George/Paul dust-up during the Get Back sessions

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Joel1963, Jul 10, 2018.

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  1. Diamond Star Halo

    Diamond Star Halo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vancouver
    George was not the songwriting equal of John and Paul. Not even in 1969/70, when he was at his peak. I am thankful he never got equal billing on a Beatles album. One or two tracks is plenty. There are only so many dreary, preachy, mid-tempo ballads I can take before reaching for the skip button.
     
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  2. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US
    Your summary seems quite on the mark to me. Except: George was not forced to participate. He chose to participate. As did John, Paul, and Ringo. The Beatles had a long-standing agreement that if any one of them didn't want to do something, the band wouldn't do it at all. So if George didn't want to do Let it Be, he could have killed the project with a simple No. Instead, he agreed to do it ... and then behaved like a pissed off sullen teenager forced to go to the family dinner when he'd really rather be in his room.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2018
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  3. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

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    East coast, US
    I thought they did have a physical fight?? Not just nearly.
     
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  4. theMess

    theMess Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kent, UK
    Didn’t Martin confirm that it did happen ?
     
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  5. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US
    I think you could replace Paul's name in that sentence with "George Harrison" or "John Lennon" and it would still be accurate. These guys were used to being very blunt with each other.
     
  6. Fivebyfive

    Fivebyfive Forum Resident

    Location:
    East coast, US
    I just Googled around and found this. Philip Norman (whose accuracy I don't trust) claimed that George Martin confirmed the physical fight between John and George. This was reported in Rolling Stone:

     
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  7. Sam

    Sam Senior Member

    Location:
    Rochester, NY
    LOL. All that people above have written is true, but on top of all that, no one makes mention of the fact that they were filming in the early morning hours! Everyone was quite grumpy having to get up so early. I believe it was mentioned in Anthology. These guys were used to sleeping until at least noon. So yeah, I bet until the Tea kicked in, they were all quite moody.
     
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  8. Mike Visco

    Mike Visco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Newark, NJ
    As a song writer and a band member-if I'm doing an original with the band I prefer they make up their own parts. If I'm doing it for myself-I'll play the style I prefer or ask them to do so if they are helping out.

    Meeting halfway is also sometimes possible-depending on what you want to accomplish.

    I would like to think George made up his own leads on Let it Be.
     
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  9. kozy814

    kozy814 Forum Resident

    Sometimes I think George brought in Clapton and Preston because he liked hanging out with them. John & Paul both were absorbed in their legend as songwriters. They had nary a sniff of enthusiasm for even George's better tunes. While My Guitar Gently Weeps is made much better by the WA/Clapton arrangement. EC was reportedly blown away that he was invited to play on the track. Paul was working on Wild Honey Pie or some such dross at the time I do believe. John was persona-non-grata. So it makes sense that George would want his "group" in the studio. It ended up being the right call.
     
  10. Beatle Ed

    Beatle Ed Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hertfordshire
    They could both have been more mindful of the fact that cameras were on them and said we'll discuss this later, privately.
     
  11. Beatle Ed

    Beatle Ed Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hertfordshire
    I think he was their equal on his best stuff at that time. But he wasn't as prolific as Lennon McCartney. They would be able to knock out classics in fast succession. A lot of what ended up on All Things Must Pass, while good, would have dragged a Beatles LP down, with all the dirgy midtempo stuff. Some was undoubtedly great but it was another LP that would have been better as a single record.
     
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  12. Alert

    Alert Forum Resident

    Location:
    Great River, NY
    Well, as many of you are aware, we have three different George "Let It Be" solos; The Martin-produced single, the Spector-produced album track and the actual performance in the film.

    My gut feeling is that George came up with all three of these.
     
  13. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    I would love someone to come up with a better part than I could envision on one of my songs. I would not have someone be my bass player who I didnt trust to often come up with a better bass part than I would. But at the same time I expect to be able to tell them what works for me or doesn't that they come up with, or that every alternate time through the progression I need you to hit the F# while I play the Amaj7 to make it an F#min9 chord we create between us (an actual example from one of my songs)
     
  14. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    In Jan 69 he was certainly introducing more viable songs than John was, though it helped having years of rejected songs to draw from where John had been releasing close to everything great he came up with during his prolific periods.
     
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  15. ralph7109

    ralph7109 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Franklin, TN
    You pretty much nailed it.
     
  16. Ryan Lux

    Ryan Lux Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, ON, CA
    People pleasers don’t make the best music. Push and pull is healthy for any band. Of course you don’t try to hurt people’s egos but it’s inevitable when striving for the best result. Nothing to see here...
     
  17. Neil Anderson

    Neil Anderson Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Excellent analysis.
     
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  18. Chris M

    Chris M Senior Member In Memoriam

    What George material was "rejected" in 1968? Correct me if I am wrong but I thought he removed Not Guilty from consideration for the double album. Sour Milk Sea was handpicked by George for Jackie Lomax right? What does that leave? Circles?
     
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  19. Tom Daniels

    Tom Daniels Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona
    John and Paul were very different as leaders.

    John was in clearly charge of the band in the early years, but left the other guys a lot of space. He led by consensus. He did the same with his songs, bringing them in and letting the band shape them. You can say he was open and generous or you could say he was lazy and didn’t know what he wanted. But his democratic style became the Beatle culture.

    Paul led in a very different way. He took charge. He drove the Magical Mystery Tour and Let it Be projects. And he came in with a song and told the other guys what he wanted them to do. You could say he had a clear vision for his songs or you could say he was a prick.

    When John stepped back and Paul took over there was some culture shock. This wasn’t Dylan and his studio backing band, this was the Beatles, they were a band, all for one and one for all, and Paul’s approach rubbed George especially the wrong way.

    Not to say Paul didn’t have the right to do his songs his way. But SOME openness, or at least tact, would have gone a long way. If John had remained interested in running the band he could have kept it going longer. But the very fact that John ceded control to Paul was a sign that he done with band, and would leave sooner rather than later.
     
  20. YpsiGypsy

    YpsiGypsy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    I know what you mean, when I got back into LPs I would start to reach for the skip button only to stop and remind myself that I can't do that anymore.
     
  21. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Or, very stiff upper lip British.
     
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  22. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Far too much is made of that little clip - it’s not an argument, barely even a disagreement and I’m sure there was much worse that wasn’t filmed, notably the Lennon-Harrison argument which supposedly led to a physical punch-up.

    Compare it to the Byrds’ Notorious sessions, where you can literally hear a band collapsing before your ears and the LIB ‘spat’ is as nothing.
     
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  23. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    This is a great post, but I can't help hearing the first line of each paragraph to the tune of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in my head. :)
     
  24. Atmospheric

    Atmospheric Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eugene
    Yeah, the best possible situation for a sideman like myself is when someone hires you because they like what you already do. But still in those situations, I’m constantly asking the songwriter, “Is this what you had in mind?”
     
  25. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    I'd say it's symbolic of the heavy underlying tension and George is unable to contain himself; they're not working together but against each other. Typical of any relationship that has reached breaking point.
    And the song is not even worth fighting over.
     
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