#30 - So I ate an edible and finally watched Get Back...

It’s interesting, watching people in the midst of becoming myths.

There’s so much written about The Beatles it feels futile to write more. It’s almost like how you can’t write an essay on The Great Gatsby without committing some sort of plagiarism because so many essays have been written about that book. (Also, side note, my terrible English teacher in high school made my entire AP English class re-read Gatsby because he couldn’t be bothered to teach us the already-assigned and far superior book, Robertson Davie’s The Fifth Business even though that book is way way more interesting and wasn’t cribbed from materials the author stole from their wife before locking her away in a mental institution so that she couldn’t tell anyone about his theft and deception!)

(I mean, honestly, Zelda Fitzgerald and Yoko Ono would probably have a lot to say about media depictions of the men who fall in love with artists far greater than themselves.)

Back to The Beatles!

Now, I’m a George girl (and I am me) so obviously, I cried throughout the entire movie.

But there’s so much to this documentary that I wasn’t expecting! All of them are firmly in their “men in their 20s like to grow their hair with no end goal” phase, we get to witness the inception of Get Back (and it really is sort of breathtaking), and see how the arguments played out among these extremely famous and equally emotionally-repressed British boys. (It’s enough to break my heart!!)

George Harrison was 20 years old when they debuted on the Ed Sullivan Show. When he quits the band mid-rehearsal, he was 25.

That’s so young.

They’re all so young, and they’d already achieved so much and navigating this whole new type of fame that they’re simultaneously creating the blueprint for. It’s amazing it didn’t all fall apart sooner, but it’s also remarkable just how talented they all were, how collaborative they had been, and how no matter how people change, it can be hard for those closest to them to ever change the original dynamics that existed within that relationship.

Paul and John obviously have some stuff going on. It feels like every time they start to play a song the Lennon/McCartney chyron appears. You watch them play off each other, you see Paul get so excited and full of life when John looks at him and approves of what he’s doing. There’s a scene of them improvising and making jokes during She Came In Through The Bathroom Window and they’re just making each other laugh, all of them are so happy and just having the most fun with their besties, and it seems so fun to be so talented! Make fun of cops in songs boys!! It’s so joyous!

Paul loves being a Beatle, and you can sense the sadness the entire time as his awareness (and subsequent acceptance) that his best friends no longer feel the same way. (Also at one point he and John are like lovingly gazing at each other, singing about loving each other during a duet, and John gently fixes his hair, and then Paul gently flicks his hair, and then John says “it’s like we’re lovers” and then goes on to…what I can only describe as…deep throat the microphone?) (Cinéma!)

Obviously, everything forever has been made about the presence of Yoko. Paul even jokes at one point that the media will blame her for them breaking up because she “sat on an amp”. But knowing what we know now, it’s so clearly not Yoko’s fault that John was obsessed with her. And John, like any annoying friend in a new relationship, made Yoko the absolute end-all-be-all most important person in his life, and he’s so excited about her art, and the art they’re making together. And Paul just has to watch as his longtime friend and closest creative partner no longer gets the same rush out of their new collaborator, and we all understand that heartbreak because we’ve seen Toy Story and know how Woody felt when he got tossed off the bed, right?

And Ringo, sweet sweet Ringo, seems to be there with Paul, gently supporting him the whole time. Literally physically propping him up. Tucked up against each other on couches, leaning on each other with their chairs squished close in the circle. Paul quietly, and so sadly, on the day that only the two of them show up for rehearsal murmurs, “And then there were two.”

(And you see Paul start to crumble because he can’t save it. And he doesn’t know how to tell his best friends how important this has been to him. And he doesn’t know how to ask them to stay. But he never had to ask Ringo to stay, because Ringo was always there.) (One day Ringo is the only one to come to rehearsal, and it’s so heartbreaking they don’t linger on the moment at all.)

I think Ringo really loved being a Beatle too.

When George walks out they all kind of don’t know what to do.

Even though George Harrison had become a well-respected songwriter in and out of The Beatles at that point and was universally recognized for his talents, his bandmates still looked at him as a kid. There was never a Lennon/McCartney/Harrison dynasty. He was the best writer among them (fight me) but there was a pair already there, and they were so dominant and brilliant, and they always left him out. Not even on purpose! Just tradition.

John and Paul clicked. George worked alone. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Old habits die hard.

