9 ms·

How songwriters felt watching the new Beatles documentary

119 points by tintinnabula 5y ago

gkanai 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20211207081933/https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/12/06/beatles-get-back-documentary-songwriters/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211207081933/https://www.washi...
circlefavshape 5y ago
I found Get Back incredibly inspirational. It's all just so ordinary, like any band rehearsal I've ever been in. It's kind of amazing to see The Beatles just doing the same stuff that everyone in bands does
- marban 5y ago
  Right time, right place, right people.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Agree, the Great Man Theory puts too little emphasis on time and place. I feel the Beatles wild success in the United States is linked to the incredible sadness in the U.S. after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These four English lads were the Pollyannas that the country needed, clung to, to get out of their national funk.
    - gerbilly 5y ago
      I think that the success of the 'British invasion' groups in America is that it provided a safe way for mainstream Americans to listen to black musical genres. The British musicians—who weren't as queasy about it—took R&B, Rock and Blues and played it back to the Americans from a safe distance.
      - leephillips 5y ago
        Interesting theory. But isn’t this exactly what white American musicians were doing themselves? For instance, the Beatles started out imitating Elvis, who himself was largely a[n inferior] imitator of black American popular music.
        babyshake 5y ago
        They were imitating Little Richard a lot more than Elvis. In Get Back, they are mocking Elvis in a way that makes it clear that had been making fun of him this way for years.
        leephillips 5y ago
        Ahh, interesting. I’ll have to listen to that again.
        brg 5y ago
        The Beatles were inspired and constant fans of Elvis and his music. https://daytrippin.com/2018/10/08/john-lennons-lifelong-obsession-with-elvis-presley/ https://daytrippin.com/2018/10/08/john-lennons-lifelong-obse...
        ableal 5y ago
        https://lithub.com/when-the-beatles-met-their-idol-elvis-presley/ https://lithub.com/when-the-beatles-met-their-idol-elvis-pre... (interesting find prompted by other, also interesting, answer)
        pessimizer 5y ago
        Not by then. After Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis had their explosive starts in the late 50s (that went into pauses with cousin-marrying and military service), white music was determined to market versions of them with all the implications of blackness stripped out. Instead, you had teen idols and white doo wop groups singing "Mister Sandman, bring me a dream..." White rock and roll is dead until the British invasion, who consisted of people who gleefully mined US race/blues records (and Elvis, and Jerry Lee Lewis), and fed it back to Americans. That's a bit of what the movie Hairspray was about. The pause, that is. edit: honestly, rock and roll probably would have died then if it weren't for the British Invastion. The kids were getting into folk.
- tnolet 5y ago
  Yes, it's all very very familiar. The setup, the sitting around the amps, the mumbling. It does away with the "magic" while simultaneously making clear you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff". Not so much "inspiration" but just being willing to be shameless and plug away at random things and follow intuition. The process is nothing special.
  - tgv 5y ago
    Even back then?
  - tekstar 5y ago
    > you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff" Where do you see that? Watching the documentary I see people who have been, for years, putting in the work. This is them going to work. Most people I know who have not met their songwriting goals do not put in the time, day after day, year after year.
    - nickelcitymario 5y ago
      Perhaps it's a little of both? But my takeaway from this scene was also more on the side of "this is how they did it: relentless hard work." ...but plenty of people put in the work and never come up with anything close to what the Beatles could. Including, it's worth considering, any of the fab 4 in their solo careers. Sure, there were a few hits. But nothing comparable to the insane productivity from when they were a band. So it looks to me like the formula is: hard work + talent + band chemistry = hit making machine. And only the hard work portion of that is within anyone's control.
      - greedo 5y ago
        I think some of this is just that anything done in their solo careers was continually measured against the best of the Beatles output. If you look at the number of hits and records sold by McCartney and Wings, it's amazing. And John Lennon's solo stuff is legendary. I still think that "Imagine" is as good as any of the Beatles stuff. And the Beatles had what I consider a lot of poor songs as well. It's just that their sheer volume of outstanding songs made it easy to ignore the lesser ones.
Joeboy 5y ago
