by Lynn Mandaville
Because my husband Dave walks every morning, something he’s been doing without fail for the past four years, he has become friends with several of our neighbors who also share his enjoyment of the early morning constitutional.
I have become the beneficiary of his friendships in the form of one particular woman, Dana, who has not only gifted me with her “old” KitchenAid stand-mixer (a gift of great value, if you are at all familiar with this gold standard in kitchen appliances), but who invited me to share the three-part series by director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings trilogy) called “Get Back,” a documentary which Jackson put together with carefully selected footage from more than 70 hours of tape, recorded over 50 years ago, originally intended to become either a movie or a documentary about the Beatles.
Even if you aren’t a fan of the Beatles, you’re certainly aware of them, their impact on rock music through innovations and foreign influences, their contribution to hair and clothing styles of the 1960s, and the mythology that has surrounded them as it does any person or group that has had such an impact on the culture of America.
“Get Back” is, so far, only available to be seen on Disney+, a subscription service to which we don’t subscribe. (We don’t subscribe to anything beyond what’s in the basic package on satellite programming, being embarrassingly frugal about what we spend our retirement money on.)
So, I was more than simply delighted when Dana invited me to watch with her the almost eight hours of what passes for Beatle-mania at my age.
In “Get Back” we get to sit in on some of the creative process that occurred among John, Paul, George and Ringo, as they prepared for their last concert in 1969, a concert for which they were ill prepared, having a date but no planned venue, and having no new songs for the companion album they intended to record of the songs they would perform at said concert.
We also are privy to the dynamics posed by some of the women in the lives of these four men, a fly-on-the-wall experience that lays waste to the myth of Yoko One as the dragon-lady who broke up the Beatles.
The Beatles themselves were a family of four brothers who had spent many of their most formative years performing in the clubs of Liverpool, England, and Berlin, Germany, while still in their teens. They had shared these lean years of pulling themselves out of the poverty of their childhoods to become the wealthy idols of teenagers around the world, an experience that would challenge anyone thrown into instant celebrity the way they were.
They were like any family where disputes arise, where personalities clash, where interpersonal relationships are a speed bump in family dynamics.
Yet through it all, it appears, there was never a throw-down type event, never a shouting match in disagreement. Even the break-up of the band was understated, almost a whisper of a “divorce” from one another.
What triumphed was the music, the near magic, to us die-hard fans, of the creative spark between Paul McCarney and John Lennon.
And Dana and I reveled in the intimacy that Peter Jackson created by letting us in on those moments where a tune emerged from Paul’s fingers on the guitar or piano, and lyrics spun out from the minds and mouths of any of the four Beatles.
There were, for sure, a few times when this documentary lagged, or lingered too long on experiences at Apple Records during the preparations for the poorly-imagined concert and album.
But the ultimate concert which occurred on the roof of the Apple offices – a “happening” in itself, to use a phrase reminiscent of the era – was a fitting finale for the Beatles as a group, and as pioneers in rock and roll, as they disrupted the daily lives of Brits going about their noontime busy-ness while their signature music blared from the rooftop, at fans and detractors alike, as the last songs to bear the attribution of Lennon/McCartney.
There was just no fitting thank you I could give Dana for this gift of Beatle reminiscence.
Because of Peter Jackson’s labors, Dana and I shared the experience of a long-lost love of what is certainly our favorite group. (I have held on to Beatles memorabilia for 50-plus years, and she and I have each accumulated small libraries of books about the Beatles and the songs themselves.)
Now I’m rereading the books of lyrics as poetry, and ordering the CD versions of vinyl albums I not-so-long-ago rid myself, immersing myself in the strains of Let It Be and St. Pepper and Abbey Road.
It is my return to what Rolling Stone magazine might have meant when it called that era “a long, strange trip” through that short-lived yet eternal band called The Beatles. And I don’t see an end yet to the enjoyment of their contributions to my life or to the lives of generations to come.
I did find a way to thank Dana for this trip down Abbey Road. Using her old KitchenAid mixer, I baked her a lemon cake that I topped with four plastic beetles.
And though she said she loved it, I know the cake didn’t compare to the gift of Peter Jackson’s tribute to the Beatles which she gave to me.
To Dana (and to anyone else who has loved the Beatles as we have) I say:
“You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead…”
(from “Two Of Us” by Lennon/McCartney c1969, leading track on the album of the same name)
