Completing a hat trick of Beatles number ones guided by the hand of Paul McCartney, 'Get Back' is another ride in reverse gear to the basics of the music that originally inspired the band. Well in one aspect anyway - at heart 'Get Back' might be a lumpen rock and roll rumble born out of studio jam sessions, yet in its extended riff/guitar solo/riff/organ solo/riff/guitar solo structure I hear on one hand portents of the worst of (gulp) prog rock noodlings and on the other I hear the birth of the output of some well meaning but misguided seventies AOR behemoths grimly slugging their way through a two week version of 'Whipping Post'.Ok, I'm probably taking things to the nth degree here, but not to the point that credibility snaps - one of my main beefs with both those avenues of music was their annoying tendency to dress themselves up in bells in whistles of self importance/'look at me' musicianship to hide the fact they didn't have a lot to say in the first place, and in its shaggy dog tale of 'JoJo' and 'Loretta', 'Get Back' plays out like a Yes triple in microcosm. The guitar driven backbone of the song rambles along with no discernible purpose in an overly neat and fussy manner that's only broken by each of the players having their moment in the spot; all that's missing is a Ringo drum solo. And yet for a rock tune worked up in the studio and presented as a jam, there's a stiffness about 'Get Back' and the myriad takes that were used to patch it all together that's suggestive of a band playing with clenched teeth. Which by that stage of their career they probably were - The Beatles weren't quite finished by the time 'Get Back' was recorded, but it has the definite air of something winding down to a close.
* It's common enough knowledge that, for at least part of its torturously long gestation, the intention behind 'Get Back' was a satire on Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood's speech' called 'The Commonwealth Song' ("get back to where you came from"). It might have been interesting, but ironic racism is a ferocious line to walk and there's nothing in McCartney's canon before or since to suggest he had the chops to pull it off, so it's just as well this plan was dropped. I've often wondered if Billy Preston's co-credit was designed to offset any racism charges - I'm not sure he does enough by himself on the song to deserve it.
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