Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary series requires some dedication. With a run time of eight hours, the footage gives fans a behind-the-scenes look at the band as they attempt to make what would be their final album amidst the group’s collapse. As they write the record in real-time, it’s a fascinating watch. But for Ringo Starr, it contains some moments that bring back big emotions.
The energy of Get Back swings between two points: endearment and tension. On one hand, the footage gives viewers a deeply intimate look at the Fab Four’s working relationship and friendship. There are extended clips of the gang messing around, playing songs they used to cover as a teenage skiffle band, or just having a laugh. Witnessing them crafting songs is a surprisingly gripping watch as viewers are left waiting for them to find the words that the whole world knows by now as they write hits like ‘Get Back’ or ‘Let It Be’.
But the Let It Be sessions were also going on during some of the band’s hardest times. It was clear by the end of the 1960s that the members all wanted out of the group. During Get Back, George Harrison is seen quitting and storming out, while John Lennon and Paul McCartney bicker over the future of the band. It was a point where their personal relationships were stretched to a limit, causing a rift in their collaborative relationship in turn, with McCartney and Harrison especially struggling to see eye-to-eye musically.
But at the back of it all, from his post on his drumstand, there’s Ringo Starr. The enduring joke about the Beatles’ drummer is that Starr was always simply happy to be there, holding down the beat with his ‘peace and love’ attitude. In Get Back, the musician’s role becomes fascinatingly clear as songs take shape. Really, Starr was tactful and clever. As the rest of the band wrote, his drumming is fuss-free yet foundational. “While they’re writing the songs, I’m holding the tempo. And then, when the song is finished, I can do my stuff,” he told Vulture. Starr always saw the song as a big picture rather than merely focusing on the drums. Instead, he saw his role as one designed to back up the words and the melody, so he wrote his drum parts afterwards. “That’s because I’ll know where they’re going to sing and I try not to play over the singer like some other drummers do,” he explained.
But then in Get Back, the footage captures a moment where Starr steps out from his drum kit and into the limelight. During the sessions, the band were also starting to figure out some songs that would eventually live on Abbey Road, including one of Starr’s own tracks.
In the second episode, as the band relocate to their Apple studios HQ, there’s a moment where Starr starts writing ‘Octopus’ Garden’. “It’s emotional for me to watch,” the drummer said of the scene. After first writing some lyrics during a holiday, Starr sits at the studio’s piano with little more than a stream-of-consciousness scattering of phrases while Harrison comes in to help him out with guitar.
“I got a few of those verses, and when I went back to the studio — because it was in C — George was sitting there and took an interest,” Starr remembered. “He said, ‘F flat, D minor,’ whatever. Nowhere I could go. I don’t know these chords. I’m a 12-bar guy,” he continued, admitting his own limitations beyond his signature instrument. But with Harrison’s help, the two craft the song into the track the world knows it as.
To Starr, this isn’t just a piece of musical history capturing the creation of one of the band’s timeless hits. To him, it’s a priceless piece of footage of not only two collaborators but two friends. “He always helped out, George. It was great,” the drummer said, adding an emotional message of, “I miss him every day.”
✍️ Lucy Harbron
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