Before we begin this third and final installment of The Day They LET IT BE, let me take a moment to remind you that the Beatles were more than a group; they were a business. And whatever receipts they had coming in from album, merchandise or other sales had to be reported with precision. Today, there’s a group that can do that for your business, whether it’s Beatle-sized or just beginning. All ya need to do to take advantage of their offer is to check out their financial reporting software. Believe me, they know how to help track of every dime and penny your business brings in or invests … and, in the process, making you more confident and successful. Check out the link now … it won’t take long to get started with them, okay??
Now … on to the “final chapter”:
It was cold enough that Ringo borrowed his wife’s red plastic raincoat and John Yoko’s fur, and by the time they launched into their first number, “Get Back,” their noses were growing red. But the cold, like the bitterness of the preceding weeks, ceased to matter once the music started. In that moment, Paul was proved right:
Playing together united them. As long as they had known one another, no matter what else was going wrong between and around them, the music would redeem them. Even at the height of their acrimony at Twickenham, they could still share a joyful
laugh over a favorite oldie. Now their weeks of rehearsals paid off. They breezed through multiple versions of Get Back, Don’t Let Me Down, I’ve Got a Feeling, One After 909, and Dig a Pony, and joined by the keyboardist Billy Preston. Paul, obviously thrilled to be playing live again, sang with renewed passion, and
John, George, and Ringo contributed enthusiastic performances.
After eight or nine songs, it began to filter up from their roadie, Mal Evans, that the police were in the street below, threatening to shut down the show. “We said, ‘We’re not stopping,’” Paul explained later. “He said, ‘The police are going to arrest you.’. . . ‘Great! That’s an end: Beatles Busted in Rooftop Gig.’” Ringo had similar hopes: “I wanted the cops to drag me off . . . kicking the cymbals and everything.” But alas, as Paul recounted, their exciting finale was not to be. “In the end the policeman, Number 503 of the Greater Westminster Council, made his way round the back. ‘You have to stop!’ We said, ‘Make him pull us off! This is a demo, man!’ I think they pulled the plug, and that was the end of the film.”
So they descended the stairs back down to the pettiness and grind of their
regular lives. The next day they headed into the studio to record three songs that weren’t appropriate for the roof-the piano-heavy Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road and the acoustic Two of Us” –and then promptly
shelved the whole project! The documentary and album release dates were
pushed back, first because no one was satisfied with the audio mixes and then to convert the 16-mm film to theatrical, rather than television, quality.
By the time both came out, in May 1970, the Beatles had reconvened one last time to record their most accomplished studio album, Abbey Road, and then had broken up for good.
When the film, Let It Be, finally hit theaters, Paul later said, “we got the break-up of the Beatles instead of what we really wanted.” When the world beyond London’s garment district finally got to see the Beatles’ last concert, it was with the knowledge, unshared by the original, live audience, that it was the band’s swan song. On Abbey Road Paul had sung grandly about “the end,” but it was John’s closing words on the roof that made the more fitting epitaph for the group that had struggled out of working-class Liverpool to rewrite pop history:
“I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition.”
And so it was … the end? Or the BEGINNING?!? Look at their continued influence on rock, relicites …
Well, on that somber note, we’ll close off this session of the blog. Until next time, remember: Keep your eyes on the skies, your feet on the ground, your heart with the music … and I’ll see ya on the flip side.
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