- From Faith Current: “The Sacred Ordinary: St. Peter’s Church Hall” - May 1, 2023
- A brief (?) hiatus - April 22, 2023
- Something Happened - March 6, 2023
Reading one of a flood of pre-Get Back reviews just now; the premise of the piece, in The New York Times no less, is that the breakup of The Beatles had multiple causes and is a topic of debate even today among Beatle fans and scholars. Its big reveal is that, thanks to a new film, maybe the Get Back sessions weren’t utter misery (despite Lennon calling them “hell” and Harrison “the winter of our discontent”). In other words…
Fear not, aging Boomers increasingly sentimental about your salad days! John, Paul, George and Ringo were as happy to be Beatles as you were to be their fans. Fear not, subsequent generations raised on The Fabs (and especially Lennon) as harmless avatars of hippie “peace”! There’s no hard truths about drug use or sociopathy here. Just watch the boys do their Goon Show turns, but with long hair and strangely drawn visages. Don’t look too closely at the torpor or weird bitterness. Don’t let John and George’s opinion, consistent for the rest of their lives, sway you. Don’t let Let It Be, a film so redolent of bad vibes Apple never re-released it, color your opinion—this one looks so much better! Let Peter Jackson, self-professed Beatle nut, and his Magic Editing Machine tell you the story. He’ll be truthful, promise. The fact that Let It Be II: Yet More Bickering & Pimples would make billions less than a sunny revision of the sessions, that means nothing. Right? It’s just pop culture about some hippies, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?
Couple things jumped out at me:
At a music industry event last year, Jeff Jones, Apple Corps’ chief executive, promised that the new film would “bust the myth” that these sessions were “the final nail in the Beatles’ coffin.” Yet Jackson said the band has had no influence over his work.
“Everyone sort of thinks it’s a whitewash” because the Beatles have authorized the film, Jackson said with a laugh. “But actually it’s almost the exact opposite. It shows everything that Michael Lindsay-Hogg could not show in 1970. It’s a very unflinching look at what goes on.”
Could not show? Why couldn’t Michael Lindsay-Hogg show anything? Who does Jackson think controlled every frame of Let It Be? Is he saying that The Beatles themselves wanted the 1970 movie to be a drag? Why? And doesn’t that fly in the face of what Lennon said in Lennon Remembers, about the film being edited to show “Paul as God”? In an attempt to justify his version of events, Jackson opens up a huge can of worms—rather than stating the obvious: “Bickering Beatles is a drag, especially to a big ol’ fan like me. Plus, we already saw that in Let It Be. I wanted to make a movie that fans, myself included, would enjoy more, and buy.” But Jackson doesn’t say that; he claims to be telling the truth. In the end, this is a rather Trumpian maneuver—“People say Get Back is fake news, but Let It Be is the real fake news!” Get Back is the Beatles for our post-truth era. Truth is whatever opens your pocketbook, and we have the editing equipment to make nearly any version of The Beatles you will pay for.
Also? That quote from Jeff Jones shows exactly why this project happened. It shows the precise marketing hook. That doesn’t makes anybody a liar…but it does inform how smart fans should be watching. The Get Back sessions are the one time (apart from Magical Mystery Tour) where the Beatles magic fizzled. All that footage would be a goldmine…if it didn’t show the group breaking up. What if we could re-cut it, so that it told “the full story”? And that full story just happened to be one a lot more pleasant and marketable than “watch these four brilliant guys hate each other”? That’d be a billion-dollar property, wouldn’t it? That’d make The Beatles something you could sell lock, stock and barrel to Disney for what, $100 billion? The January 1969 sessions are the one bit of the Beatles story which hasn’t been sanded smooth, because all the grimy footage and acrimonious tape was there for us to see/hear. But what if someone re-cut it and made it…I dunno…more like Hard Day’s Night ’69…
Romantic as I am, I do believe that history is stronger than marketing, if only because it lasts. But we won’t get a clear picture of the breakup—or, probably, the band—until there’s no money left to be made, and too few people to care. And even though Get Back is a corporate product designed to sell units, not tell the truth—and if Peter Jackson doesn’t know this, he’s been working in Hollywood too long—something else leapt out of me from the Times article:
A recurring theme is the band’s discomfort over the role of Ono, who sits by Lennon’s side constantly during the sessions and will come to be vilified by fans for her supposed role in the Beatles’ breakup. A companion book to the film, with further transcripts from the tapes, quotes Lennon telling McCartney: “I would sacrifice you all for her.”
Whoa. I love my wife a lot, but that’s a weird thing to say. Why would Lennon put it that way? Who was asking him to sacrifice anything? Hadn’t he been married since 1963? After all the decades of cultural strain to absolve Yoko Ono from any possible part in the dissolution of the world’s most beloved rock band, will Get Back simply confirm that John&Yoko was incompatible with The Beatles? WHY was it? One thing is for sure: the story of the breakup took place entirely in the head of John Lennon.
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Commenter @Matt said something so well, I feel it needed to be surfaced in a post:
“Shortly prior to India, these guys were still close enough to entertain the idea of living on a Greek island together with their families in tow. Whatever happened in India anticipated and was more important to the breakup than anything that happened during the Get Back sessions. John’s crisis point in India preceded his renewed and prodigal drug use; his nascent resentment, paranoia and often downright contempt towards Paul; and his decision to abdicate much of his self-agency and cling to Yoko like a life-raft.
And it is principally because of these facets that civil communication broke down and could not be followed through when it came to aspects of business that should have been largely impersonal, were secondary to deeper problems, and could otherwise have been amicably solved. India is the key to all this.”
This is been my strong belief since at least 2010, after three years’ intense reading and writing on Life After Death For Beginners threw me back into the Beatles’ story after some years away. To write that flawed-but-perhaps-interesting comic novel, I had to indulge in a kind of psychobiography; it was impossible to replicate personal interactions without some sort of workable, predictive psychological map for each person, especially Lennon, and that spoke a slightly different breakup story to me than the ones in Lennon Remembers or Anthology. The breakup of the Beatles was an inside job—not from an external source like the death of Brian or the introduction of Yoko or Klein—and had to come from Lennon.
So when did Lennon turn against his fellow Beatles, and moreover the idea of The Beatles? In India, clearly. Why? We may never know, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be clear about when things seemed to turn. Not in August ’66, or August ’67, or January ’69. It happened in India.
It’s a weird reaction to meditation to go in basically functional, and come out absolutely furious. I’ve seen it happen, and the advice is always: keep meditating, and get therapy to deal with the material that’s coming up. Whatever happened in Rishikesh made John furious; and he remains mostly furious for the rest of his life. Setting aside what that fury cost the world, it cost Lennon himself so much. It’s weird, and once it’s present, it seeps out constantly. I remember reading the 1980 Playboy interview and thinking, “OK, shit, don’t play free concerts! But why are you pissed about it?”
A lot of the histories talk about the seeds of the breakup being planted in August 1966 when they stopped touring, or with Brian’s death, but that’s not shown by the facts. August ’66 to August ’67 a fascinating period, one I hope to write about in a novel someday, but what’s fascinating about it was that the group seems to have pulled off the big shift from performing band to studio group nearly effortlessly. Unlike the Revolver sessions (where Paul stormed out) and White (where Ringo left), interpersonal relations within the Beatles seem particularly happy and low-key from Fall 1966 to February 1968. They’re sad when Brian dies, but still very productive; Lennon’s later characterization of the period as one of misery and crisis for him isn’t visible in any external way. He’s writing a lot, and well; he’s partying in London; he’s working closely with Paul and committed to the group. Contrast this with a year later, when he’s holed up in Montague Square doing H, and basically slamming his hand down on every self-destruct button he can reach.
Sometimes I think the inciting incident was something external, something private that happened in the world—John and Paul started having sex, or stopped, or talked about it, or stopped talking about it; perhaps something powerful happened inside the friendship at the core of the Beatles. One of them said or did something, and the other guy got mad, or felt betrayed, or something.
But increasingly I think it was a meditation-induced breakdown (called among those of us who know “a spiritual emergency” or “kundalini emergency”) which broke something in Lennon that had managed to stay whole for all of Beatlemania. It could’ve been fixed, and should’ve been fixed, or better yet never should’ve happened. Harrison meditated just as much, but had no such breakdown, probably because he’d tapered off drugs earlier, and had been studying with established Hindu teachers for 18 months before heading off to Rishikesh.
I do not know. It may not be knowable. But @Matt’s right, and Peter Jackson’s right too, in spite of himself: India, not Get Back, is the core of the breakup.
Related posts:
The Beatles, “Let It Be,” and “Get Back”: “Trying to Deceive”?