And Paul, poor Paul is trying the whole time to not overstep with any of them. To protect as many egos as he can, but in his delicacy, he ends up offending George even more, and it’s important to remember that Lenny killed the rabbit by loving it too much.

There’s a moment where George snaps at them about the trip to India. And the reaction is so tense, and the mentions of what happened are so cryptic, and I would just love love love to be a fly on the wall in certain situations, and oh, to know what was said about that trip behind closed doors!!! I am nosy as hell and there is some juicy drama in there and the truth always comes out but the salacious details are often left behind!

It comes right on the heels of the most revealing ~celebrity~ moments I’ve ever seen is when John Lennon makes fun of himself for how he was walking in the footage of them in India. He’s so self-aware of the serene image he was attempting to project. And while George is mid-rant, John breaks the tension by playing a song, and you see Paul give him the sweetest appreciative little glance while he awkwardly smokes his cigarette and prays that George will be done being too honest with them soon. Because John & Paul were soulmates, and the destruction of their love could only be as powerful as the strength it held in the first place.

And can I just say on a different but important note…the smoking in this movie?? Incredible smokers, the lot of them. At one point someone lights a joint for Paul and it’s so good. George smoking on his way back into rehearsal after agreeing to re-join in his black furry coat?!?

The fashion was really incredible throughout, they all have very distinct tastes and it’s always interesting to see how people’s personalities express themselves. Paul loved a henley/vest combo, John Lennon wore the same shirt for four days in a row, Ringo is the most…Dandy every day, and George just fucking crushes it across the board. Every outfit, a total 10. Without hesitation. Total fucking legend. Haven’t stopped thinking about these boots all week.

On a hornier note, when they showed them in India I gasped. They were absolutely in their primes. Perfect hair lengths. Paul with an impeccable amount of scruff. George just radiating a calm energy that is entirely absent from these sessions. Also, while the movie doesn’t ever get into what happened in India, talk about a weirdly concentrated cultural moment. Ready for a fun fact? Mia Farrow was at the Ashram at the same time, with her sister, Prudence. « gestures around like the worlds most obvious carnival barker » Guess when Dear, Prudence was written, folks!!!!

(Ready for the not-so-fun fact? Mia Farrow was sexually harassed by the Guru that they were all there to learn from—because no man treated Mia Farrow well ever, apparently—and learning about that harassment is rumored to have soured The Beatles on the experience as a whole and I just want them to talk about their feelings!!) (Also if you haven’t listened to the You Must Remember This podcast episode about Mia Farrow, uh, DO. Eps 23 & 24. Here’s a link. You’re welcome!)

For a good chunk of this movie I just wanted to drink tea while eating jammy toast, smoke cigarettes inside, and keep the newspapers out of their hands.

It was so easy to keep criticism away from celebrities back then! There was like one paper, they could have just not brought it into the studio. There were no phones, this seems like something that could have been solved!!

It’s also so easy to forget that this was them on-camera and we have no clue what would have happened had these sessions not been encroached on by entire film crews. They often mention the cameras in the beginning, and there is an entirely too-revealing scene of a conversation between Paul and John about George that was secretly recorded from a flowerpot in the middle of the table during the shoot. Such a gross invasion of privacy! People should be allowed to know when they’re being listened to!! While I appreciate the insight into their thought processes and admittance that they don’t mean to demean George, it still feels like something I shouldn’t have access to. These were real people, and they already gave us so much of themselves on-camera. We’re not entitled to them when they’re unaware we’re there.

Fame is one of the most isolating things someone can experience. Being a famous person cuts you off from the rest of humanity in such a brutal way, and I do think that the level of fame The Beatles experienced must have been absolutely petrifying. How do you continue to create with that many expectations on what you’re producing? What are your relationships like with other humans, can people tell you no without hesitating anymore? When everything you do is studied to see how it adds up to your Greatness, are you living your life, or are you permanently in a stage of alter-ego because there’s just absolutely no way that anyone’s most-famous self is their truest and most authentic.

So many people want to be famous, to be known, to be remembered, so I think we automatically consider the people who have achieved that to be lucky (and rich). So when they complain about…anything, we tell them to be quiet. They wanted this life, and we don’t want to hear a rich person complain about anything because their life is absent of the financial stress that defines daily life for the rest of us, they’re now an alien. We no longer give them the space to complain, even though commiserating is one of the greatest bonding experiences we have as humans.

