THE SHOW MUST GO?
FROM JANUARY 2, The Beatles endlessly debated the kind of live performance, if any, Get Back should end on. As late as January 25, six days from their iconic gig on the roof of 3 Savile Row and in a break from rehearsing Two Of Us, their discussions remained inconclusive. Witness this revealing extract from Apple/ Callaway’s Get Back book. Present: the four Beatles plus Yoko Ono, Michael Lindsay-Hogg and Glyn Johns…
John: There isn’t any big scene now – all we’ve got is us, and the documentary, where we happen to be singing. And that bit [ie. the show] has gone. I thought that was all over, you know.
Paul: What?
John: The bit about the show, the finale. The finale’d just be us doing the numbers well.
Paul: Yeah. I think it probably is, yeah…
John: But lit as nicely as you can.
Paul: I dig a show, you know. I dig a pony. I like that, and I always have, you know.
John: Well… what are you trying to make a show out of now?
Paul: I can’t answer it, you know.
John: I know.
Paul: I know that there’s no sort of answer for it. But… I can’t put it into words. It’s a bit like what’s wrong with Apple.
John: Too many people. (laughs)
Paul: I just like making the best out of an idea – sort of grabbing the remnants of an idea, making that into… John: It’s after the horse has gone, you know. We started it like that, and now we’re salving [sic] it like that really, aren’t we?
Paul: Anyway, we’ll decide later what it turns into.
Michael: What was originally [the] idea, was a show and a documentary… and that went out the window.
John: Well, originally it was a show, and then a show and a documentary, and the show vanished.
Paul: But I’m making another album again, you know. And I’d meant to put them into some other framework this time. That’s what I sort of thought. And the only one other thing was the TV show, you know… I do like to get out – get out in the open, have a change of scene, and go and do it somewhere else, do it on a live show, or do it even [on] a TV studio floor, do it on a stage… just without a sort of feeling of…
John: That’s what the big thing was about. Nobody else wants to go on the stage or do a TV show, you know, that’s what it’s about. Nobody wants to get out there, you know. And then if you want to get out there, you’ll have to find some other form of getting out there.
Paul: I suppose that’s true, you know.
John: I think so, you know. I’m only going by what’s happened.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
John: [to George] What do you think? I mean that’s what it was about, wasn’t it?
George: That’s why I can’t… you know, it’s being this funny thing about…
Glyn: What we’ve got is you all playing live in one room. This is it, right, for the first time, for a start, and it’s really working extremely well. That in itself is a fresh thing for The Beatles.
George: You know, we’ve really wasted a lot of time, because we could have just worked out which number, and done it, and got it really good – and even good live – just like that.
John: Yeah. Had we chosen in the beginning to do this, though.
George: And we would have had about five tracks already.
Paul: I don’t know why I’m moaning.
Michael: What you’re moaning about is there’s no payoff.
Glyn: Every idea that we could think of was put forward, and everybody tried to get it together, really… nobody could have tried harder, but it didn’t happen. So if it didn’t happen, so the time isn’t right for that (laughs), so let’s do this. And this is so good. This is great.
John: See, it’s turned out [like] that, and it’s not what Paul wants… Say it’s his number, this whole show, well, he’s compromised, so that it’s actually turned into our number more than his number…
Paul: Yeah. And that’s all right, you know.
John: It’s all right. But that’s what’s bugging you really, ’cos it’s a different number, you know. It’s turned into a rock number or, as opposed to a quiet number or something like that. And… (pause)… it’s just that, really.
Paul: But it’s just funny to sort of realise that after this is all over, you’ll be off in a black bag somewhere… [in] the Albert Hall, you know. And sort of doing shows and stuff, you know, and digging that thing a bit.
John: But I would dig to play on stage, you know. I mean, if everything was all right and there was no messing and we were just going to play on stage.
Paul: Yeah. But it’s only that. It’s only that. I’d like to see Ringo [playing]… and all that.
John: That’s why I said yes to the TV show. [But] I didn’t want the hell of doing it… I like playing. That’s why I went on the Stones’ show [the Rock And Roll Circus], you know, and that’s why I’ll do other things. But if we all don’t want to do that…
Paul: Yeah, I know. It’s like majority decisions.
John: But I don’t want to sort of go on the road again.
A moment of silence, punctuated by George’s guitar.
Paul: I just feel as though we are on the road again. We’re in a studio, and we just keep to the same environment totally, always, you know. We don’t ever attempt to break out of it.
Yoko: Maybe next week they might change their minds.
Paul: It’s nicer in a warm climate, you know.
George: I think this is the nicest place I’ve been for a long time, this studio.
Paul: Yeah, it is.
George: And also, this is the most I’ve ever played by playing every day. And I can just feel my fingers getting loose a bit, you know, because we don’t get the chance to do that. But if we go out on the road, then it gets back into that one. And really I just want to play. And you can play better without having to do all those things.
Paul: Yeah.
“NOBODY ELSE WANTS TO GO ON THE STAGE OR DO A TV SHOW, YOU KNOW.” JOHN, TO PAUL