The Compleat Beatles (1982)
A few words about the latest Rolling Stone list…
Beatles Doc to Be Directed by Ron Howard
The Beatles on Shindig
10-minute "Revolution"
Craig Brown’s “One Two Three Four”
“Let It Be,” “Get Back,” and History as Art
Should I do t-shirts?
Hey Dullblog Loves Harry Nilsson!
The Beatles and India documentary
Sympathy for the Devil?
I think the idea that things suffered an irrevocable crack in India is not an unknown one, and a lot of people can look at the ensuing events and detect that something happened (or didn’t happen, or something, to quote John) between John and Paul that wasn’t able to be completely patched.
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But I think the analysis is almost always John-centric, because he was the one who was visibly changed in appearance and behavior, was in ostensibly the most psychological trauma before going to India, and had traumas later reported by his friends — i.e. the Jesus incident, the Brigitte Bardot incident, the ego-building incident with Derek Taylor, the odd trip to New York with Paul that ended with Linda in the limo and John calling Yoko over to the house to begin The Romance of a Century.
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Still, I think it would be interesting to do some analysis of the other Beatles and what happened in India and afterwards. Like, Paul goes to India with Jane and they’re reportedly the most lovey-dovey couple there, and he and John are singing and playing guitar into each other’s faces and smiling and being buddies, but then Paul decides to leave and within a couple of months his five-year, golden-couple relationship with Jane Asher is over and he’s gone off the deep end with a houseful of half-dressed groupies answering his phone and walking his dog, and then he’s being a weirdo with Francie Schwartz and drunkenly crying in the Wirral about how nobody cares about the real him, and then he’s suddenly inviting Linda to stay with him in London and he’s glued to her side for the next 30 years. For George, I know much less and am less sure of the timeline, but it seemed that he and Pattie went from sharing the Indian spiritual exploration together to her being saddled with someone who alternately prayed too much or partied too much and made her feel like a stranger in her own home because of all the spiritual buddies he invited to randomly live there. His relationship with John and Paul seems to fracture a bit more after India, though that could also be his forays into jams with other musicians he admires. And I’m completely ignorant on Ringo’s situation, but he was the least invested that I can see, and stayed the shortest amount of time. But maybe that’s significant.
I’d love to read this post if you’d be interested in writing it.
To me, @Kristy, the noteworthy thing isn’t Paul’s behavior in ’68, it’s that he and Jane somehow managed to stay together until 1968. I don’t get the impression that India unleashed some kind of hedonist in Paul — within the context of people like him, his behavior was always extremely measured and private; the scene with Francie is almost quaint. After five years of successfully hiding sexual conquests from Jane (and Jane surely looking the other way), being caught with Francie seems like pushing self-destruct on that relationship.
The thing that makes me have my theory about Lennon and meditation isn’t that he came back from India a slightly different person, having had some realizations about his life; that’s very normal. It’s the intensity and excessiveness with which he pursued those goals. He DOVE back into drugs; he announced he was Jesus Christ; he plunged into a relationship with Yoko and got divorced in the most painful, punishing way possible; he started taking heroin; he got a sleazy new business manager…
Properly instructed and managed meditation does not bring disorder into a person’s life; it calms them, gives them clarity about themselves and what they want, and there may be some brief wrenching to get one’s life and one’s self back into alignment. But none of it is done angrily, hurtfully, destructively. Your nervous system should quiet down, you should become less reactive, you should be gentler and more empathic–you feel internal pain as trauma reemerges, but that softens you. The changes that are made can hurt, but they’re not done out of spite. All of this is normal. Lennon’s behavior after India was really peculiar.
I will say that “it happened in India” is not the idea you read in the media. Fans online may talk about it, especially ones who view The Beatles mostly or entirely through the lens of John and Paul’s relationship. But in the scholarship? Not so much.
I wish I could read that in-depth post, too! 😀 I will read whatever you and Michael B come up with regarding meditation and psychology for sure.
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I don’t think Paul suddenly became a hedonist, no, but I do think it’s interesting timing that Jane put up with whatever his behavior was for years and their relationship survived that long and culminated in an engagement, and then it imploded almost directly post-India. The scene with Jane coming home to see Francie in bed with Paul IS quaint and seems to me to be a convenient plot device/explanation that on the outside covers all the bases (oh, haha, caught in flagrante, that old chestnut etc.), but in reality, Francie has apparently said that Jane and Paul’s relationship was over before that particular incident. Which I believe. It just seems odd that right around then Paul began living much more openly dangerously and hedonistically and kind of went off the rails until he found someone to steady HIM.
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Of course in Paul’s case I don’t believe any break had much to do with meditation, which I know you are feeling was important to John’s situation. I just find it interesting that there are so many changes across the board for the band right after India. Maybe it was all intertwined with John or he with it. But perhaps maybe not always 100% about John.
It would be a fairly typical reaction to a period of intense meditation for both Paul and Jane to realize, “Wait — this relationship maybe isn’t where I want to be.” And it would be a fairly typical reaction for Paul to begin sabotaging his way out of it, and maybe Jane to emphasize work, not only because she wanted to, but ALSO because she knew it would force a break with Paul.
So much to say, people are complicated. And it’s almost impossible to reverse-engineer the behavior of strangers 55 years ago, at young ages.
The thing about Lennon post-India is that his behavior is not typical. It’s incredibly atypical…except when you start reading about these specific states. Then it becomes typical, predictable again.
@Michael G: “It would be a fairly typical reaction to a period of intense meditation for both Paul and Jane to realize, “Wait — this relationship maybe isn’t where I want to be.”
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Interesting! Having not been a meditator, I would maybe not have come to this conclusion. When I think about India I also tend to mentally downplay Paul and Jane’s involvement in the intense meditation scene as opposed to, say, John and George’s (or Prudence Farrow’s) because they seemed less invested — though Paul does reference the meditation experience later. Thanks for your thoughts on that.
Lots of insights come when you calm yourself and get quiet. That’s a very typical meditation experience. It’s very common to, during a short retreat, come to conclusions about yourself and your life that you couldn’t realize in the midst of the hurly burly. “I love her/him” or “I need to change careers” etc.
A LOT of meditation, over a short period of time, can start moving your Kundalini around, and/or can bring up trauma or other difficult content. That’s a totally different thing.
That sounds not unlike primal scream therapy, though the methods of getting there appear very different.
Indeed any type of therapy (or even sincere prayer) gets people to these kinds of places. But the insights seems to be most useful, and least destructive, when they come gradually. There’s a difference, too, in how long some stuff has been around, and how well-established the teaching methods are. Primal Scream therapy, like TM, was brand new when John tried it (red flag), and both promised great benefits for very little effort (red flag). I know of no one doing Primal Scream now, and believe me, the people I hang around with? If it hadn’t been found wanting, it would still be going strong.
If sitting quietly watching your breath can make some people very uncomfortable (and it can), sitting alone in an ashram repeating a mantra for 8-9 hours at a time, or screaming your brains out for some period here in Santa Monica, these are modalities that need to be handled with great care, especially if the person doing them has a lot of trauma, drug use, or both. It’s just strong stuff, all of it. Medicine.
I agree @Michael. The “it happened in India” theory isn’t part of the conventional discourse among historians. I only started hearing the speculation among various internet fandoms.
The only print source to infer that “it happened in India” — that I’ve read, anyway — is Jonathan Gould’s Can’t Buy Me Love. That book is where I first encountered the theory, which certainly resonates (although I’m also inclined to agree with Fox, below, that perhaps the irrevocable break came about in New York).
Gould writes: “Though no one could have predicted it at the time, the Beatles’ visit to India in the winter of 1968 marked the last occasion on which the four of them would ever travel outside of Britain as a group. As such, their trip to Rishikesh occupies a place in their story analogous to that of their first overseas adventure, their inaugural visit to Hamburg in the fall of 1960. Separated by eight years of once-unimaginable success, these two journeys represented the Beatles’ real-life magical mystery tours. On the first, they forged the singular sense of identity and solidarity that would set them apart from all the other musical gangs that haunted the dance halls. of Liverpool and catapult them to the attention of fans around the world. On the last, they began the painful process by which that singular sense of identity and solidarity, having withstood every form of outside pressure the world could bring to bear, would crack and crumble from within. Though the symbolism and symmetry seem almost too perfect, the mysterious bond that had first been sealed on the stage of a seedy Hamburg nightclub called the Indra would begin to unravel eight years later in the hills of India itself.”
Regarding Ringo in India – it just simply wasn’t his scene. I think he just went because the other 3 did. Also he had some bad stomach issues as a child and the food there was probably the worst thing for him (supposedly he brought suitcases of baked beans or something like that…food that he could handle) I think John, George, and John all knew from the onset this is not something Ringo would take to and they didn’t hold it against him.
