The Beatles BibleAlthough best known as a Let It Be album track, ‘One After 909′ was one of The Beatles’ earliest songs, and was originally recorded in March 1963.
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WikipediaWhen the Beatles got back together in January 1969 to begin their new project after the White Album, I don’t think it was very clear exactly what the objective would be, but there was a sense that the band should try to “get back” to what they felt they did best – playing together as a unit.
One thing they all agreed on was that they were a tight rock and roll band. But by spending time on increasingly elaborate studio production they had lost touch with that. The back to basics process they started with the White Album had not helped because they’d ended up working separately. So the project that ended up being Let It Be/Get Back was aimed at trying to recapture their roots as a live act playing rock and roll.
Of all the songs they worked on One After 909 perhaps comes closest to this intent, as it’s one of their earliest songs written by Lennon for the Quarrymen. The Beatles had tried to record it much earlier in their career (1963) and there’s a pretty convincing version on Anthology. Although the words don’t make too much sense it feels like a coherent original song. However, the version on Let It Be sounds a bit ragged despite the fact they worked on it quite a lot during those sessions. The Beatles apparently enjoyed playing it though, so it may have been a morale booster. In the documentary you see the Beatles jamming around lots of old favourites from the rock’n’roll era which they all loved. But in my view, One After 909 shows that they could no longer quite recreate that – they’d moved on. To me it seems by 1969 their instincts had evolved to the point where they really gelled best playing the new type of post-psychedelic rock they’d more or less invented e.g., I’ve Got A Feeling, Don’t Let Me Down and Get Back.