Finally, 101 days into the year, the first new Beatles record of the year hit stores in the UK. Some of them, anyway; because Paul had remixed “Get Back” just a few days before the scheduled release date, there hadn’t been time to press enough copies to go around. This situation would be rectified within a few days.
Those who did manage to get their hot little hands on a copy may have had an experience something like this:
The single was officially credited to “The Beatles with Billy Preston,” though neither Billy’s name nor his face appeared on the cover. There was no producer credit, reflecting the chaotic genesis of the music recorded during the Twickenham and Apple Studios sessions.
Promotional ads — which were written by Paul, I’m told, though one suspects the Debonair Drug Aficionado had a hand — emphasized the live-in-the-studio nature of the recording:
Get Back is The Beatles’ new single. It’s the first Beatles record which is as live as live can be, in this electronic age. There’s no electronic whatchamacallit. Get Back is [a] pure spring-time rock number. On the other side there’s an equally live number called Don’t Let Me Down.
Paul’s got this to say about Get Back: “We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air… we started to write words there and then… when we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to roller-coast by.”
P.S. John adds, it’s John playing the fab live guitar solo. And now John on Don’t Let Me Down: John says don’t let me down about Don’t Let Me Down.
In Get Back and Don’t Let Me Down, you’ll find The Beatles, as nature intended.
In vintage Beatle fashion, “Get Back” went straight to #1, supplanting Desmond Dekker and the Aces’ brilliant “Israelites.” That one’s always worth another listen:
Some time later (exact information is hard to find), Dekker and his backing band — then called the Israelites — recorded a version of “Come Together”:
Furthermore, late in 1969, Dekker would share a bill with the Plastic Ono Band at a UNICEF benefit in London. But, hmm… we have wandered far afield from where we started, and the hour grows late; time to lay down the task for today and take some rest to be ready for whatever comes next.