Paul Salzman has said Ringo and Maureen told him they were leaving because they missed their children. I can’t imagine being a way from my 6-month old baby for two weeks much less three months, but I guess Ringo running out of canned beans and Maureen not liking the insects (or was it reptiles?) makes for a funnier story.
It makes it all the more strange that even after India, even after the winter of discontent, Lennon went and signed with Allen Klein to manage the Beatles. As did Harrison, which suggests that both of them wanted the band to continue. Presumably Starr as well. Why though? I’ve been in jobs where I’ve been as miserable as hell and couldn’t wait to get out. So why did they want to continue? One could argue that Yoko was behind the machinations to alienate Paul from John, but that doesn’t really explain why George and Ringo signed with Klein.
Perhaps it was Jane and Paul being lovey-dovey in India that rattled John. Who knows? Perhaps Paul sensed it and reverted back to his pre-engagement behaviour to restabilize his relationship with him. ‘Look John! It’s still me, the same old Paul you know! Let’s have the lads’ night out in New York, just like the camaraderie we had in the good old days!’ Except it backfired on him, because John was over it, and contemptuous of the immature boy sitting next to him in the car on the way to the airport. And it took a while for Paul to click. John had found Yoko, and by then, it seems Jane was also over it.
As Jane has never told her side of the story of what really happened between her and Paul, it can only be speculation at best. Her response to Philip Norman’s Shout was that it was full of half-truths. I doubt Jane will say anything now at this stage. In the age of the internet, with its proliferation of forums, blogs, and mindless YouTubers, it’s hardly likely she’d relish being at the hands of enraged Beatle fans. She won’t be able to win, either accused of whitewashing, or, worse still, lying about whatever narrative she offends. And that’s from all generations.
Great post. You raise some interesting possibilities. About Jane and Paul acting like an engaged couple rattling John, and the speculation that something transpired in India that changed John and Paul’s relationship, people seem to arrive at the notion that John propositioned Paul and was rejected. I don’t buy that theory (which all stems from Yoko’s ambiguous “bohemians should try everything” statement to Philip Norman). I think if John was uncomfortable about the situation, it probably had to do with abandonment issues which stemmed from his childhood. In fact, perhaps John’s decision to leave the band was his way of being proactive lest Paul leave him. This happens a lot with people who have abandonment issues.
Regarding Paul and Jane; Paul says in “The Lyrics” that he loved Jane, and always thought they’d get married, but as time went on, he was less sure. He said there was just something not quite right. When he met Linda, she seemed like a better match, and married her.
From everything I’ve read, Jane and Paul simply grew apart.
Has anyone else noticed just how creepy John’s music became in India? Like the soundtrack to a nightmare. Ignore the lyrics and just listen to the melodies of songs like Cry Baby Cry, Bungalow Bill, I’m So Tired, Sexy Sadie. He never wrote tunes so weird and creepy-sounding before or after India.
To me, none of those tops the creepiness of George’s “Long, Long, Long” (which I love, by the way – it is probably the most overlooked song in his Beatles oeuvre).
I also find George’s “Blue Jay Way” incredibly creepy. The voices in the background, his vocals, and the tempo make that song very dark.
I love it too. Haunting, but beautiful.
They simply wanted different things. Jane wanted a career and Paul wanted her to not have a career.
Michael,
To start, I want to say I have never seen “Let It Be”. I never have wanted to because I heard it was depressing, and I really haven’t wanted to watch the Beatles breaking up.
I have been reading interviews with Peter Jackson, who disputes that he has altered Beatle history with “Get Back”.
This is from Joe Hagan at Vanity Fair:
“For Get Back, Jackson says Lennon’s son Sean represented the Lennon estate and watched the rooftop sequence in London last year. Ono’s current status is unclear, but Jackson says he isn’t beholden to anyone’s agenda and has had control over the final cut of the documentary. “I have [gotten] no edicts,” he says. “I mean, nobody from Apple, none of the Beatles, have told me what to do, or none of them have said to me, ‘Don’t show this, don’t show that.’ I’ve been given no censorship instructions at all. I’ve been left completely alone.”
I guess I’m curious Michael, why you seem so cynical about this project. You wrote:
“And even though Get Back is a corporate product designed to sell units, not tell the truth”.
That seems pretty harsh.
I really don’t have any emotional investment in this, other than being a Beatles fan. I understand that you are rightly concerned with whitewashing a contentious time in the Beatles story. Why don’t you trust what Peter Jackson says?
In the same interview, he says he showed the film to Olivia Harrison and got her approval. So, I guess I’m wondering if all the Beatles (or family members) approve, why don’t you?
Tasmin, you’re not missing much by not having seen “Let It Be.” It’s a terrible drag.
But it’s also an historical document. Not just the raw footage, but also the product as a whole, which was viewed by all four Beatles and cronies (including Neil, Mal and Derek, for example) at the time, and was approved by them at the time. “Let It Be” is the narrative THE BEATLES wanted people to know in 1970. Nobody came out at any point near to that time and said, “The Get Back sessions were great/a larf/etc etc. Michael Lindsay-Hogg edited it with an agenda; Let It Be didn’t show the real truth.”
Nobody said that. That’s really important. Do we honestly think that if John Lennon thought that Let It Be was wrong, he wouldn’t have said it? That he wouldn’t have set the record straight, especially in his “I’m a Beatles fan, too” phases? But he didn’t say it was wrong; nor did George. Nor did Paul or Ringo, until later. The bad-newsness of “Let It Be” jibes exactly with what they said at the time, and what most people have said in the years since. It’s one of the areas of greatest agreement in the Beatles’ story–“Yep, that’s indeed what it was like”–and it explains the breakup perfectly. (The delay between January 1969 and May 1970 can be explained by the Beatles not being together very much in that period. Paul’s announcement was precipitated by release schedules and his need to sue to dissolve the partnership, otherwise The Beatles could’ve “stayed together” for years more, just not recording anything.)
So who are the people who come off the worst from Let It Be? Paul (because he’s supposedly bossy) and Yoko (because she supposedly broke up the group). So now, fifty years later, when Paul and Yoko are the senior partners at Apple, lo and behold there’s a revision of the main historical document from the sessions, the film which is so unpopular that Apple doesn’t even sell it. Paul and Yoko sure as shit want a sunnier story. Add to this the powerful commercial motive to tell a different, more positive, more pleasant, more salable story — the kind of commercial motive that will move billions of dollars into pockets before it’s all said and done.
So a “new” LIB works for everybody…but a “new” version only works if it’s passed off as the unvarnished truth. If Peter Jackson came out and said, “I’m a huge Beatles fan and like most fans found LIB dispiriting and no fun. So I wanted to see if I could find other footage, edit that together, and make my happy, fun, fan’s version of LIB,” this project would be a one-week thing. “Peter Jackson’s Beatles Remix.” But if he says, “This is the HIDDEN TRUTH I found in the archives…” do you see how that’s much more powerful a selling proposition? And that’s proposition only works if it’s not being forced or paid for; and the whole Sean thing is part of that. Is Yoko too old and ill to focus on such stuff? Perhaps. I hope she’s healthy and happy and finally thinking about other things. But “Yoko made them re-do LIB” is the first, most obvious thing this new movie has to counter.
So am I cynical? I don’t think so. I just know that people who sell stories are good at knowing what story will sell. And truth is debatable, whereas sales are not.
People who create things to sell to an audience are always focused on what that audience wants/doesn’t want. This is how you get to be someone like Peter Jackson. You may genuinely have a middlebrow, enjoyable to all, don’t make waves sensibility, or you may force yourself to create that kind of thing for the money (and it’s incredible money). But there is no randomness in the creation of a big, expensive pop culture product; it is all tested and planned, down to the fonts on the poster. Peter Jackson may well have discovered that the feeling he got from ALL the footage was indeed different than the dour, grainy, beat-up looking Let It Be. He may be totally sincere. He may have genuinely found something new, and much better, to sell from that intellectual property. That’s a possibility; but because there are huge benefits to finding that, we also have to entertain the possibility that he decided to take a sad song and make it better.
What if he did? Why does it matter? Who, past a few sour old Beatles curmudgeons, could possibly care? Well, last night my wife and I were watching Ken Burns’ “The Civil War.” That documentary series has been criticized in the 30 years since its appearance for being too soft on the South, to the point that it might have actually emboldened the Lost Cause myth at the heart of white supremacy.
