Jan. 7: Et cetera

Every day at Twickenham was drama-filled and pivotal. Every day during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions was drama-filled and pivotal. Every day the Beatles recorded together was pivotal, if not necessarily drama-filled, right?

January 7 was a particular special day. Dramatic. Pivotal. The group talked in circles about the live show and their reasons for even remaining together. Paul bestowed us with a chunk of the Abbey Road medley as well as “The Long and Winding Road” and “Get Back.” George tried — but didn’t — quit (yet).  John worked “Across The Universe” back into the Beatles’ plans. The band very possibly invented the mashup.

Things were so interesting that we covered just about all of it in prior the prior January 7 posts. But not everything. Here are a few other significant moments that happened this day that otherwise didn’t fit into the day’s storyline:

Following their attempts to resurrect “Across the Universe,” the group spends less than 10 minutes (on tape) on “One After 909,” and they didn’t need to spend another minute more on it. It’s clear they know the song perfectly well, and the need to develop “bits” that tortured the group elsewhere was absent. After the very first run-through, imperfect but still tight given the sub-100 percent effort, Paul remarks, “That’s all we need to know of that one.” Really,  he said it all. “It’s very simple, and we shouldn’t over-rehearse.”

Billy’s missing, but every other element from the song as we know it now sounds like it’s there, from George’s whiny guitar line and solo to Paul’s and John’s vocal and Ringo’s tight beat. The song is show-ready, even in this early rehearsal.

“Don’t Let Me Down” is rehearsed again — it would be tackled every day the band was at Twickenham until George’s departure, and then again most days at Apple when they reconvened. One particular sequence sees the band return to another song, which like “One After 909,” they originally recorded in 1963. But “Devil In Her Heart” wasn’t a contender for the live show. George’s playing on “Don’t Let Me Down” was merely evocative of the Donays song later covered by the Beatles to great effect. (Skip forward to here for the transition or listen below for the entire sequence.)

I think this is less a half-hearted attempt than the group genuinely doesn’t remember how to play that song anymore. Regardless, it was merely a blip, albeit a somewhat interesting one, in the sessions.

Unlike other days, the group didn’t pay significant time to sincerely playing covers. We get to hear a loose take of Little Richard’s “Lucille” for the second and final time on the tapes (January 3 was the previous performance). That was preceded by a rehash of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music” that got better as the band played, although admittedly they kicked it off from an weak position and ended up in a slightly less-so place. There’s little question the group sounds like it’s having fun playing songs they all know, even if they’re not executing well.

John also dipped into the group’s more recent catalog, plunking a few notes of “Revolution” in a sequence that soon saw him lead the group into Gene Vincent’s “Be Bop a Lula,” a song with extensive Beatle ties. It was the first record Paul ever bought, a song John played going back to the Quarrymen days and it was played live extensively in the Beatles’ early days. Ultimately, John would record it on “Rock & Roll” more than five years after these sessions, while Paul opened his landmark Unplugged appearance with the song in 1991. The song was always with George: He scrawled “Bebobalula.” on his colorful Stratocaster, Rocky.

The tapes of the day’s sessions would end with the group in the midst of “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” rehearsals, but there was no significant work done to the song since its debut the day before.

And that wraps up our coverage of January 7, 1969. Back “tomorrow,” for coverage a compelling January 8, 1969. We’ll start things off with “I Me Mine.”