I loved the doc, my slight disappointment is that this was a relatively conventional period, compared to the couple of years before. No insight into how you end up with brilliant, sonically outlandish stuff like Strawberry Fields, Tomorrow Never Knows, I am the Walrus etc. Of course there's masses of stuff written and spoken about those things too, but not the incredible fly-on-the-wall view you get in Get Back. Maybe it's for the best.
- Guessnotgauss 5y ago
  Have you heard George Martin talk about making Sgt. Pepper? Its on Youtube, basically its a response to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. George Martin goes into the creative recording process, we just never get to hear any of the beatles talk about how those songs came about though. There was another engineer who has insight to the whole process, Geoffrey Emerick, hes also got some interviews on youtube. (Saying all this incase someone else might want to dig further)
- Applejinx 5y ago
  There is such a thing as a book: Geoff Emerick's autobiography, "Here, There and Everywhere". You couldn't ask for better insight into exactly the songs you mention :)
  - lowercased 5y ago
    There's loads of books (Lewisohn has some great books), but it's simply not the same as watching and hearing things in near real time.
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    > Of course there's masses of stuff written and spoken about those things too, but not the incredible fly-on-the-wall view you get in Get Back.
    - tekstar 5y ago
      The book mentioned is really good if you haven't read it.
codeulike 5y ago
Tldr: they mostly felt "yes that's what songwriting looks like"
- Sporktacular 5y ago
  Thank you
roody15 5y ago
Surprised at how much leadership Paul showed. I had heard this previously was watching the sessions really displayed how he was the de facto band leader at this point.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  It sounds as though that shift happened with Brian's death. Paul took up the reins....
  - sho_hn 5y ago
    He laments the loss of and need for an "central Daddy figure" in the documentary footage.
- bena 5y ago
  Let's not ignore the fact that Paul and Ringo are the only two that are still alive. While everything that is shown in this documentary did happen, not everything that happened was shown in the documentary.
mentos 5y ago
Worth watching this interview too 'Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs' - https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 Paul McCartney says one day he woke up and had the melody to Yesterday in his head. He says that some musicians dream about music but don't remember it when they wake up. For him he was able to remember and block out chords. For me that is what a musician does - 'dreaming awake'.
- circlefavshape 5y ago
  I've often hopped out of bed in the middle of the night with an AMAZING tune in my head from a dream, and recorded it on my phone. They've invariably been shite when I listened to them the next morning
  - reader5000 5y ago
    I've somewhat had this phenomenon, with the added observation that if I listen to the recording multiple times it will "click" and will sound good again. Then I wonder if it actually sounds good or what.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    > shite Yesterday is only good when you hear it in hindsight, knowing the commercial success that it had and under the influence of halo effect Honestly every song of that Level is. You have to put together a good album and it can make it to 100k copies sold . Everything above 100K copies is more telling about the luck and the scope of the promotional campaign supporting it then it says about the album itself . It’s a phenomenon you see in every field . Gisele Bunchen is beautiful but not 400M dollar beautiful Bill Gates is smart but not 170B smart The Mona Lisa is a great painting I guess but not 1B dollar worth Jesus was a pretty cool role model , but not a 3B devote follower type role model dictating that the world stops on his birthday All the above phenomenons rely on a mix of luck, vitality and as well as people not thinking about potentially buying into something that could be overrated and ‘overpriced’ compared to cheaper options which is the definition of halo effect
    - 5y ago
theknocker 5y ago
The Beatles represent everything about our culture that is fake, overrated, and propped up by marketing.
S_A_P 5y ago
Watching this documentary made me wish that they did that with all their records. Since Get Back was a relatively stripped down record, it didnt really show a lot of the techniques they used on their more produced records. I am a bit of a gear head and it is pretty cool to see a brand new silver top Rhodes piano getting delivered and seeing it with all its Tolex looking brand new and not showing years of being beat to death like most Rhodes pianos look now. I do agree that it seems like the sessions look generally like they are having a good time, and the memory of the Get Back/Let it Be sessions are most likely conflated/clouded by the breakup around the time it was finally released.

