We're now at the point in the story of The Beatles where my interest finally begins to wane — which is fitting considering this also happens to be where John Lennon and George Harrison were also getting bored. No doubt there are many who sincerely feel that they never had a better creative year than 1969 but I am not one of them. If anything, it's probably their least impressive twelve months of activity since they became full time recording artists at the end of '62. (Speaking of which, I know it's trite to say it but how the hell did they do all that in just seven years?) But what do I know? The Canadian public was evidently so fond of their latest single "Get Back" that they kept it at number one for an impressive, if over-generous, six weeks, their longest spell at the top of charts since "I Want to Hold Your Hand" took hold of the CHUM hit parade for precisely the same amount of time.
(This means that it spent as much time on top of the Canadian charts than the combined total that "Help!", "We Can Work It Out", "Nowhere Man", "Paperback Writer", "Yellow Submarine" / "Eleanor Rigby" and "Penny Lane" spent in the same spot. In other words, it reigned for as long as the Fab Four at their absolute peak. And this was by no means an isolated incident on the part of my fellow Canadians: "Get Back" spent six weeks on top in Ireland, seven in the UK, five in the US and four in Australia (as well as a paltry two in New Zealand). A nonsense blues shuffle with supposed back-to-basics values was just the thing the people wanted even if the band to end all bands was going downhill)
In many territories, "Get Back" was credited to 'The Beatles with Billy Preston'. This broke with convention as guest musicians were sometimes not even named let alone given a prominent co-credit. Preston's organ part was deemed to be so vital that he merited such an honour. Yet, in Canada not as much consideration seems to have been afforded the keyboardist. While the stamp on the centre of the label of the Canadian release does say '...with Billy Preston', compilers of both the RPM and CHUM charts neglected to print his name While this may seem like an oversight, I prefer to think of it as the rightful credit: for this one single Preston wasn't so much a guest but a Beatle in his own right.
The results of both "Get Back" and B side "Don't Let Me Down" were so encouraging that John Lennon was all for making Preston a full time member of the group. (It probably also helped that the organist was a warm and friendly fellow — in spite of some troubling demons under the surface — who eased the tension of the Fab Four's ill fated Get Back/Let It Be sessions of early 1969) And it wasn't as if he up and left the next day or anything: Preston would appear on eight Beatles' songs recorded in '69 and on no less than three of their remaining number one hits.
Still, it feels like they could have gotten a lot more out of him — and, more importantly, his presence could have rubbed off on them more as well. Preston's organ solo is about the closest The Beatles ever came to jazz, a genre they had mixed feelings about. (It's possible that their antipathy, especially when it came to the rock and roll purist Lennon, came from wishing to rebel against it as the establishment's music) With his father's background as a swing pianist/trumpeter in Merseyside's Jim Mac's Jazz Band, it is reasonable to assume that Paul McCartney was the most open minded towards improvised sounds. The bassist was also a fan of free jazz artists like Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman, the latter of whom once appeared on stage in London alongside Lennon's future wife and kindred spirit Yoko Ono. It is said that George Harrison performed a one off gig with Percy Heath and Connie Kay of the extraordinary Modern Jazz Quartet (a group who also happened to have been signed to The Beatles' Apple labe in the late sixtiesl). As for Ringo Starr, there's little doubt the others could have convinced him to go in a jazzier direction provided, of course, that drum solos would be out of the question.
This isn't to say that The Beatles should have morphed into a jazz combo, only that jazz would have been a fruitful area with which to mine for creative inspiration. 1968 saw the release of such standout albums as Miles Davis' Miles in the Sky (the title of which indicates that the Fab Four may have inspired some jazz cats; incidentally, Miles's ghostly 1974 album Get Up with It includes a track called "Billy Preston") and Filles de Kilimanjaro, Herbie Hancock's Speak Like a Child, Duke Ellington's And His Mother Called Him Bill, Roland Kirk's The Inflated Tear, McCoy Tyner's Tender Moments, Jackie McLean's New and Old Gospel and the MJQ's Under the Jasmin Tree, their first of two releases on Apple. Meanwhile, Laura Nyro was using her jazz background to craft her first album masterpiece Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. Indeed, with Joni Mitchell beginning to emerge beyond the coffeehouse folk scene and a pair of wise ass university students in Annandale, New York — Donald Fagen and Walter Becker respectively — mapping out Steely Dan, there was a future for jazzy pop. (Even Frank Zappa was doing his part with the jazz fusion release Hot Rats, released later in the year) I like to think that The Beatles could have been at the forefront of this sound rather than simply inspiring generations of dismal power pop bands. (Or let's split the difference and say they could've done both)
But enough fantasy pop for now. You know how there are songs that you sing to yourself and have stuck in your mind that never quite live up to how you imagine them when you actually listen to them? (Because I can't be the only one who has experienced this, right?) Well, "Get Back" is the opposite of them. I never like it unless I am hearing it with relatively fresh ears. If it's whirling around in my brain then it comes across as irritating. McCartney's lyrics are stupid, transphobic and even kind of racist. As with much of what The Beatles recorded in 1969, it lacks invention beyond Preston's organ part (and, to some extent, Lennon's guitar solo, another indication that they had jazz chops in them). Promoted as 'The Beatles as nature intended', it smacks of a serious regression on their part. The Fabs had already begun to retreat on the production front on much of their double album from six months earlier but this rootsy approach was an even more extreme measure.
The set up doesn't sound like much but "Get Back" is just about worth it. While minor, it's a sign that The Beatles could still do fun pop-rock even when coasting and, frankly, as their prime was passing. The Fab Five play as tight as ever and it comes across as their first hit in ages that would've gone over well in concert (although that's easy to say since it had already been performed at their infamous rooftop gig the previous January). The driving rhythm makes it almost danceable. While far from The Beatles at their very best, it is at least the sound of them enjoying being Beatles, perhaps for the very last time.
Much of what The Beatles did in '69 was, in retrospect, a soft launch for their solo careers. Lennon numbers like "Don't Let Me Down" ditched the vivid word pictures of old in favour of raw feeling, a trait he would develop fully on the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album in 1970. Harrison's bitterness began to recede as the influence of Bob Dylan and The Band (and maybe just a little Lennon and McCartney, even if he wouldn't have admitted it) gave warmth to his early seventies' boom period. And McCartney's love of weed pushed him towards nonsense storytelling mixed with his winning melodies, the results of which could vary from outstanding to appalling. "Get Back" doesn't fall within either extreme but at least it's a good deal closer to the former.
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