They understood each other, so they could complain and commiserate and literally play along as Paul sarcastically narrates the newspaper article that depicts George’s eerily calm walk-out as the four of them trading punches. (Honestly—it might have hurt them less if they had all exploded into violence because it might have made it more apparent how frustrated they were with their inabilities to communicate the intricacies of their love and resentments and what they meant to each other and how no matter how strong & true that love was, the center simply could not hold.)

No matter what, a lot of the documentary consists of a bunch of very talented friends sitting around and fucking about. John Lennon was an abusive father, and he knew how to lighten up the mood with a well-timed dick joke or a silly voice. Paul would be blamed for the band falling apart, told that it should have been him that was murdered instead of John, and all he wanted was a hug and to play with his best friends. He loved John so much, it’s so clear, it’s written all over both their faces, they can’t get enough of each other, but John has fallen in love with a new creative partner, and Paul had to witness that happen.

(Also the Paul and Linda and Heather footage is drenched in love. Paul’s having the time of his life playing along with Heather running around in the studio and it’s like…how many 26-year-old dudes do you know that look at children like they are the literal sun?)

I imagine the thing that goes unmentioned the most is the discrepancy in fame. Ringo is already being left out in the articles and the band hasn’t even broken up yet. It’s hard to say who is the most famous of them because they’re all sort of larger than life and John Lennon has been gone for so long that we have no way of knowing what his fame would have evolved into. And maybe once you reach a certain level the amount of fame is negligent, but in many ways, it’s the only thing that can tear them apart because it’s creating competition, no matter how unwanted, out of the thing that binds them all together. (Also, based on this movie, John Lennon would have absolutely loved shitposting on Twitter.)

But how odd to see those around you be adored, and it’s human nature to be envious, but in that, there must be so much clouding that envy because there’s no way that George wanted more fame, he saw what destruction the level he already had hath wrought. But it seems that he was also much more willing to be himself, and his bandmates couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize his brilliance, and how annoying for the rest of the world to kind of agree with them. Because if you’re the four most famous people in the world, one of you is the fourth most famous. What a strange tragedy.

Ultimately, the music could only hold them together for so long.

In the first episode, Paul and John are going through the old stuff that they wrote when they were 15, and it’s not even a full decade before they’re rehearsing them in the warehouse they’ve trapped themselves in, and now those songs are being played to remind them all of what they have together in that room. And no matter how irreparably damaged it had become—if they played the songs, they would be together at least, until the music stopped.

The best scene for me was watching Ringo shyly show George the beginnings of Octopuses’ Garden and George immediately jumping up with his guitar and having fun and helping him finish it and boosting up Ringo and uuuuugh do you ever watch archival footage and realize these historical figures were just dudes in their 20s fucking around and getting high and writing music? (Also the thing that made me laugh and cry in equal measure is a quiet moment after Paul has played around with George’s guitar in the Apple recording sessions, and the next time you see George he’s cleaning his guitar.)

The final scenes include live reactions to the rooftop concert. Just a buncha Brits on lunch break in London, meandering around. Most of them enjoying the music, some complaining about the noise and being woken up, none of them with any way of knowing that this would be the final performance. It was special, and it was much more random than I had ever assumed, and the receptionist calmly ignoring the cops who showed up is so cool, and I hope all of The Beatles had a lot of fun playing with their friends up there on Savile Row’s roof that day.

The most stoner thought I ever have is anytime I get high and put on a Beatles album. My favorite is Sergeant Pepper’s and every time I take it out of the sleeve, set it down on the turntable, and hear the fuzz of the record, I feel momentarily connected to all of the stoners who have partaken in this exact action with me thousands (if not millions) of times.

That’s the cool thing about art. It connects. It documents. It holds all of the messiness of creation inside of itself.

And above all, it survives.

p.s. there’s something really wonderful about Ringo & George’s friendship too. George wrote Ringo a song and never told him about it, but the lyrics were kept for years inside his piano bench, and Ringo found out about the song at a Beatles exhibition museum thing and I’m going to cry about it forever.

p.p.s. it simply must be pointed out in any essay about The Beatles that they are an incredible band who were first identified as geniuses by the women & girls who went to see them play in the underground bars and one day we will realize that media that appeals to teenage girls is deeply important and they always get proved right!! Media that appeals to women is universally appealing and teenage girls are early adopters and supporters of great art!!!