It is no secret that I love the Beatles. I get starry-eyed when I just think of them. I recently tried to introduce my second-year students to their music and got so teary when I started talking about John and George that I had to change the subject.
Always a late bloomer, I actually only “discovered” the Beatles in my mid-twenties after Lennon was killed. I do have a vague recollection of my childhood buddy, Jèan-Prieur du Plessis, belting out “A Hard Day’s Night” at the top of his lungs one morning during break at school in Vrede. We were ten years old and his rendition kept me away from the Beatles for the best part of the next fifteen years.
Today there is probably not a single Beatles song that I do not have a copy of somewhere. But for some reason I’ve never owned a Beatles DVD. That was until last week when I stumbled upon a wonderful disc containing video recordings of all the Beatles’ Number 1 hits, each song recorded at a different venue. Joy To The World!
Needless to say, I’ve watched the Fab Four performing those timeless gems over and over during the past week. Like with my kids, I can honestly say that I have no favourites. I love them all. But if I have to mention one recording that stands out, it is “Get Back”. Not so much because of the song itself, but because of the historical significance surrounding this particular version. Do you remember the Beatles’ rooftop concert early in ’69? It was an impromptu performance on the roof of their Apple headquarters seen live by only a handful of crew members. Half a million Brits would have paid big bucks to attend a show by the Beatles at that stage. But, as Ringo remembered many years later, there were only two fans applauding them on that rooftop: His wife Maureen and Yoko Ono.
This was the Beatles’ last ever “public” performance as a group. The end of an era.