119 points by tintinnabula 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20211207081933/https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/12/06/beatles-get-back-documentary-songwriters/ https://web.archive.org/web/20211207081933/https://www.washi...

circlefavshape 5y ago

I found Get Back incredibly inspirational. It's all just so ordinary, like any band rehearsal I've ever been in. It's kind of amazing to see The Beatles just doing the same stuff that everyone in bands does

marban 5y ago
Right time, right place, right people.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Agree, the Great Man Theory puts too little emphasis on time and place. I feel the Beatles wild success in the United States is linked to the incredible sadness in the U.S. after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These four English lads were the Pollyannas that the country needed, clung to, to get out of their national funk.
  - gerbilly 5y ago
    I think that the success of the 'British invasion' groups in America is that it provided a safe way for mainstream Americans to listen to black musical genres. The British musicians—who weren't as queasy about it—took R&B, Rock and Blues and played it back to the Americans from a safe distance.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Interesting theory. But isn’t this exactly what white American musicians were doing themselves? For instance, the Beatles started out imitating Elvis, who himself was largely a[n inferior] imitator of black American popular music.
      - babyshake 5y ago
        They were imitating Little Richard a lot more than Elvis. In Get Back, they are mocking Elvis in a way that makes it clear that had been making fun of him this way for years.
        leephillips 5y ago
        Ahh, interesting. I’ll have to listen to that again.
        brg 5y ago
        The Beatles were inspired and constant fans of Elvis and his music. https://daytrippin.com/2018/10/08/john-lennons-lifelong-obsession-with-elvis-presley/ https://daytrippin.com/2018/10/08/john-lennons-lifelong-obse...
      - ableal 5y ago
        https://lithub.com/when-the-beatles-met-their-idol-elvis-presley/ https://lithub.com/when-the-beatles-met-their-idol-elvis-pre... (interesting find prompted by other, also interesting, answer)
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        Not by then. After Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis had their explosive starts in the late 50s (that went into pauses with cousin-marrying and military service), white music was determined to market versions of them with all the implications of blackness stripped out. Instead, you had teen idols and white doo wop groups singing "Mister Sandman, bring me a dream..." White rock and roll is dead until the British invasion, who consisted of people who gleefully mined US race/blues records (and Elvis, and Jerry Lee Lewis), and fed it back to Americans. That's a bit of what the movie Hairspray was about. The pause, that is. edit: honestly, rock and roll probably would have died then if it weren't for the British Invastion. The kids were getting into folk.
tnolet 5y ago
Yes, it's all very very familiar. The setup, the sitting around the amps, the mumbling. It does away with the "magic" while simultaneously making clear you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff". Not so much "inspiration" but just being willing to be shameless and plug away at random things and follow intuition. The process is nothing special.
- tgv 5y ago
  Even back then?
- tekstar 5y ago
  > you do need to have a natural talent for "coming up with stuff" Where do you see that? Watching the documentary I see people who have been, for years, putting in the work. This is them going to work. Most people I know who have not met their songwriting goals do not put in the time, day after day, year after year.
  - nickelcitymario 5y ago
    Perhaps it's a little of both? But my takeaway from this scene was also more on the side of "this is how they did it: relentless hard work." ...but plenty of people put in the work and never come up with anything close to what the Beatles could. Including, it's worth considering, any of the fab 4 in their solo careers. Sure, there were a few hits. But nothing comparable to the insane productivity from when they were a band. So it looks to me like the formula is: hard work + talent + band chemistry = hit making machine. And only the hard work portion of that is within anyone's control.
    - greedo 5y ago
      I think some of this is just that anything done in their solo careers was continually measured against the best of the Beatles output. If you look at the number of hits and records sold by McCartney and Wings, it's amazing. And John Lennon's solo stuff is legendary. I still think that "Imagine" is as good as any of the Beatles stuff. And the Beatles had what I consider a lot of poor songs as well. It's just that their sheer volume of outstanding songs made it easy to ignore the lesser ones.

