Paul McCartney says new Beatles film proves band was close until the end

Publish Date
Thursday, 16 April 2020, 3:51PM

The upcoming documentary film on The Beatles' 'Let It Be' album hasn't even been released yet and it's already one of the most personal pieces of Beatles-related media for Paul McCartney.

So much has been made over the decades about what caused The Beatles' 1970 breakup that the line between the conjecture of a fanbase and McCartney's own memories has been blurred.

While McCartney didn't think he and his bandmates were at odds at the time they broke up the band, he admitted in a recent interview with Howard Stern that he started to believe that narrative. Peter Jackson's The Beatles: Get Back film, expected to arrive later this year, tells a much different story.

"It's great. I mean, I'm not bulls----ing," McCartney said. "And you see this relationship between me and John [Lennon], me and George [Harrison], and you'll get it! ...It's so lovely for me because I had kind of bought into the idea that, oh, me and John were rivals and didn't like each other and stuff. But you see the film and it's like thank god it's not true. The guys, we're obviously having fun together. You can see we respect each other and we're making music together. It's a joy to see it unfold."

The original Let It Be film by Michael Lindsey-Hogg came out in the wake of the news of the band's split. It was dreary in presentation and appeared to show the band in some of its darkest moments. McCartney expected the new film to tell a similar story.

But there was over 54 hours of unused footage which Jackson reviewed for the new film. The Lord of the Rings director says the raw footage showed a much friendlier, more functional band. He edited the film to reflect that reality.

"Working on this project has been a joyous discovery," Jackson said in a statement, announcing the film's Sept. 4 release date. "I've been privileged to be a fly on the wall while the greatest band of all time works, plays and creates masterpieces."

There's other evidence that the dynamic within The Beatles wasn't as bad as previously thought.

A newly-unearthed recording of a meeting between Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, dated weeks before Abbey Road was released, depicts the band members discussing ideas for their next album.

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission

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