A Lament for the Greatest Rock Band

Watching Peter Jackson's documentary The Beatles: Get Back (released in November 2021) was an  amazing experience for a Beatles fan. Getting to be a fly-on-the-wall as these great artists create, rehearse, and record an album of songs was a dream come true. The documentary revealed the ongoing and growing tensions between band members, how they were drifting apart due to differing interests, and how the breakup of the Beatles was likely inevitable (and not really Yoko Ono's fault).

By the time the videos and audio that became Get Back were recorded, the Beatles had been playing their instruments and performing together for so long that they were masters at playing and songwriting. Watching Get Back, it is incredible to listen as songs quickly go from fuzzy ideas to the fully-formed hits that fans still enjoy today.

Get Back also highlights how John and Paul's rebellious, counter-cultural, and iconoclastic tendencies made it virtually impossible for them to write songs that could communicate political or spiritual commitments (or, seemingly, to stay focused on those commitments for long). This limitation is especially apparent as Paul composes "Get Back" and as John works at "Child of Nature."

The refrain from "Get Back" ("get back to where you once belonged") is indicative of Paul's original idea for the song: to be a satirical take, protesting the anti-immigrant rhetoric of some British politicians at the time. The most complete original verse is the following:

Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis 

Living in a council flat 

Candidate Macmillan, tell us what your plan is 

Won’t you tell us where you’re at

By the time the final song was written, the political aspect was entirely dropped, and Paul seems to have chosen lyrics almost entirely on the basis of rhythm and rhyme.

A version of "Child of Nature" was recorded when the Beatles were working on the White Album, but it did not appear on that record. As seen in Get Back, John was still working on the song when the Beatles were recording Let It Be. Eventually, John used the music from "Child of Nature" for the song "Jealous Guy," which he released on his solo album, Imagine. Though "Jealous Guy" is more emotionally complex than "A Hard Day's Night" or some other Beatles songs, it does still center around romantic love, losing the nature-centered spiritual theme of the original lyrics.

Beatles' lyrics (Lennon/McCartney lyrics in particular) are cool and catchy, and they certainly speak to Beatles fans on some level. Beatles' lyrics range from nonsensical (as with the final version of "Get Back" or John's "Dig a Pony," which is also on Let It Be) to romantic (as with "In My Life") to pensive (as with "Norwegian Wood"). Beatles' lyrics rarely attempt any hint of political or spiritual themes. What if this amazingly skilled, spectacularly popular band had connected listeners to broader societal issues? What if Lennon and McCartney had made it their goal to not only make hearers feel cool, but to lead them to think deeply? As it is, Beatles' lyrics at their best are known for highlighting introspection and intense feelings. As such, they are part of the fabric of societal dissolution in the postmodern age.