Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

OK, Boomer. This is for you.

Last week, we signed up for a month of Disney+, and did so specifically to watch Peter Jackson’s documentary, “The Beatles: Get Back.”

The Beatles were the soundtrack of my earliest youth, before I even knew who they were. I saw them on Ed Sullivan (“Why are all the girls screaming?”) and when my family took a road trip to Disneyland, I saw posters for them pasted on every block in L.A. (“Hehe. They spelled ‘beetles’ wrong.”). By the time I really knew who they were, they had begun to change, shifting from the classic rock and roll of Hard Day’s Night to the more musically complex tracks on Rubber Soul and Revolver. I followed them devotedly into their psychedelic phase, reveling in the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that swirled around them during the Sgt Pepper/Abbey Road years. And, like most people at the time, I blamed Yoko for everything in the global post-mortem of the band’s break-up.

It’s no surprise, then, that I was willing to drop eight bucks to sign up with Disney+, just to watch Jackson’s three-part documentary about that final period.

What was a surprise was how moved I was by it, and for totally unexpected reasons.

First things first, it’s an excellent documentary, but I suspect it won’t be as compelling to younger folks who lack the personal experience of the band as do folks my age (i.e., Boomers). This isn’t a documentary full of voice-overs and interviews, crafted to prove a premise or provide historical context. This is simply a masterful distillation of over 150 hours of film down to just under eight hours (in three parts), chronicling the events leading up to the band’s iconic rooftop concert in 1969 (featured in the Beatle’s 1970 movie, Let it Be). As such, for viewers without a long-standing affection for the band and their music, it wouldn’t be a shock to hear they find it a bit slow going.

For me, though, it was a glimpse into my own history, context to my own life, and as such, I could not be pulled away. It was a chance to spend time with “the lads” again, hear their banter, and listen to songs I’ve loved for fifty years and more.

As someone who dabbles in the arts, however, there were deeper levels of content, and these were what affected me most.

Throughout the film, I watched and listened, amazed, as each member toyed with musical ideas, with lyrics, with the basic nuts-and-bolts of structure. For example, I watched McCartney as he strummed a guitar, eventually locking into a somewhat familiar chunka-chunka rhythm. Then he began to hum a few melodic notes, mouthing the tune without words, experimenting, lost in the process, starting over to take another run at it. The melody began to solidify, take form, and became a form I knew in my soul: it was “Get Back,” which became a #1 single off the album Let it Be.

Watching McCartney craft this song out of . . . nothing, I was (without hyperbole) reminded of descriptions of Michelangelo, the sculptor seeing the shape within the marble block, chipping away the unneeded parts to reveal the creation within. This process was repeated by each and every member (even Starkey), and it was both bewildering and incredibly humbling to watch.

It was, in short, beauty.

The film also shows us how and why the breakup occurred, and no, it wasn’t Yoko’s fault, not at all.

Almost every day in the film, from the very first session at Twickenham, we hear the lads recalling their time in Hamburg, back in ’62, when they were still a relatively unknown band playing small clubs. I kept hearing it—Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg—and it was clearly a seminal period, a time of freedom and synchrony for all of them.

And in their voices, their wistful tones, you heard that they all knew it could never happen again.

The Beatles were destroyed by their own success.

Their fame meant no more small clubs, which meant no more traveling and working as a team, trying out new songs one by one, venue to venue. For years, it had been only studio albums for them, with songs created apart from the team. We catch a glimpse of what it must have been like from the film, seeing the near mind-meld nature of Paul and John’s collaborative relationship, but also see how George was shut out, relegated to the role of hired hand and order-taker, causing an entirely predictable rift that never truly healed.

The Beatles: Get Back is a poignant journey, a trip filled with love and sadness and frustration and puzzlement, an achingly bittersweet experience that left me bereft anew over the loss and yet singing song after song ever since.

The Beatles changed not only the world of music, but the world at large. They touched a spread of demographics only dreamed of today (just watch the reaction to people on the street during their rooftop concert, if you don’t believe me). And when they disbanded, the world mourned.

Thankfully, for myself at least, we can now see that the breakup wasn’t due to a petty squabble over someone’s inamorata. There was no screaming or vitriol. The lads loved each other, and loved making music together.

But just as when you gaze into the abyss, when you change the world, the world changes you.

k