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A year previously, they had come out with the eponymous 'White Album' to soaring success. The White Album, their ninth album, a double album, was named simply because of the colour of the album's jacket. The White Album was a phenomenal hit, but it was rumoured that the four members had serious creative differences that most of the time, they had to record separately. It is said Yoko Ono's persistent presence in the studio was their sore point, together with Paul McCartney's domineering attitude.
Partly encouraged by the skyrocketing sales of the 'White Album', they were coaxed to get together for a brainstorming session. The plan was to have a public concert and to pen new songs. The getting together was a volatile business. The idea of breaking up as a group was still in the air. Their previous agreed arrangement of not allowing spouses into the studio was not followed. Yoko was no mere expressionless fly on the wall making some occasional eerily high-pitched screech; she was more of a leech clinging on to the juices of John Lennon. George Harrison constantly expressed his displeasure over Paul's vetoing of his creative ideas. It led to its zenith when George quit the band, only to be cajoled back to write songs together for their next project. The project is another problem. The band was unsure what it wanted to create. After yo-yoing between cutting singles and albums, they finally decided to make a movie/documentary, 'Let it Be'.
"Let it Be' came to fruition in 1970, and a few months, the Beatles split.
The documentary brings viewers up close into the recording studios to show just how talented the Fab Four were. Just how easily their creative juices flow and how seamlessly song lyrics and melodies welled up.
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One must remember that the footages are not raw material but recorded with the 'actors' knowledge. They were aware that they were being taped, sometimes breaking the fourth wall. Hence, they must appear on tape to do the socially accepted thing.
What I learned after watching Fab Four's behaviour, I gather that Paul is a prolific writer of songs but somewhat wants his way of doing things. George feels stunted as a musician, Lennon is too profoundly into Yoko, and Ringo just gets along with a little help from his friends.
(P.S. Remember 1995 when the world got all excited when the Beatles' old recordings re-surfaced, and we were all waiting eagerly to hear the unheard versions of the same old Beatles' song? Well, to the uninitiated, this whole exercise of sitting through a seven and a half-hour band recording session, brainstorming, talking, arguing and singing the same song, again and again, may sound uninspiring. To a true blue Beatles fan or an occasional music lover, both the Beatles' Anthologies albums and this docuseries are treasure troves of all the nostalgia and musical genius embedded in Beatlemania.)
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