Did Ken Burns want to do that? Absolutely not. But he did want as many people to see this as possible; and needed to sell it to PBS stations in the South; and didn’t want to lose funding from Exxon/Mobil and Bank of America, and so forth. So he just…went easy on the South. He featured Shelby Foote, a pro-Southern voice (and a novelist, not an historian). He parroted the standard history, often wrong, of great Southern generalship. He didn’t really highlight the indisputable fact that the South wasn’t fighting for “states’ rights,” but for slavery (which ended in 1865) and white supremacy (which continues to fester today). So Burns’ desire to be popular and successful made his final product flawed and, perhaps, so flawed that it does its viewers a disservice. History written as paid entertainment should be viewed skeptically.
Will Jackson’s documentary replace Let It Be? Of course it will; Let It Be isn’t even available. Is it more accurate than Let It Be? Who knows? Only Jackson has seen all the footage, and it’s in his best interest (as it was in Burns’) to say, “This is unbiased and the complete story.” But my concern comes from viewing “Get Back” as HISTORY, not as something fun to watch on Thanksgiving, or as IP owned by The Fabs. As IP, they can do whatever they want. As a fan, I will watch and look forward to it. But as someone interested in the history, a major revision that makes everything infinitely more marketable feels fishy to me; so I am in my tiny way urging caution. Enjoy it; but don’t necessarily believe it.
Michael, thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Obviously you know much more than I do about the business of entertainment and publishing, which is why I wanted your opinion.
I am probably naive, because I would assume that since Peter Jackson loves the Beatles, he would see this project as a labor of love. Which, I think he did in part. Your story about Ken Burns was a great illustration of the things that can go wrong, even unintentionally.
Peter Jackson says that when he first showed the film to Paul, Paul was very nervous to watch it. Afterwards, he was relieved. I’m sure he was glad he didn’t look like such a bossy jerk!
You mentioned “Let It Be” disappearing. I’m including this interview with Michael Lindsey-Hogg from Rolling Stone. He says it may be re-released. It’s a great interview. He’s got some interesting info, like Lennon’s heroin use at that time.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/original-let-it-be-movie-michael-lindsay-hogg-peter-jackson-get-back-1250561/
I’m glad, @Tasmin. And please remember that there’s always a lot of self-delusion going on at the upper reaches of Hollywood. Peter Jackson surely DOES love The Beatles, and (like every fan) loves the happy, fun, productive version of them better than the sour, smacked-out version in “Let It Be.” So even if he was completely sincere in his attempt to tell the truth, he’s naturally going to skew towards the positive…which will sell much better, please the funders of the project more, and not be a big black eye (“Who doesn’t make money on THE BEATLES?”). So he’s going to absolutely 100% believe that he was even-handed and fair; and everybody around him is going to say that; and the funders will say that, too.
This is why there are historians, academic presses, etc. Unpopular opinions do not sell.
PS here are some bits I liked from the RS interview with Michael Lindsay-Hogg:
RS: At one of your initial meetings with the Beatles to discuss the project that became Let It Be, did John really play an audiocassette recording of him having sex with Yoko?
ML-H: Well, he put it in the cassette player and he pressed the button. And at first, you couldn’t be sure what it was, because you heard murmuring voices. But then you knew because of the intimate way they were talking, because of pauses, because of silences, because of murmurs of pleasure that that’s what was going on. I remember thinking it was an extraordinary salvo. And that it was him saying, “This is what’s going on now. And it is her and me. It’s not you, not the other three guys I have grown up with. It’s her and me, and this is an aspect of my life that isn’t going to change.” So I think that was more like a calling card.
RS: As it is, the brief moments of tension you do show between Paul and George are among the most famous Beatles footage ever captured.
ML-H: A lot of people were surprised. Because the Beatles had been portrayed as the moptops, that they were just fucking adorable. In real life, they were tough. This just goes back to where they came from. Liverpool is a tough town. I wouldn’t particularly want to run into Paul McCartney in a dark alley, if he didn’t like me.
I always find it curious that the “bossy” Paul and “intrusive” Yoko are the historical takeaways from the Let it Be movie. Was that impression around from first showing around the time the Beatles split went public, or is it one that developed after the others started bitching about Paul’s cheerleading?
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I watched “Let it Be” a while back and didn’t see any of the bossy Paul. There’s that very British “come on lads” kind of talk, and the passive-aggressive tiff between Paul and George, which is almost comically restrained in rock-star terms (where’s the screaming? the thrown punches? the shattered guitars and drug-fueled frenzies?) and has been inflated since then to George’s fury and Paul’s whip-cracking domination. Yoko was mostly just there, hanging out. My biggest complaint about the movie is not that it was dour, just that it was kind of dark and boring.
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Several Beatles writers/bloggers I’ve read had reported that their viewing of the bootlegs/listening to the tapes showed a much different story from the LiB movie. So when Peter Jackson said the same, I was not surprised at all. I dunno. I’m sure they’re trying to make money and do some legacy-building and story-shaping, but it doesn’t seem egregious to me.
Kristy, I also watched LIB recently and didn’t see either bossiness or intrusiveness. There were a couple of times when I thought Paul was talking too much, but that’s about it. He didn’t come across as a god or the one favored by the filmmaker either.
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Of course the visual quality is terrible, but I’m not sure how much that has to do with it being a copy of a copy of a copy of something filmed for tv and enlarged for a movie at a time when the technology to do that didn’t exist.
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My other gripe is that there’s so little story telling. I don’t blame the director so much as feel badly for the position he was in.
Remember that the aesthetics of the time–and Lennon was especially vocal during this period on just these kinds of issues–were to “show the truth.” No editing, no fixing it up, etc etc, and to skew towards the unseemly. So it’s not like Michael Lindsay-Hogg was told, “NO! You can’t tell a story!”–it was that the entire project had a rationale of “showing the truth,” which of course is impossible in a filmed product like that (or any other). “We’re going to tell the TRUTH!” is telling a story. It’s like with Lennon: “I’m just being honest” is a strategy to manipulate, just like lying or being smooth or whatever. Playing a tape of you and your girlfriend having sex is a way to throw someone off-guard and get the upper hand…not “telling the truth.”
The grungy, ugly, show-the-warts of LIB should be considered in its relationship to Lennon’s personal artistic aesthetic of that time, because he was constantly emphasizing grungy, shitty, mean stuff as “truth.” See: “Lennon Remembers.”
And Peter Jackson’s movie should be considered in its relationship to the ethos of THIS time: mega-corporations repackaging beloved IP to make as much money as possible. See: the MCU.
One thought I did have, @Michael Gerber, is that couldn’t the Beatles have just as easily been engineering their specific narrative for LIB? I don’t know why they would want to make it negative (except as you said, Lennon wanting to tell the truth), but I don’t know why we should assume the Beatles’ LIB narrative is any more “true” than what Jackson is putting out.
However, as you said, the Beatles did consistently seem to confirm the negativity at the time. So it probably wasn’t a great time. But if Jackson is fooling us, who’s to say the Beatles weren’t in some ways fooling audiences in 1970?
I’ll stop sounding crazy now. 🙂
Erin, I agree with you; this is what I was getting at in the “Trying To Deceive?” post. In essence, I think that:
For the members of the Beatles to achieve escape velocity from the band, they had to make things really, really bad (consciously or not).
People at the time, including, as far as I can judge, Lindsay-Hogg, were bummed out and sometimes angry about the dissolution of the kind of optimism the Beatles represented in the culture, and that had to affect the film L-H made.
“Let It Be” is the hot take, and has its advantages (proximity to the time being paramount among them) and its disadvantages (the lack of perspective that is inseparable from proximity to the time).
“Get Back” will have advantages (perspective, access to cleaned-up footage) and its disadvantages (the pull towards optimism / happiness to please audiences).
But NEITHER film should be taken as “the truth;” both are constructions that are the product of artistic choices and that inevitably participate in their time.
@Erin, I think it’s very smart to assume that The Beatles were also creating a narrative with LIB. But the difference is that it was The Beatles doing it, within the timespan of the group (1969). So it’s as much a part of the story as, say, Sgt. Pepper. Someone coming in 50 years later and assembling a new film out of a bunch of footage, that’s a different exercise entirely. Not bad, not wrong, but not the four guys directing their hired director, “This is what we want our fans to see in May 1970.”
@Nancy, I completely agree. Any story is just that, a narrative, with a specific reason for being told.
Was going to post about this myself but I saw someone already did it. So I will just add on to Kristy and Laura to say that I recently watched LIB and I too got the same impression. Granted, I am only currently reading the Spitz biography (and enjoying it a lot), but I do know generally what was going on during that time period, the tensions and gradual disintegration of everything. However, I didn’t see much of that all in LIB. I was actually surprised watching it because I expected much more tension, much more talking–actually much more everything. But Lindsay-Hogg couldn’t make a three-hour film either.
