Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 23, 27, 28, 30 January; 5 February 1969
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Glyn Johns
Released: 11 April 1969 (UK), 5 May 1969 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass
John Lennon: harmony vocals, lead guitar
George Harrison: rhythm guitar
Ringo Starr: drums
Billy Preston: electric piano
Available on:
Let It Be
1 (One)
Past Masters
Anthology 3
Let It Be... Naked
Love
The Beatles' 19th British single, Get Back was the first release by the group from their 1969 'back-to-basics' phase.
The song began as a satirical and critical look at attitudes towards immigrants in Britain. McCartney intended to parody the negative attitudes that were prevalent among politicians and the press.
Race issues evidently played on McCartney's mind during the Get Back sessions. He led The Beatles through Commonwealth, an unreleased improvised satire loosely based on British politician Enoch Powell's notorious 'Rivers of blood' speech.
The most infamous of the unreleased Get Back versions is known as No Pakistanis, and contained the line "Don't dig no Pakistanis taking all the people's jobs". While mostly unfinished, the song did include a mumbled rhyming couplet which paired the words 'Puerto Rican' with 'mohican'.
Various demo versions of this early version were recorded, one of which contains the following lines:
Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis
Living in a council flat
Candidate Macmillan, tell us what your plan is
Won't you tell us where you're at?
Despite being satirical in nature, it didn't prevent accusations of racism being levelled at McCartney for years to come, after the Get Back bootlegs became public.
When we were doing Let It Be, there were a couple of verses to Get Back which were actually not racist at all - they were anti-racist. There were a lot of stories in the newspapers then about Pakistanis crowding out flats - you know, living 16 to a room or whatever. So in one of the verses of Get Back, which we were making up on the set of Let It Be, one of the outtakes has something about 'too many Pakistanis living in a council flat' - that's the line. Which to me was actually talking out against overcrowding for Pakistanis... If there was any group that was not racist, it was the Beatles. I mean, all our favourite people were always black. We were kind of the first people to open international eyes, in a way, to Motown.
Rolling Stone, 1986
The origins of Get Back's chorus are unknown, although George Harrison's song Sour Milk Sea, demoed by The Beatles in 1968 and later recorded by Jackie Lomax, contains the refrain, "Get back to where you should be". John Lennon, however, later claimed that McCartney's words were directed towards Yoko Ono.
I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's Get Back. When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line "Get back to where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko.
Playboy, 1980
The Beatles eventually realised that their intentions could be misconstrued, and the story of Jo Jo and Loretta Martin evolved.
Many people have since claimed to be the Jo Jo and they're not, let me put that straight! I had no particular person in mind, again it was a fictional character, half man, half woman, all very ambiguous. I often left things ambiguous, I like doing that in my songs.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Whatever the true meaning, 'Get back' served as a neat summary of The Beatles' back-to-basics musical intentions, and the song became the title track of what they intended to be their next album. Although two different versions of the LP were compiled by producer/engineer Glyn Johns, the songs were eventually remixed by Phil Spector and released as Let It Be.
Get Back was released as a UK single in April 1969 and the following month in the US, as the follow-up to Hey Jude. Paul McCartney wrote the following for the press advertisements:
Get Back is The Beatles' new single. It's the first Beatles record which is as live as live can be, in this electronic age. There's no electronic whatchamacallit. Get Back is pure spring-time rock number. On the other side there's an equally live number called Don't Let Me Down.
Paul's got this to say about Get Back: 'We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air... we started to write words there and then... when we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to roller-coast by.
P.S. John adds, it's John playing the fab live guitar solo. And now John on Don't Let Me Down: John says don't let me down about Don't Let Me Down.
In Get Back and Don't Let Me Down, you'll find The Beatles, as nature intended.
In the UK, Get Back was the only Beatles single to enter the charts at number one. It remained in the charts for 17 weeks. It also topped the US charts. Billed as "The Beatles with Billy Preston", it was the only one of the group's single to credit another musician.
Although the single and album versions both originate from the same recording, the single contains a coda which was omitted by Phil Spector on Let It Be. Instead, Spector added dialogue from the rooftop performance at Apple, to give the impression of a newer, live performance.
The single's coda began after a false ending, and contained the lyrics: "Get back Loretta, your mummy's waiting for you. Wearing her high-heel shoes and her low-neck sweater, get back home, Loretta."
The rooftop performance was finally released on Anthology 3 in 1996. The single version is available on the Past Masters collection. A shorter, remixed version was also made for Let It Be... Naked in 2003.
A new montage of Get Back was included on the 2006 remix album Love, which combined the track with the opening guitar chord from A Hard Day's Night, the drum and guitar solos from The End, percussion from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) and the orchestral climax from A Day In The Life.
Some of Lennon's best technical guitar - bar none. Generally a loose, occasionally sloppy guitarist, he really took it up a notch for those solos.
I agree w/DBueche on Lennon's guitar work on Get Back.
I saw a video clip in the studio(not on the roof)showing Lennon playing lead. Really good. I can't find where I viewed the clip now. Anybody familiar with this?
I'm confused why Get Back & Don't Let Me Down is included on the Mono Box. In the USA at least, it was never in mono, the original 45 rpm was stereo for this. Was it released in mono for the UK?
Sounds a lot like Sour Milk Sea
Yes, Get Back/Don't Let Me Down was released in mono in the UK, which is why it is included on the 2009 Mono Masters CD since the proper UK versions have become the standards in the USA too.