Ray Connolly, one of those journalists who interviewed the Beatles a lot while they were still together and hence still ends up quoted in biographies , once observed: „To me, the Beatles resembled a family: John was the smart, moody, pretty unpredictable father, Paul the concerned, hard working mother, always trying to mediate. And Ringo and George went along as the fledgling and the brooding teenager.“

This is certainly the dynamic that plays out in Get Back: The Unauthorized Chroncile of the Beatles‘ Let It Be Disaster by Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt, aka their painstaking transcription of the bootleg Let it Be tapes. Not something for light reading, not least because presumably for copyright reason, they transcribed the whole thing in indirect speech, never direct quotation, which makes for occasionally very stilted prose („Paul and George both express their happiness with the fact that Beatle songs are now covered by artists that The Beatles themselves admire“). Also, this is by no means a neutral protocol; the authors are pretty unabashedly anti-Yoko in their descriptions. (When Yoko takes the microphone, she does so „ominously“, her vocal efforts are invariably described as „screeching“ or „wailing“, etc.) And lastly, it’s sad to read for the same reason why the film Let it Be so incredibly depressing: what was meant as a project to revitalize the group – the basic idea was that the Beatles would rehearse for a live concert at a yet to be determined location, the film would document the rehearsals and the final concert – turned out to be a documentation of their falling apart, with the miracle being that this wasn’t the last album, and that everyone was able top pull themselves together enough for Abbey Road afterwards. (And a good thing, too, regarding the quality difference.) All this being said, the book is worth reading if only because it offers everyone’s opinions at the time, without the benefit of hindsight or the inevitable distortion of memories, on such important issues as the impact of Brian Epstein’s death on the group, George’s feeling of being eternally treated as the kid and not taken seriously, and of course the John and Yoko relationship and its impact. The most important debates, for those of you not willing to go through an entire book of indirect speech:

( George, however, would prefer that the audience be naked... )