ATLES WERE

Michael Lindsay-Hogg, must have been

influenced by the bitter stories of the

time when editing the original. Even

McCartney accepted this tale of ran-

cour as the truth — which is wild, now

there are reels of film of him having a

blast, with a little help from his friends.

“I know, it is!” says Jackson, of how

McCartney’s memory of his own life

could be altered. “Most people that you

talk to about this period, including

Ringo and Paul, are just using the mem-

ory of watching the Let It Be film from

1970. You can imagine how stressful
      that all was. God knows what crap was
      going on in their lives at that point.”
      Get Back, then, does not capture the
      end of the Beatles, but rather the last
      time the band were happy. There is
      footage of the day before and after
      Lennon met Allen Klein, the manager
      widely accused of driving a wedge
      between friends, since McCartney did
      not want Klein involved. “The seeds
      being sown for the Beatles break-up
      are in the movie,” Jackson explains.
      “During that year it turned to mush.”
      What blame can be placed on Yoko
      Ono? “Yoko didn’t break them up,”
      Jackson laughs. “There’s no doubt her
      presence in the studio is weird, but she
      does not interfere. She is very respect-
      ful — sitting there writing or reading.”

What else is there in this three-hour

series of museum-worthy time travel? I

loved the prosaic, non-music bits that

make these pop icons human: Lennon

happily announcing that Ono’s divorce

has come through; Ono trying to give

Lennon gum, but him ignoring her.

There is much puerile humour —

they were still so young: Harrison 25,

McCartney 26, Ringo and Lennon 28.

At one point Lennon changes the

lyrics of I’ve Got a Feeling to incorporate

the word “hard on”, while Ono scrib-

bles away. “Who’s that little old man?”

Lennon asks about a Hare Krishna

friend of Harrison. A highlight for Jack-

son is a sequence in which McCartney

reads out an article declaring the Bea-

tles have lost their lustre.

There are, of course, drugs. “John

and Yoko were taking heroin,” Jackson

says. “There are a couple of times he is

not in good shape. One day he says he

was up all night watching television

and getting stoned. He talks about

being sick. He tells the others it’s his

own fault; he’s abusing his body.”

There are times when the men get gig-

gly, probably because they just shared

a joint in the loo.

Get Back also, tantalisingly, suggests

what might have been. By going into

the past and making it seem happier,

the film, bizarrely, offers a future to the

band that only existed for eight years.

“They discuss solo careers as a parallel

to the Beatles,” Jackson says. “It was

definitely a possible way forward.”

Harrison and Lennon are shown in

the studio, with Harrison complaining

about how many songs he gets on each

Beatles album, and that he was think-

ing about an album by himself. “That’d

be fantastic,” Lennon replies. “It will

be, like, George is doing a solo album

and then there’s a Beatles album.”

It is all really quite moving — not

just for the viewers, but for the men

who remain with us. One sequence

shows McCartney working on Gimme

Some Truth, the Lennon song that

ended up on the Imagine album in

1971. A while ago Jackson played that
      bit to McCartney. “It’s a Lennon and

McCartney song in many respects,”

Jackson says. “But Paul looked at the

footage, shook his head and said that

he had no memory of ever working on

that song.”

It was 50 years ago and McCartney

has lived a lot of life since. Memories

are like that — we do not have room for

them all, even when it was writing

era-defining pop songs.

Just before Lennon died, he and

McCartney made up and got their

friendship back. I ask if they would

have made music together again.

“We made a decision when the

Beatles folded that we weren’t going to

pick it up again,” McCartney says. “You

talk about how something has come

full circle and that’s very satisfying, so

let’s not spoil it. But who knows? We

could have. And I often now will think,

if writing a song, ‘OK, John — I’ll toss it

over to you. What line comes next?’ So

I’ve got a virtual John that I can use.”

And now, thanks to Jackson’s

endeavours, he has actual footage of

his friend that has been locked away

for half a century. It shows them when

they were happy, just as they were in

that photo. c

The Beatles: Get Back premieres on

Disney+ on Nov 25, 26 and 27

Memories Images from Get Back. Far

left: Linda McCartney’s 1968 picture

of John Lennon and Paul McCartney

John was much

more relaxed than

I expected. Here

he is goofy, funny,

patient. Any

chance for a

laugh, he’ll take

Paul is starting to lose John,

because Yoko is there... and

he’s realising that John’s

creative partner is now Yoko.

It’s not him

There are times the men

get giggly. They probably

just shared a joint

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