Get Back

After Elvis died, Lester Bangs wrote that we will never agree about anything ever again in the way we agreed about Elvis. It could be added that there will never be a band that is as universally loved as the Beatles. Period. There is no way to argue this statement. That's why when I read that the reason why the documentary Let It Be won't be released to DVD because Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr believe that it presents the band in a negative light, I was pissed. There are bands that do not have to worry about their legacies- The Stones, The Who, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin and Radiohead all come to mind- but even these groups don't compare to the Beatles in regards to how they will be remembered. The Beatles, even nearly 40 years after their break-up, are guaranteed to be loved for as long as people give a shit about music. There is nothing that could happen to change that. So refusing to allow future generations to watch a documentary that was released theatrically because you think it makes you look bad is disgustingly arrogant and misguided. I know that the Beatles break-up was messy. I know the story better than a lot of people who were alive at the time. And it doesn't affect my love for the band at all. If anything, understanding the situation makes me appreciate Abbey Road all the more.

But I kept thinking about the blurb I read (it was on the front page of the site allmusic.com, who credited it to express.co.uk), and it reminded me of what Tim Riley wrote in his book Tell Me Why, which is the best book about the Beatles I've ever read (and I've read a lot of them), and his disappointment in the way the Beatles' catalog has been treated in the 90s and beyond. He was specifically disappointed in the Live at the BBC album, which was only two discs, and left out something like seven hours worth of material that the band did for the Beeb. I own something like 28 official Pearl Jam bootlegs. It's a safe bet that I would pick up nine discs of the Beatles at the BBC. I don't buy many box sets, but I would camp outside of Schoolkids to pick that one up the day it came out. And I'm not the only one. Riley complained about the way that the Anthology sets were edited and produced and released- the amount of stuff that was ignored (and if you read about, for example, the stuff that the band was doing during the Get Back sessions, all of the covers the band was doing in between sniping at one another and angrily glaring at Yoko, then you can understand why he was frustrated). He complained about the Anthology videos- how it shortened videos that the band did, or clips of live, otherwise unreleased performances, and then put narration over the top of them. And he's right- at the very least when they put the thing on DVD, they could have included the full videos. I thought about the fact that Help! only got the big DVD release it deserved last year (although I believe part of that was because of a hold-up with the rights). I think about how disappoint the Love album was. And I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the band is cocking up another important release. But the fact remains that I still love the Beatles in a way that I cannot imagine loving any other band, despite the fact that all of that should be way more damaging to their legacy than watching John and Paul argue.

(At this point, if this blog had actual readers, rather than a few sympathetic friends and family, someone might say, "Rob, you charismatic oracle of pop music minutiae, you idolize Bob Dylan, and his film Eat The Document has never seen the light of day, and although you want to see that way, way more than Let It Be, but I don't see you taking shots at Dylan." To which I would reply, "Ah, yes. But Eat the Document has always only been available as a bootleg, it wasn't released to fucking theaters. Also, Dylan has done a much better job of putting out old stuff than the Beatles (even if releasing 40 rare tracks as part of the complete Dylan collection on iTunes was stupid, as the only people interested in hearing these songs already fucking have every Bob Dylan album, and while we're at it, it wouldn't kill Mr. Zimmerman to put out more of the Bootleg Series than the rather glacial pace that they seem to come out). Besides, Dylan's always going to be, well, Dylan, which means that you can't really expect him to do things the easy way, or the way that would seem to be the most logical to everyone who isn't him. I admit this is something of a double standard, but I don't really care." Then I remember that most of my friends don't care about whether Eat the Document will ever be released, in large part because they've never heard of Eat the Document, and that makes me a little sad.)