I actually felt LIB didn’t give me nearly enough–it felt very concise, like I was seeing one day in the life of the Beatles in January 1969, which is fine, but–I guess I almost didn’t feel like there was a point to it, except to show that one day, which really doesn’t give us any context for what was going on. But of course the point of LIB wasn’t to show context, and what do I know.
I tend to be a person who sees the good in people and is too easily trusting, so it saddens me to think that Jackson is trying to rewrite history somewhat, but then again with Paul and Yoko getting older it does make sense–they want to cement a more palatable story. But this makes me sad, too. Why, Paul? Everyone knows he wasn’t bossy (and if they don’t know they only need watch LIB, or read the transcripts). And everyone also knows that everyone is flawed. I guess I just don’t see the point of trying to revise one’s own narrative to make oneself look better. Wouldn’t it be look even better, to you and others, if you were honest? Just be yourself.
Of course, I haven’t ever been famous, so again, what do I know. Paul can do what he wants, it just seems sad to me. But I do appreciate the thoughtful and incredibly intelligent discussion on this blog. And I’m thrilled to see this post about India. I have a lot of thoughts about this topic but I’m not sure if I’ll post them or not. 🙂
But Paul was bossy, as George Martin said, because he had to be. I agree, he needs to celebrate his authentic self rather than rehabilitate his reputation 24/7.
@Michelle (for some reason I can’t reply to you)–I do agree he was bossy in a sense, but not in a negative way. Someone had to get stuff done, and Paul did it, I think at least, in a very respectful way (at least from what I’ve seen during the LIB tapes). He was in a tough spot. But again, everyone has flaws and he shouldn’t feel the need to redeem his reputation. I can understand how he might feel “bossy” or looked at as inferior to John (still), and want people to view him with more respect, but those who are going to respect him likely already do. Regardless, I just don’t think it’s worth it to try to make yourself appear different from who you really are.
Here is the link for the Vanity Fair piece:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/06/the-beatles-get-back-exclusive-deep-dive-peter-jacksons-movie/amp
I feel like I’m the only fan who thinks this, but I’ve long believed the break between John and Paul happened not in India, but in New York. They seem so in sync in those early interviews, but then Paul meets up with Linda again during that trip, and within a few days John has shuffled off Cynthia to Greece with Magic Alex and is recording Two Virgins/presumably conceiving his first child with Yoko (if my math is correct). I think we all know that his relationship with Yoko didn’t start then, but his decision to cement the relationship right after that Apple trip seems to me to be reactionary. The McLennonist in me thinks that Paul’s choosing Linda that weekend was where it went wrong for their relationship, truly. They are just so, so on the same page in this interview especially: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp0i90n0BP8
I also sometimes wonder about Magic Alex’s role in everything and sometimes have convinced myself that Lennon’s talisman necklace – worn constantly from the Sgt Pepper release to about August 1968 – is some sort of clue. But maybe jewelry is just jewelry.
Fqscinating! That trip is indeed intriguing.
Wasn’t the talisman sent to Lennon by a fan?
SO intriguing. Interesting to me that it starts as a bit of a boys’ club (Lennon, McCartney, Evans, Aspinall, and Madras) but then Linda gets looped in in the end.
For the talisman, I’ve read it was given to him by Madras, but I’m not sure if this was ever confirmed.
According to Christie’s, where it was sold in 2004, it originally belonged to “Magic” Alex Mardas.
Actually, according to the Christie’s auction description, it was “given by Lennon to Alexis Mardas” presumably after Lennon stopped wearing it, and hence why it was sold in the “Collection of Alexis Mardas.” So the provenance of where it came from in the first place or why he was wearing it remain elusive.
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4276708
Whoops, never trust my eyes with small print, folks. 🙂
I love that interview. They are both so charming and like you say, in sync. Isn’t that their last filmed interview together, or was it the Tonight Show?
So in sync – and of course utterly blasted. I think the Tonight Show was filmed that night, too bad the footage was lost.
@Fox this is a great idea, and I don’t think it’s incompatible with the notion that something happened in India. There’s no question in the historical record that John came back from India worse than he left for it — he chose the flight back to England to disclose to Cynthia every single woman he’d had an affair with (was it only women, one wonders?). When he got back to London, sources are unanimous that he went on an immediate, prolonged bender. This was when he had the bad LSD trip at Derek Taylor’s house that required Taylor to basically give his ego CPR. One book (I forget which) said that John was weeping uncontrollably for hours during that night. Then he and Derek Taylor went to meet Brigette Bardot, and John was so blasted on drugs that he completely repulsed her. Albert Goldman says Lennon was already trying heroin in this span — pre New York, pre officially getting together with Yoko.
BUT I also think you’re absolutely right that the Lennon/McCartney relationship seems to be basically the same when they leave for New York as it did in 1967, or in India — where they spent hours writing and singing together. (John even talks, somewhere during the Let It Be sessions, about writing “I Will” in India with Paul; surely if he were already anti-McCartney in Rishikesh he wouldn’t have bothered to help.) By the end of the New York trip, Paul has Linda in tow, and when John returns to London, he has his 48 hours with the Jesus announcement and impregnating Yoko.
My instinct — but it’s nothing more than that, just based on reading and thinking about John Lennon too much — is that John Lennon, an incredibly intuitive person who was also Paul McCartney’s best friend, sensed that something about Linda/Paul was different than Jane/Paul and felt threatened by it. Whether or not that had a sexual or romantic component, or simply had to do with John’s jealousy, neediness, fear of abandonment, and fear that the other Beatles needed him less than he needed them — something Cynthia mentioned in the Hunter Davis biography — isn’t possible to say on the evidence. It’s perfectly possible that John, already in the state that Michael Gerber decides, needed little more than this change in Paul to think, shit, THIS is why I’m so uncomfortable! It’s fucking Paul McCartney, abandoning me and, and, and.
@Michael, I had to chuckle at this:
“I wouldn’t particularly want to run into Paul McCartney in a dark alley, if he didn’t like me.”
I just can’t see Paul being scary or threatening.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem like he is from rough and rowdy Liverpool.
George Martin did say that Paul could be nasty and biting sometimes. We only see the public persona, (which has been talked about here) so it’s hard to visualize him being very angry. At least it is for me.
I’m pretty sure Hugh Padgham testified to McCartney’s nasty and biting side. Padgham co-produced McCartney’s “Press to Play” album and when he questioned the strength of the songs, McCartney said, “Hugh, how many hit songs have you written?” I believe Padgham said it was one of the worst things anyone had ever said to him.
Good heavens, Hugh Padgham must have a very thin skin if some ego-tripping from a Beatle was one of the worst things ever said to him. I’ve had much worse said to me, though I probably shouldn’t elaborate. Maybe it was because it came from a Beatle that it hit him so hard.
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I am very sure, however, that Paul is likely not to be messed with. Nor are/were John or Yoko or George or Ringo — ego-tripping aside, and I’m positive there has been more than plenty of that, they have probably faced weirder or more horrific threats on a regular basis throughout their lives, and have methods (or people) to deal with them.
Yeah, that was pretty mild. I don’t think Hugh was alone in that, though. It’s always been said that John Lennon was the only person who wasn’t afraid to tell Paul what he really thought of a song. Their fear might be warranted. Maybe Paul wouldn’t take it from anyone but him?
Fuckin A, Paul.
Whatever else Paul is, he’s always very clear on who’s in charge. And rightly so — no disrespect to Hugh Padgham.
Consider what Lennon would’ve said to that question.
I’ve never heard that Padgham had *any* kind of comeback to Paul’s comment, which probably doomed the sessions right then and there. In contrast, when Nigel Godrich produced Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard, he was more than willing to tell Paul when his songs were crap, or his arrangements were lame, and didn’t back down when Paul pushed back. The sessions were tense, and Paul reportedly came close to firing Godrich a few times–but he didn’t, and I’ve got to think it’s because Godrich proved tough enough to win Paul’s respect, the way Padgham didn’t. And the finished album, I feel, is Paul’s best post-70’s work, even if it didn’t sell well (something Paul seemed to put the blame on EMI for, not Godrich, since he left the company to join Starbucks not long after).
I would expect that Paul could steamroll anybody in the studio, until they showed him they wouldn’t be steamrolled.
