4 days until the start of the Get Back sessions
When the Beatles reconvened on January 2, 1969, to begin what would be known as the Get Back/Let It Be sessions with the idea they’d write a fresh set of songs to perform live, they weren’t coming in empty-handed, by any stretch.
We don’t have any record of what the Beatles were doing on December 29, 1968, so let’s use the 12-track Let It Be LP, the original document of these sessions released in May 1970, plus “Don’t Let Me Down” (the “Get Back” single B-side) as the basis of this inventory and status report with less than 100 hours to go to the Twickenham sessions.
FINISHED SONGS: “Across the Universe,” “Maggie Mae” and “One After 909”
“Across the Universe”
“I think it’s a waste just banishing it,” John Lennon said on January 7, 1969, when suggesting the group give the song a stab. “I’d sooner stick it in here.”
“Across the Universe” was nearly a year old by this point, having been completely recorded in February 1968, prior to the group’s journey to India. While the Beatles made a few attempts at a live version of “Across the Universe” in January 1969, they ultimately abandoned the song early in the sessions. I go quite a bit into the song’s story here.
The version of the song you hear on Let It Be is the exact same recording the Beatles made in February 1968 – and released on a charity LP in December 1968. It’s just manipulated by Phil Spector.
“Maggie Mae”
I’ll stick an asterisk on this one since it’s just a snippet of a Liverpool folk song, a musical ad-lib during the vast Get Back sessions. “Maggie Mae” (or “May”) is the oldest song on the record, and then some. John played it at the famous church fête where he met Paul, so it was part of the Lennon-McCartney story from the outset. The song itself dates hundreds of years earlier.
“One After 909”
First recorded in 1963 in the same session that yielded “From Me To You,” the Beatles completed “One After 909” but didn’t release it. They abandoned the song until its spontaneous revival on January 3, 1969. (The 1963 version was released on Anthology 1 in 1995.)
In the wake of that first attempt at the song at Twickenham, John conceded, “I always meant to change the words a bit. … We always thought it wasn’t finished.”
But Paul thought it was “great” and George Harrison agreed: “Most people don’t give a shit what the words are about, as long as it’s popping along.”
As captured in the Let It Be film, Paul described the song to Michael Lindsay-Hogg in the context of the early Lennon-McCartney partnership.
The song dates to 1959-1960, and a recording from 1960 survives.
While the song was sped up for a more raucous (and improved) presentation, they didn’t change a single lyric from 1963. And once they established it, they didn’t dwell too long on it.
“Maybe we should do it without practicing. You know, practicing will fuck it up,” George said on January 3.
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IN THE WORKS: “Dig A Pony,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “For You Blue,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Let It Be,” “The Long and Winding Road,” “Two of Us”
When the Beatles hit the Twickenham sound stage on January 2, several songs were already in some stage of completion:
“Dig a Pony”
We’re left to guess when John wrote the song – presumably it was in November or December 1968. It’s new to the other Beatles – at least George, who asked John to clarify the lyric – when it was introduced during the opening moments of the Get Back sessions on January 2. The song is incomplete, but many lyrics are intact, and the melody is unchanged from the final version.
“Don’t Let Me Down”
The song existed in pieces entering the sessions, appearing on a work tape in December 1968. As we can hear in the early days at Twickenham, the lyrics and melody were basically complete, it just needed an arrangement and some riffs, and Paul and George contributed to making it the song we know now.
“For You Blue”
I’m not sure on this one. There seem to be a lot of claims this was written in late 1968, but I can’t find something definitive to prove that. George plays it a couple times as background noise until the song is more formally introduced to the band on January 9, six days into the sessions. Further, Paul describes it as George’s “last-night song,” while the songwriter himself elaborates on how easy it was for him to write. I’m leaning toward this being a product of this first week of the month vs. something from December 1968, but I can be convinced either way.
“I’ve Got a Feeling”
John’s contribution to this song – the “Everybody Had a Hard Year” section – existed in some form for several months. We have a work tape from earlier in the year, and also a filmed performance from December 12, 1968 (see the day’s entry for more on that). It’s a little less clear when exactly Paul’s part of “I’ve Got a Feeling” was written, but he seems to have it well formed – and already combined with John’s section – by the time the Get Back sessions began, implying there was a songwriting session between at least John and Paul sometime in late December 1968.
“Let It Be”
The earliest recording of the song in progress came September 5, 1968, in between takes of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and with Eric Clapton sitting in with the Beatles. This version was officially released in 2018, as part of the White Album deluxe reissue.
I wrote at some length about this little 1-minute, 18-second ditty here.
It’s worth noting, as I did at the link above, the lyrics hardly advanced between this jam in September 1968 into the Get Back sessions – only a few lines had been established. Musically, it’s hard to divine what Paul had in mind – the rest of the band is improvising, and perhaps they had never heard the song before this moment.
“Two of Us”
Paul brought the song to the Get Back sessions pretty well formed – but unknown to the rest of the band, who first heard it on January 2. The lyrics didn’t really change from this first take to the end, and while the song’s presentation was in flux for a few weeks – it began acoustic, then they made several attempts at an electric version before settling on acoustic again – the melody didn’t really change and any adjustments to the song’s arrangement were minor.
We get to watch this initial introduction in the 2021 Get Back docuseries.
Paul included a photo in the 2022 Lyrics book that he says pinpoints the writing of the song, which he has long maintained was about his experiences driving with Linda purely for the fun of getting lost together.
From Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics.
“There’s a photograph of me in the Aston Martin, sitting with the driver’s door open and my feet out,” he said. “I’ve got my guitar. That’s me writing ‘Two of Us.’”
He doesn’t date the photo, but if we look close enough at the hair and stubble, and with the knowledge he was in the UK with his car, this photo was probably taken in October 1968.
“The Long and Winding Road”
Looking to write a song evocative of Ray Charles, Paul began to write “The Long and Winding Road” sometime in 1968, inspired by a stretch in the Scottish highlands en route to his farm. He had much of the tune in place, but he had very few lyrics written by the time he played the song at Twickenham, first in a snippet on January 3 and then a longer stretch four days later.
I write a bit about these initial takes here.
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NOT YET WRITTEN: “Get Back” and “I Me Mine”
“Get Back”
Now quite famously, Paul conjured “Get Back” from thin air on January 7, 1969, and through the magic of film (and tapes) we can experience its birth ourselves.
“I Me Mine”
George describes the song’s origin story on January 8, discussing his inspiration and how he wrote the song from scratch the night before.
They May Be Parted 