Apple Studios, Savile Row, London
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Glyn Johns
Day 14 of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions yielded nothing that was officially released, but did see The Beatles spend a great deal of time working on the song ‘Get Back’.
The presence of Billy Preston greatly helped to shape the song, although at this stage John Lennon was yet to develop his guitar solo and the galloping rhythm of the final version was not yet in place. The coda was, however, and Paul McCartney decided that ‘Get Back’ would be complete with just two verses.
One of the takes was chosen by Glyn Johns for the first iteration of the Get Back album, which was rejected for release by The Beatles. This album was later circulated as Kum Back, one of the first Beatles bootleg collections.
Although work on ‘Get Back’ dominated the day, The Beatles also spent some time on ‘Oh! Darling’, which was eventually held over for Abbey Road. Ringo Starr also played a piano version of ‘Octopus’s Garden’, which was later developed further than the three-chord arrangement he had at this time.
Performances of ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘Help!’ both lasted less than a minute. ‘Please Please Me’ was given a new, mostly atonal, melody, and ‘Help!’ was performed with a slow swing rhythm.
No more successful was a version of Eddie Cochran’s ‘Twenty Flight Rock’, one of the songs with which McCartney impressed Lennon by performing on the day they first met, 6 July 1957. Unfortunately, 12 years later McCartney was unable to remember all the lyrics, although The Beatles nonetheless managed a fairly spirited performance.
Performances of ‘Freakout Jam’, ‘Twenty Flight Rock’, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, ‘Oh! Darling’, ‘Get Back’, ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, ‘I’ll Get You’, ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’, ‘Help!’, and ‘Please Please Me’ from this day appeared in part two of the 2021 documentary Get Back.
The full list of songs recorded on this day, including fragments and off-the-cuff, unpublished songs with presumed titles (plus primary composer/best-known performer):
- ‘Freakout Jam’ ft Yoko Ono
- ‘Octopus’s Garden’
- ‘Two Of Us’ (two versions)
- ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ (three versions)
- ‘Get Back’ (43 versions)
- ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
- ‘Words Of Love’
- ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ (Eddie Cochran)
- ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’
- ‘Oh! Darling’ (three versions)
- ‘Let It Be’ (two versions)
- ‘Mean Mr Mustard’
- ‘Let’s Twist Again’ (Chubby Checker)
- ‘The Long And Winding Road’ (two versions)
- ‘Everything’s Alright’ (Billy Preston)
- ‘I Want To Thank You’ (Billy Preston)
- ‘You’ve Been Acting Strange’ (Billy Preston)
- ‘Use What You Got’ (Billy Preston)
- ‘Happiness Runs’ (Donovan)
- ‘Shazam’ (Duane Eddy)
- ‘Dig A Pony’
- ‘I’ll Get You’
- ‘Help!’
- ‘Please Please Me’
- ‘Hey Hey Georgie’* (Harrison)
- ‘If You Need Me’* (McCartney)
- ‘Love Is The Thing To Me’* (Billy Preston)
- ‘Together In Love’* (Billy Preston)
- ‘It Blew Again’* (Lennon)
* presumed title.
View the complete list of songs played during the January 1969 Get Back/Let It Be sessions.
For Jan 23rd on the A/B Road collection of these sessions, there’s a wild jam that takes up the final song on CD3 and the first song on CD4. Yoko makes an appearance on wailing vocals, and there’s a lot of heavy drumming and electric guitar feedback in the key of E. It definitely doesn’t sound like Ringo drumming; I’d love to know who all was playing on this track! Anybody have any info? John, Yoko, and George’s voices are all very audible after the jam.
Ah, I love replying to ancient comments! I wonder if they ever get read? Anyway, John was SUPER excited after they played that, and I think in the morning of the next day, John asks whether “they” got that bit on multitrack, or just on the cameras, and refers to it as “… Yoko, John, Paul and Billy doing their freakout…” and “…check it out our cuz I’d like it to be part of any LP…”. So that must have been Paul on drums. Pretty amazing drumming. John didn’t mention George.
man! I can’t find anywhere “Love Is The Thing To Me” as a studio version, it does exist?
Everything’s Alright (Billy Preston)
I Want To Thank You (Billy Preston)
You’ve Been Acting Strange (Billy Preston)
Use What You Got (Billy Preston)
No doubt initiated by Billy. Ya think he was tryin’ to tell them something? 😛
I would sell my soul to find an official recording of that Love Is The Thing To Me