applied this technology to the Twickenham selections on the outtakes discs, which lack the camera beeps of bootlegs and sound much improved.)
          As to the rest of the music recorded by those mono cameras, imagination is the limit.

                                           
Extra! Extra!
Oh, wait, no extra! No extra!
 
          The DVD of "The Beatles: Get Back" features a whole lot of no extras. It's just the documentary, not one extra minute.
          Never mind the fact that Peter Jackson edited the thing down to about eight hours from about eighteen (and brilliantly.) Never mind the fact that songs are mostly shown in excerpts, or telescoped into mini-versions. Never mind that the Apple rooftop performance is still interrupted by interviews and cutaways.
          To ask why this is the case, is to ask why people want to make money. And that is probably the answer.
          One supposes that another DVD will eventually be forthcoming, perhaps "Get Back: The Performances." Maybe Apple made that a condition of the deal with the Disney devil: you put out the documentary only, and we will handle the music.
          In any event, a DVD with full studio performances of the "Get Back" songs, as well as the entire rooftop concert, uninterrupted by cutaways and interviews, is warranted. It could be a double-DVD set, the first with rehearsals, the second with finished renditions. It all amounts to the debut of the "new live Beatles" of 1969, showing what might have been, had the group ever toured again.
          As to the rest of the ten hours that Jackson cut, well, it is inarguable that this footage is part of the most important record of The Beatles at work. Which stands by itself as an argument for its eventual release.

---Rip Rense

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