Ha! This reminds me of Phil Collins’s hatred of Paul McCartney. He makes it seem like Paul deeply insulted him, but the inciting incident is so mild that Collins comes off as thin-skinned and self-absorbed. Here’s the quote:
“I met him when I was working at the Buckingham Palace party back in 2002. McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of The Beatles, by Hunter Davies, and I said, ‘Hey, Paul, do you mind signing this for me? And he said, ‘Oh, Heather, our little Phil’s a bit of a Beatles fan.’ And I thought, ‘You fuck, you fuck.’ Never forgot it. He has this thing when he’s talking to you, where he makes you feel [like], ‘I know this must be hard for you because I’m a Beatle. I’m Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me.”
Really, Phil? You asked him to sign a copy of a Beatles biography! If you’re going to act like a fan, expect to be treated like one.
This has got me thinking about why Paul’s arrogance inspires such negative reactions compared to other rock stars of his generation. I mean, if John has said this, would anyone bat an eye? For so many artists, arrogance is explained away by, or even an expected part of genius. Why is Paul annoying and bossy when he just as easily could fit that “genius, perfectionist artist enthralled by his own creation” archetype? Maybe his general “I’m just a polite, normal bloke” attitude clashes too heavily with this image: there’s not enough “tortured” to go along with his “genius.”
Anyway, this has gotten a bit too tangential, but it’s very interesting! For more on how Paul acts in the studio, I’d recommend reading this article: https://superdeluxeedition.com/interview/in-their-own-words-the-producers-discuss-mccartneys-flowers-in-the-dirt/. It’s an insightful and even-handed look at the production of 1989’s Flowers in the Dirt!
I laughed too. I read it as Lindsay-Hogg’s way of saying that the nicest guy from Liverpool is tougher than the meanest guy from, say, Henley-on-Thames. But it was Ringo who was the hoodlum, or at least that’s what John, Paul and George thought initially. They were all scared of him when they were first introduced.
“ I read it as Lindsay-Hogg’s way of saying that the nicest guy from Liverpool is tougher than the meanest guy from, say, Henley-on-Thames.”
I think that is spot on Michelle.
I think for all those beautiful puppy eyes and angelic voice, Paul is no angel. I think he made quite an unforgiving boss and that he never let anybody forget who was the boss. There is nothing wrong with that, though.
Hi, I usually just read your brilliant articles, but this time I wanted to add something. I agree with the idea that after India something was off, also Geoff Emerick noted it in his memoir and Pete Shotton wrote that John was at an all-time low. But I disagree with the Let It Be/Get Back take: I’ve seen Let It Be two or three times, after reading a lot of Beatles books and blogs, and I don’t think the “bad vibes” are in the film. It seems like the band was struggling, but they were struggling to work together and they managed to do so for the rooftop concert and after, more successfully, for Abbey Road. I don’t think Lindsay Hogg had an agenda while editing the film, but the film – in his cinema verité style – doesn’t say anything on what was happening, leaving a lot to the imagination of the viewer. It doesn’t say why they are reharsing, why they change location from Twickenham to Savile Row, why the go on the roof. Most importantly it doesn’t say anything about George leaving the group and then coming back. The end result is fascinating but a bit confusing and at times boring – everyday life of the Beatles in the studio with chatter, kids, bickering, parody songs, and finally a good performance.
I think the film became the symbol of the Beatles break-up mainly because it came out in May 1970, right after the “bubble had burst” on the papers, Paul was being blamed for it and the 3(+Klein) against 1 situation was escalating (and at that point there certainly was and agenda, especially from Klein and John, to blame Paul). For everyone, including the Beatles themselves, the film was forever linked to the break-up bad feelings, but I wonder if it had come out in May 69 what would have changed…
From what I have seen of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, it has an explanatory approach so that the modern viewer can understand what was happening in the band at the time, but it doesn’t seem to shy away from the difficult parts. Just from the trailer we can see that George leaving is going to be in it and discussed by the others, we hear Paul talking about the embarassing situation with Yoko (and I do hope that whole conversation will be in it), we hear the doubts and fears about the live show, etc. These are all arguments that Lindsay Hogg couldn’t or wouldn’t put in his film and that’s enough for me to see Get Back as a positive thing in Beatles history. Of course it is a market product. Will there be to many smiles and laughs in it? Too much enthusiam and not enough spleen? It’s possible but if it doesn’t interfere with a deeper understanding of what was happening in those months I don’t really see it as a problem.
Hi Anna, that’s a really interesting point about Lindsay-Hogg’s style and the lack of context/explanation in “Let It Be.” That helps me think about that film in a new way. Thank you for commenting!
Thank you Nancy, glad the comment was helpful! I think that Lindsay-Hogg was probably the most disappointed one at the end of January – and who can blame him, he was promised a full live show at a Mediterranean amphiteathre and ended with 5 songs performed on the rooftop! I think he felt as if he had no story to tell in the film (check this video where we can hear him talk with the band before the final performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNG-aLV9xEQ&t=827s). Maybe if he had a more detached approach – and if he had the band’s approval – he could have done a bittersweet/ironic film, showing the failure of the initial (mad) plans and how they ended up on the roof, because the story was there and so the materials. But I don’t know if that could be in his artistic sensibility ar the time.
Yes Nancy (Anna) I concur re; Hogg and ‘Let It Be’.
This is a good comment.
I admit that some of my feeling of “bad vibes” comes from the look and lighting of the film, which is just so terrible. There’s no way Brian would’ve let something out that looked like that–the blow up to 35 mm, the weird, washed-out colors…It’s not the documentary nature (“Don’t Look Back” looks great, “Monterrey Pop” looks great, even “Gimme Shelter” has a lot more raw energy); with LIB it’s a tilt towards, well, ugliness-as-honesty. Tastes vary, but to me LIB is The Beatles like “Diamonds Are Forever” is Connery’s Bond, one of the few times their aesthetics failed them. It’s so visually offputting, and the music itself is mostly so boring, that perhaps that suggests a group on its last legs. Their energy simply feels a million miles away from the “Lady Madonna”/”Hey Bulldog” film a year earlier, or even their appearance on Frost. It’s…seedy.
I like that we’re getting to see the footage; I think it should all be online for scholars, every frame of it. But what I caution against is believing that it’s footage–the raw data–instead of a story, authored by Jackson.
And changing the narrative of Get Back/LIB really does cause a problem; if they were mostly getting along in January ’69, and they were mostly getting along while making Abbey Road, and even George was trying to convince them all to stay together–why did Lennon want a divorce? Why did they break up? The power of the “bad sessions” narrative comes from what happened next, which needs to be explained — and maybe what we’ll find is that J/P/G/R themselves retconned, created a narrative, to explain what happened.
I have wondered if John didn’t wake up at one point in 1972 and think “WTF did I just do?”
That is certainly my read on the situation.
Michael, “seedy” is a great word for it! The whole time watching I kept thinking, “Gosh, it really looked like this in theaters?” Very interesting, and certainly would have put 1970 audiences in a certain mood. Perhaps I (and others like Anna) don’t get such negative vibes from it because of the year we’re viewing it in.
Hello. I saw Lindsey-Hoggs’ “Let It Be” -doc in the 80s, when I was just turned to my teens. I was greatly blown away by it, I was feeling like being in the middle of their rehearsal studio. I thought it was a great entirety.
That’s kinda what makes it so tough, @Birgitta. You really feel you’re in it, feel the conflict, feel like you should DO SOMETHING but can’t…
Please expand on theories about what happened in India – there is such a cryptic, insidious aura that colors the entire feel about it… It’s like the ENTIRE energy of the band changed so much it’s crazy. What happened???
@Gregory, one of the theories is that John made a pass at Paul, and was rebuffed. Another is that they had been lovers, but that ended in India. Another is that John realized that he really truly loved Yoko, and that everything else in his life was superfluous. My personal theory is that too much unsupervised meditation in too short a time-frame triggered what’s called “a spiritual emergency” or “Kundalini awakening,” which is very uncomfortable and leads to all sorts of unwise behavior (drugs, changing everything in your life) in an attempt to get rid of the icky feeling.
But we’re all just guessing. It could be that they all just had time to think for the first time since 1957.
I think your theory and the last suggestion are the most likely. Also, the disillusionment in the Maharishi may have spilled over into general disillusionment, particularly when it came to being Beatles.
I imagine I am not alone in both eagerly anticipating 25 November for the first episode (Disney + successfully installed) while simultaneously holding my breath to see just what Peter Jackson has done. @Michael’s admonitions have forewarned and forarmed us and I plan to keep an extra keen eye and ear open as to how the narrative is crafted as there is a LOT of expectation that, while a director might discount it, is simply woven into the fabric. Sort of like Space-Time.
This might sound odd, but in many ways I am as eager for the intelligent and reasoned discussions that will follow on this site as I am in the viewing itself.
Not odd at all — that’s one of my real hopes.
