Film shows joy in final days of Fab 4

Paris – The Beatles are back this autumn with a new book, reworked final album and much-anticipated documentary that sheds new light on their fraught final days.

Let It Be, released in 1970, has long been considered the legendary group’s breakup album. That is partly because it was the last album they released and also because it was followed by a making-of documentary that showed deep tensions among the Fab Four.

However it’s not that simple: Let It Be was actually recorded before 1969’s Abbey Road but sat on the shelf for a year because the band wasn’t satisfied with it.

In fact, Paul McCartney was never satisfied, having been left out of the mixing sessions by fabled producer Phil Spector.

A new remix of the album by Giles Martin, son of The Beatles’ usual producer George Martin, aims to bring it closer to the band’s wishes.

But speaking to New Musical Express this week, Giles Martin admitted that “Paul’s main issue with what happened is that he normally had a lot of input into the arrangements, and he didn’t with Spector”.

More important to the band’s history may be the new documentary The Beatles: Get Back coming next month from Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. He went through the many hours of outtakes from the original film to show a much more upbeat side of the Let It Be sessions. Ringo Starr is a fan. “We had ups and downs, but even around all that, which you’ll see with the Jackson edit, we were having fun, which [the original documentary] never showed.

“Joy and fooling around and shouting at each other. It’s what four guys do,” Starr told Ultimate Classic Rock.

Roger Stormo, editor of

The Daily Beatle, said there were definite tensions, with George Harrison storming out for several days because he felt sidelined by McCartney and John Lennon.

“But they were having fun at the same time as being angry,” he said.

“Because of the well-publicised argument between George and Paul in the original movie, people have interpreted the mood of the period as being a downer, but I never saw it that way.

“They were having fun.” –