{"id":683,"date":"2025-04-15T12:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T12:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/?p=683"},"modified":"2025-07-14T12:18:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:18:37","slug":"95-get-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/95-get-back\/","title":{"rendered":"95: Get Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Get Back is a track from the Let It Be album and was also released as the A-side of a single (with Don&#8217;t Let Me Down as its B-side). It was written by Paul McCartney during studio sessions that were filmed as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Let_It_Be_(1970_film)\">Let It Be<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Beatles:_Get_Back\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Beatles:_Get_Back\">Get Back<\/a> project. As a result the process was one of the best documented of any Beatles song.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-beatles-card-song-info\"><div class=\"beatles-card-content\"><div class=\"bible-section\"><div class=\"source-heading\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-content\/plugins\/beatles-card\/src\/icons\/BeatlesBibleApple.svg\" alt=\"Beatles Bible\" class=\"source-icon\"><span>The Beatles Bible<\/span><\/div><div class=\"bible-text\"><p class=\"bible-paragraph\">The Beatles\u2019 19th British single, \u2018Get Back\u2019 was the first release by the group from their 1969 \u2018back-to-basics\u2019 phase.<\/p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.beatlesbible.com\/wp\/media\/japan_get_back.jpg\" alt=\"Get Back single artwork - Japan\" title=\"Get Back single artwork \u2013 Japan\" class=\"bible-thumbnail\" width=\"200\" height=\"auto\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.beatlesbible.com\/songs\/get-back\/\" class=\"continue-reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Continue reading on Beatles Bible \u2192<\/a><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wiki-section\"><div class=\"source-heading\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-content\/plugins\/beatles-card\/src\/icons\/WikipediaLogo.svg\" alt=\"Wikipedia\" class=\"source-icon\"><span>Wikipedia<\/span><\/div><div class=\"wiki-text\"><div class=\"wiki-excerpt\">&quot;Get Back&quot; is a song recorded by the English rock band the Beatles and Billy Preston, written by Paul McCartney, and credited to the Lennon\u2013McCartney partnership. It was originally released as a single on 11 April 1969 and credited to &quot;The Beatles wi&#8230;<\/div><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Get_Back\" class=\"continue-reading\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Continue reading on Wikipedia \u2192<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The film shows McCartney coming up with the idea for the melody and groove of the song while noodling on his bass guitar before the beginning of the bands scheduled session at Twickenham studio on 7th January 1969. Ringo and George begin to get involved, and the verse and chorus evolve from initially indistinct mumbles. Lennon arrives a little later and immediately picks up his guitar to join in. Within a few minutes the skeleton of the song is complete. The Beatles then return to the song at several points throughout the sessions over the following days and weeks as it gradually takes shape as a finished song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Paul plays and Compose &quot;Get Back&quot; for first time | The Beatles: Get Back\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/X94t4hTajCc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A controversial aspect of the song&#8217;s inception is the existence of later outtakes in which McCartney is singing ill-judged lyrics about race relations in Britain at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He had evidently noticed that the &#8220;get back to where you once belonged&#8221; refrain could be interpreted as directed at immigrants who, at the time, were increasingly being scapegoated by right-wing politicians. It was not very clear exactly how the song could be made to fit against this weightier topic, but McCartney and the Beatles experimented with words like these:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis<br>Living in a council flat<br>Candidate Macmillan, tell us what your plan is<br>Won\u2019t you tell us where you\u2019re at? <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And they also ran through a jam entitled Commonwealth (the Commonwealth is the name for countries that had formed part of the British Empire, and whose citizens had rights to live in the UK). The jam included Get Back-related phrases such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You&#8217;d better get back to your\u00a0Commonwealth\u00a0homes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is argued that these lyrical ideas were satirical or intended to parody the views of racists. This is likely true, but the Beatles breezy light-hearted approach to the topic &#8211; captured by the cameras &#8211; has not aged well. The documentary suggests that McCartney may not have had the lyrical chops to carry off protest songs, satire and parody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In any event, any association with race and immigration was wisely dropped, and the song developed a more ambiguous, character driven lyric about &#8220;JoJo&#8221; who &#8220;left his home in Tuscon Arizona for some California grass&#8221; and &#8220;sweet Loretta Martin&#8221;, who &#8220;thought she was a woman, but she was another man&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For what it&#8217;s worth, I think it&#8217;s very clear from the film and from the final lyric that McCartney&#8217;s governing impulse is to get some words that work phonetically with the rhythm and melody that he has in his head. He is less concerned with the meaning and is happy for it to be ambiguous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The overarching concept of &#8220;get back to where you once belonged&#8221; may have arisen from Harrison&#8217;s song Sour Milk Sea (recorded by Jackie Lomax, with bass by McCartney) which contains the line: &#8220;Get back to the place you should be&#8221;, and this idea of &#8220;getting back&#8221; became quite central to the project, including Get Back being considered as the title for the album and ultimately being used for the 2019 documentary. The Beatles were consciously trying to get back to where they had started, as a band, playing live and simultaneously, without overdubs and the &#8220;studio trickery&#8221; that they&#8217;d indulged on the albums leading up to Sgt Pepper. So it seems possible that McCartney saw the song as a way to brand the Get Back concept. As their advertising put it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Get Back\u2019 is The Beatles\u2019 new single. It\u2019s the first Beatles record which is as live as live can be, in this electronic age. There\u2019s no electronic whatchamacallit.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Get Back is a track from the Let It Be album and was also released as the A-side of a single (with Don&#8217;t Let Me Down as its B-side). It was written by Paul McCartney during studio sessions that were filmed as part of the Let It Be\/Get Back project. As a result the process [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[22,6],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-song-a-day","tag-let-it-be","tag-single"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomhartley.me.uk\/beatles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}