Should we do posts, or an Open Thread?
For all my admonitions, I am really looking forward to seeing the fellas again.
Might I suggest a catch-all open thread for the first impressions and then specific posts/topics as specific ideas percolate?
I imagine that there will be plenty of observations as we watch. Some of those will undoubtedly germinate into fuller questions and ideas and be worthy of address on their own.
Just an idea.
OK good, I’ll set that up 11/24.
I took the Disney+ plunge as well. Watching the trailer on the bigger screen made me look forward to this even more. Just the band in clear, living color – the whole thing looks aesthetically pleasing. It’s like it was filmed just yesterday. I will enjoy it for what it is, something to please the fans. The music is fantastic, IMO. Let it Be is a very listenable, underrated album. I’m sure any narrative it might put across won’t sway me one way or another. Unfortunately, I’m going to be out of town during Thanksgiving weekend and won’t be able to watch the series (I assume all three parts will drop at once) until later. So I’ll avoid this place because I don’t want spoilers! I look forward to the discussion after I watch it.
@Michelle
I believe the intent, originally, was to feed out the film over three days starting on the 25th. Not sure if that is still the plan or not.
I saw a blurb today that the entire series is now clocking in at nearly eight hours vice the six we expected. Can’t vouch for the source however, so I don’t want to get my hopes up other than to anticipate at least a few surprises.
I know all authors have biases, but this section from Geoff Emerick’s “ Hear There and Everywhere” always interested me:
“Our first night back in the studio began, as usual, with small talk and catching up. “So how was India?” I asked.
“India was okay, I guess… apart from that nasty little Maharishi,” John replied, venomously.
Harrison looked deflated, as if it were a conversation they’d had many times before. With a deep sigh, he tried to calm his agitated bandmate.
“Oh come on, he wasn’t that bad,” he interjected, earning a withering glance. Lennon’s bitterness and anger seemed almost palpable.
Ringo tried deflecting things with a little humor. “It reminded me of a Butlins holiday camp, only the bloody food wasn’t as good,” he said with a wink.
I glanced in Paul’s direction. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless and weary. He didn’t have much to say about India that day, or any other.”
There was definitely a huge crack that happened. Kundalini Energy is such a fascinating theory as John never had that professionally managed. It just festered and sparked until his death. It would cause him to lash out at the people he loved the most, then pull back then lash out. I do wish this brilliant man had gotten professional help.
I always thought the Kane interview about Apple with Paul and John in New York showed Paul as a “spouse” knowing he did something wrong, but not quite sure what nor how to make it better.
John and Paul both needed professional counseling; perhaps even couples counseling.
@DD, I’m glad to hear you think the Kundalini theory has merit. It’s impossible to describe the discomfort–I just feel for the guy so, and that era had a lot of people peddling meditation and other “mystical” practices, without any way to get put a person back into balance if that was necessary. Anybody reading Dullblog today, I’d tell them exactly what was going on, and who to go see; but in 1968 London, it would be much, much tougher.
Primal Scream could and did release some of it perhaps, but it wouldn’t fix it. And given John’s drug use, and his prodigious artistic output, I suspect he was very sensitive to feeling “off.”
It must’ve been so hard; what a hero he was, to carry on.
Maybe John had a similar theory himself? He is credited as “Kaptain Kundalini” on What You Got (Walls & Bridges) after all.
If he sought any kind of specific treatment for it, I’ve never heard of that — or heard from anyone in NY/LA who treated him. Long, long before I had any personal experience in these matters, I do remember reading in an interview that he and Yoko weren’t having sex so they their Kundalini could rise and they could become psychic.
In case I haven’t defined it recently, here’s what I’m talking about, both generally (spiritual crisis) and specifically (“Kundalini awakening” here).
“The conventional view takes Lennon’s post-India behavior as unremarkable, and I feel it is remarkable enough to require an explanation.”
I agree Michael. I think Dan’s characterization and the Kundalini theory can coexist. To me, the Kundalini theory just explains the aftermath of Johns meditation experience, which as Dan wrote, left Lennon feeling conned and embarrassed.
“Playing a tape of you and your girlfriend having sex is a way to throw someone off-guard and get the upper hand…not “telling the truth.”
Yes. If John had been totally honest, he would have sat Paul, George and Ringo down BEFORE bringing Yoko to the studio unannounced, and told them his feelings. Instead, he played the tape of he and Yoko having sex. Definitely a power play.
Since we’re speculating about India, another possible “what went wrong?” idea might be that something untoward about Brian’s demise was revealed to Lennon.
Yeah, could be.
How about this for a “what went wrong?” – you grow up in unbearable psychological pain due to a fucked up childhood and the only thing that keeps you going is your drive to be rich and famous, which you believe will solve your problems. You succeed beyond your wildest dreams, but then it sinks in that all the wealth and adulation in the world can’t make the pain go away. You turn to drugs, but they make you feel even worse. Your bandmates are out enjoying Swinging London and you’re stuck at home with your wife and your mother-in-law and a baby you never wanted. Then you discover what seems to be the answer – you can go beyond material things and become spiritually enlightened, gaining true peace and contentment. A little Indian guru will give you the key. You go on TV and tell the world about it. Your manager dies but you don’t have time to grieve because you’re going to India to follow the guru and learn the Universal Truth. But in India you soon learn that the guru is just a man, that meditation is just a relaxation technique and there’s no easy short cut to contentment. You return home feeling conned and embarrassed. So money didn’t work, sex didn’t work, fame didn’t work, transcendentalism didn’t work, drugs didn’t work. Maybe you should just give up and find a strong mother figure to surrender to…
That makes sense to me Dan.
Maybe we’re all looking for a more complex answer, when Occams Razor could provide it to us: “The simplest answer tends to be the right one.”
Or should I say, “The simplest EXPLANATION tends to be the right one.”
Because “simple” is subjective, Occam’s Razor is usually used to confirm the conventional opinion.
John Lennon didn’t act the same pre- and post-India; he acted one way basically from 1957-68, and then another way from 1968-80. What changed inside him? The conventional view takes Lennon’s post-India behavior as unremarkable, and I feel it is remarkable enough to require an explanation. YMMV.
Dan, as a therapist this answer rings very true. It seems that JL was always looking outside of himself for a solution to his pain, and it just wasn’t there and never could be, of course. Seeking the answer internally was unbearable or impossible for whatever reason – I’ve seen diagnoses floating around that seem plausible, but of course we can’t know what his inner life was like. I think the humiliation may be key part of it given his self-admitted insecurities and lack of a strong core sense of self.
@Dan, I think there’s significant truth in that characterization. But here’s why it doesn’t really gel for me.
What, in all that, makes you HATE Cyn, and divorce her in the most abrupt and vicious way, even attempting to get her to commit adultery so you can give her (and your own son) as little as possible? Why not a quick and amiable divorce from a woman who, let’s be honest, knew she was getting cheated on pretty constantly since 1961.
What, in all that, makes you HATE Paul McCartney, who has been your closest professional collaborator since 1957, and engage in a five-year campaign to smear and demean him in the press? Why do you insist your millions of fans choose you or him? Why not simply pause the group, and everybody goes solo and remains friends, as was predicted at the end of touring?
What makes you DETERMINED to bust up your rock group, the most popular group in the world, the source of all your fame, money, and power?
What makes you pick Yoko Ono IN PARTICULAR out of all the groupies, hangers-on, and even sensible appropriate partners within your current circle? Eighteen months ago you were attracted to Maureen Cleave, Sonny Freeman, Alma Cogan, etc — pretty much the type of women you always picked — but now, you pick a conceptual artist offering total submersion into someone else’s ego?
And what makes you spend the rest of your life pretending all this was the greatest thing ever, the fullest flowering of your genius?
It’s not that John Lennon looked around at his life in early 1968 and thought, “I don’t want this anymore. This isn’t for me.” It’s that he lashed out incredibly fiercely, in every direction, made no distinction between friend and foe, demonstrated a huge amount of resentment and bitterness towards the very people who it would seem had helped him the most, and spent literally the rest of his short life at least arguably LESS happy than he’d been before. He didn’t dump his wife for the nanny and live happily ever after; he started a process of picking things up and throwing them away with great force that, if he’d been that way in 1957, would’ve kept any of his genius from ever emerging.
He changed, fundamentally, in a short time. Why?
Midlife crises happen, they are to be expected, but this one gets more singular the more you look at it. And the thing about post-India Lennon is how he’s no more happy, no more productive, no more self-aware, no more comfortable in his own skin, than pre-India Lennon. What does the guy in August 1980 have to be angry about? Really? It was only after I reached middle-age and went through my own version of crisis (crises) that I thought, “How strange.”
