All the Beatles seemed ready for a return to their
roots and tentatively titled the album Get Back. It was
largely the brainchild of Paul McCartney, who hoped
that the Beatles could overcome the discord that had
marred the previous year’s White Album sessions and
restore the camaraderie they’d once enjoyed. The idea
was to rehearse an album of all new songs, fi lm the
proceedings and then record the album as they played
it live from start to fi nish before a large audience.
(Among their grandiose schemes was a plan to stage
the performance in the ruins of an ancient Roman
amphitheater in Tunisia or, more baffl ing, aboard an
ocean liner at sea.) Harrison was intrigued. “I can re-
member feeling quite optimistic about it,” he said of the
project in a 1995 interview conducted for The Beatles
Anthology oral history. “I thought, ‘Okay, it’s the New
Year, and we have a new approach to recording.’ ”
But instead the familiar tensions—along with
freezing temperatures in the cavernous unheated
soundstage, glaring colored lights and intrusive movie
cameras—all conspired to make Twickenham, said
Lennon, “hell.” Tempers fl ared, and within little more
than a week, Harrison had had enough. “They were
fi lming us having a row,” he said of an argument he’d
had with McCartney. “It never came to blows, but I
thought, ‘What’s the point of this? I’m quite capable of
being relatively happy on my own, and I’m not able to
be happy in this situation. I’m getting out of here.’ ”
52 THE BEATLES 1969 PEOPLE
SOMETHING IN THE WAY
Pattie and George Harrison were at Heathrow Airport seeing off friend Bob Dylan, who was flying home
following his Aug. 31, 1969, appearance at the Isle of Wight music festival.