Joeboy 5y ago

I loved the doc, my slight disappointment is that this was a relatively conventional period, compared to the couple of years before. No insight into how you end up with brilliant, sonically outlandish stuff like Strawberry Fields, Tomorrow Never Knows, I am the Walrus etc. Of course there's masses of stuff written and spoken about those things too, but not the incredible fly-on-the-wall view you get in Get Back. Maybe it's for the best.

Guessnotgauss 5y ago
Have you heard George Martin talk about making Sgt. Pepper? Its on Youtube, basically its a response to the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. George Martin goes into the creative recording process, we just never get to hear any of the beatles talk about how those songs came about though. There was another engineer who has insight to the whole process, Geoffrey Emerick, hes also got some interviews on youtube. (Saying all this incase someone else might want to dig further)
Applejinx 5y ago
There is such a thing as a book: Geoff Emerick's autobiography, "Here, There and Everywhere". You couldn't ask for better insight into exactly the songs you mention :)
- lowercased 5y ago
  There's loads of books (Lewisohn has some great books), but it's simply not the same as watching and hearing things in near real time.
- Joeboy 5y ago
  > Of course there's masses of stuff written and spoken about those things too, but not the incredible fly-on-the-wall view you get in Get Back.
  - tekstar 5y ago
    The book mentioned is really good if you haven't read it.

codeulike 5y ago

Tldr: they mostly felt "yes that's what songwriting looks like"

Sporktacular 5y ago
Thank you

roody15 5y ago

Surprised at how much leadership Paul showed. I had heard this previously was watching the sessions really displayed how he was the de facto band leader at this point.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
It sounds as though that shift happened with Brian's death. Paul took up the reins....
- sho_hn 5y ago
  He laments the loss of and need for an "central Daddy figure" in the documentary footage.
bena 5y ago
Let's not ignore the fact that Paul and Ringo are the only two that are still alive. While everything that is shown in this documentary did happen, not everything that happened was shown in the documentary.

mentos 5y ago

Worth watching this interview too 'Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs' - https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 https://youtu.be/u97_inloBmY?t=74 Paul McCartney says one day he woke up and had the melody to Yesterday in his head. He says that some musicians dream about music but don't remember it when they wake up. For him he was able to remember and block out chords. For me that is what a musician does - 'dreaming awake'.

circlefavshape 5y ago
I've often hopped out of bed in the middle of the night with an AMAZING tune in my head from a dream, and recorded it on my phone. They've invariably been shite when I listened to them the next morning
- reader5000 5y ago
  I've somewhat had this phenomenon, with the added observation that if I listen to the recording multiple times it will "click" and will sound good again. Then I wonder if it actually sounds good or what.
- GDC7 5y ago
  > shite Yesterday is only good when you hear it in hindsight, knowing the commercial success that it had and under the influence of halo effect Honestly every song of that Level is. You have to put together a good album and it can make it to 100k copies sold . Everything above 100K copies is more telling about the luck and the scope of the promotional campaign supporting it then it says about the album itself . It’s a phenomenon you see in every field . Gisele Bunchen is beautiful but not 400M dollar beautiful Bill Gates is smart but not 170B smart The Mona Lisa is a great painting I guess but not 1B dollar worth Jesus was a pretty cool role model , but not a 3B devote follower type role model dictating that the world stops on his birthday All the above phenomenons rely on a mix of luck, vitality and as well as people not thinking about potentially buying into something that could be overrated and ‘overpriced’ compared to cheaper options which is the definition of halo effect
  - 5y ago

theknocker 5y ago

The Beatles represent everything about our culture that is fake, overrated, and propped up by marketing.

S_A_P 5y ago

Watching this documentary made me wish that they did that with all their records. Since Get Back was a relatively stripped down record, it didnt really show a lot of the techniques they used on their more produced records. I am a bit of a gear head and it is pretty cool to see a brand new silver top Rhodes piano getting delivered and seeing it with all its Tolex looking brand new and not showing years of being beat to death like most Rhodes pianos look now. I do agree that it seems like the sessions look generally like they are having a good time, and the memory of the Get Back/Let it Be sessions are most likely conflated/clouded by the breakup around the time it was finally released.