So that’s what’s behind my reading. Which could be totally wrong! 🙂
The narrative you describe is essentially the one John himself said, and that has to be given privilege…if only because by him saying it, that’s how he viewed his life. Or wanted us to think that. I think the only thing I know for sure is, he was in great pain, and did the best he could. Those things I know for sure.
It’s weird how Yoko’s only mention/appearance in the teaser is Paul going “think about how ridiculous it would be 50 years from now…The Beatles broke up because Yoko sat on an amp!” and then it shows a brief clip of her looking into the camera sneakily. In a sort of tongue in cheek “here’s the villain you all know and love folks!” way. She wasn’t the sole reason, and Paul has said she wasn’t THE reason…but she did have a not so insignificant part in it either with what she was filling a very vulnerable John Lennons head with. Curious how this take of Let It Be/Get Back portrays her. Will they downplay and shrink her impact to the point where you forget she was even there? Because Paul, George, and Ringo certainly felt her presence. The audience tuning into this however…they are not there one iota more of Yoko than is needed
Interesting. If the teaser is any indication that Yoko will still be presented as the sinister force that helped speed up the band’s demise, she doesn’t have as much clout as people believe she does. That is, unless she always enjoyed that image.
@Michelle, I think Yoko has always relished — and does her best to slyly encourage — her reputation as a badass.
She’s a super-complicated person, I bet. Certainly fascinating. A person worthy of literature.
I strongly suspect that at least some part of Yoko has always been happy to encourage the notion that she broke up the Beatles. That narrative is what makes her a major figure in 20th Century culture, to a much greater degree than simply being John Lennon’s second wife.
I’m willing to bet that Linda and Yoko will get equal screen time in this version.
Just thought I’d share something I just came across. There is currently a movie in production about Brian Epstein, called “Midas Man.” Jay Leno will play Ed Sullivan.
https://people.com/movies/jay-leno-to-play-ed-sullivan-in-upcoming-film-about-the-beatles-manager/
We’ve been talking about “Let It Be” and revisionism. This will be interesting.
How accurate will it be?
I just learned about it today on Twitter. Oddly, the original director left and it will now be directed by a woman. Looks good…
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I’m grateful Hey Dullblog is still going, and for the wonderful, substantive conversations. I learn something every time.
“The conventional view takes Lennon’s post-India behavior as unremarkable, and I feel it is remarkable enough to require an explanation.”
I agree Michael. I think Dan’s characterization and the Kundalini theory can coexist. To me, the Kundalini theory just explains the aftermath of Johns meditation experience, which as Dan wrote, left Lennon feeling conned and embarrassed.
I just watched Ep2 of Get Back – man, the India bit really hints that A LOT happened in India.
I’ve believed for some time that John suffered from bipolar disorder and used booze and drugs as self-medication. His mother was also bipolar, and it does run in families. His first wife talked about him going into extended “troughs” of low mood, and he talked about suicidal depressions himself. Then there were the highs, of screwing around, fighting, or deciding to put a record out in record time (“Instant Karma”). I haven’t heard anyone else advance this theory, but it makes his wild self-destructive behavior clearer to me.
There are several Dullblog posts that speak of this in detail, including this one I wrote: “Was John Lennon Bipolar?“
Borderline Personality Disorder is another one I see a lot. I don’t think online psychiatrists who diagnose John realize how serious these diagnoses are.
I certainly take it very seriously, but more than that, I don’t “diagnose” John. I’m not a doctor, and many doctors wouldn’t, even today. I know doctors NOW who have theories about John that they won’t discuss with me. And that’s fair; they have a different responsibility than mere civilians. 🙂
But after a certain point, if you love The Beatles and think about them a little too much, it’s a natural desire to try to figure out what made that very unique, very combustible guy tick. I use what I’ve learned about the world and the people I know to try to understand him (and the others) better. I’m 52. I’ve heard all the songs a kajillion times. Of course this is what I’m going to do. I frankly don’t understand fans over the age of 18 who DON’T psychoanalyze The Beatles. What do they think about? That the songs are AWESOME? How they felt the first time they heard “Help!”? I’m not judging them, I just don’t get it.
The only thing I can speak to with any degree of confidence is the addiction/alcoholism/12-step stuff, because I’ve lived through that. Even that doesn’t make my conclusions fixed, because it’s all very slippery even when it’s happening right in front of you. But I carry on doing it, because as I’ve said I think it’s a great way for people to see addiction in their own lives — and stop thinking of it as something grand and exotic, but something very, very common.
Lots of fans don’t like that. Lots of fans have fastened onto a particular vision of him, or the others, or of other famous people, and aren’t interested in anything that doesn’t conform to their idea. They want — need — heroes and/or villains. That’s fine by me, but it’s not what we do here.
My idea of John Lennon isn’t the actual person, who is long, long dead; but a notion, which is constantly enlarging and shifting, and comes from a desire to understand and empathize with him. You get to a certain age, and it’s really quite inappropriate to think of these guys as something different from yourself. They’re just people, and they knew it and John especially was always telling us that. But it’s really important for some fans to keep them simple, so they can admire them, defend them, and so forth. Which is fine, but not what we do here.
*how serious those disorders are, I mean
I just noticed that one of the videos for This One is set at the ashram
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BDVDdivAH8
I can never truly get behind the theories that something between John and Paul happened in India simply because Paul, for decades, seemed genuinely lost regarding the reason for the rapid dissolution of their relationship. By 1980, he seemed to have come to the conclusion that he must have done SOMETHING to hurt John, given how he acted and behaved throughout the 70s. But that “What did I do wrong?” question seems to have gone unanswered and pops up a few times throughout the 80s: the 1981 Hunter Davies phone call, a few times on Tug of War (though this is not necessarily John related), and the 1986 Q Magazine interview, to name a few. And he’s been stuck doing that “John had a rough childhood…” bit for a while now.
This is not to say that some catastrophic incident happening between the two of them is impossible. But if it did happen, I don’t think Paul saw it the same way John did. It must’ve been something that Paul could have reasonably dismissed (even if it took Herculean efforts of rationalization), but still set John’s psyche ablaze. I’m definitely more partial to the idea of John reaching some sort of psychological tipping point that resulted in a spiritual crisis. But who knows what pushed him over the edge?
Also, a quick note! I often see Ringo and Paul’s early departures brought up in these conversations. I think a lot of the tellings of the Beatles in India story give the impression that they were meant to stay for the full time, but weren’t happy/ didn’t care enough to stay so they decided to leave, causing tension within the band. I believe Jonathan Gould mentions something like this in Can’t Buy Me Love, though it’s been a while since I read it. However, I recently came across a Melody Maker article from February 24th, 1968 that indicates that Ringo and Paul’s “premature” departures were actually planned well in advance. The article states, “John and George are expected to study with the Maharishi for about 3 months, but Paul and Ringo will return before that.” Their lesser commitment to the Maharishi’s teachings still could have (and did!) cause tension, but I don’t think their early departures were a shock. Maybe the specific dates were still negotiable?
@Maya, this is one reason why I increasingly lean to my (unprovable) theory of “spiritual crisis/Kundalini emergency”–it IS a trauma, an event, but it’s one that’s only happening inside John, which he wouldn’t understand, only feel and be driven by. Of course Paul would be confused. Everybody would be confused, John most of all.
Think of it like a severe toothache in the space where a tooth used to be. You wake up with it, you go to sleep with it, it distracts you constantly…yet when you look at the space where it is, there’s nothing.
You attempt anything you can think of, to ease the ache, but nothing works. You begin with the obvious nostrums, and when those don’t work, begin to think of it philosophically. “It can’t be my tooth that is aching, because I have no tooth there. It must be a manifestation of my unhappiness with
…the Maharishi!” So he leaves India, but the pain is still there.
…my wife!” He leaves Cyn, but the pain is still there.
…my other bandmates (specifically Paul)!”
…Vietnam!”
…my childhood!”
and so forth.
Not only does this explain Lennon’s systematic blowing-up of things really for the rest of his life, it also explains his desperation for some kind of relief. And, eventually, his trying more and more excessive stuff–spiritual stuff–trying to get rid of this toothache.
Famous people get terrible medical care, because they can shop around and find a doctor who tells them exactly what they want to hear. Were there traditions/techniques that would’ve soothed Lennon, if my theory is true? Yes, absolutely. But he would’ve had to accept them, and the changes they required.
John was interested in spiritual advancement, or at least seeking, but it all had to take place on his terms–that is, “I must remain a rich and famous rock star.” That ego running up against any authentic spiritual tradition (including Christianity) would’ve caused a “irresistible force/immovable object” tension in anyone.