21 July 1969
 |
| Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon during the recording for Get Back, July 1969. After the photo-shoot for the album cover, Harrison grew back his beard and mustache and Starr grew out his sideburns. |
The Beatles' fourteenth album was conceived by Paul McCartney as a return to the band's earlier, less complicated approach to music, to sort of "get back" to their roots. There were even talks of having the Beatles play at the Isle of Wight at the end of August, following a music festival from the year previous. As interested as they were about playing at the Isle of Wight, John, George and Ringo were not feeling enthusiastic about working on the next album.
JOHN LENNON: "
Brian [Epstein] had told us that we were making an album on a strict schedule, and we had no say in the matter. We could handle ourselves; he just didn't get the point of Back in Your Safely Beds
." (1984)
GEORGE HARRISON: "
I didn't enjoy working on Get Back
. John and Ringo had recognized my talent with the likes of 'Let It Down' and 'All Things Must Pass', but Paul didn't care at all and instead made us work on his own material. It was during the sessions that I decided I'd had enough of working with Paul McCartney." (1972)
The first song the Beatles worked on was John's "Come Together", a song initially written for Timothy Leary's campaign for governor of California against former actor Ronald Reagan, but things broke down when Leary was arrested for marijuana possession. Afterwards, Lennon rewrote the lyrics to be a little more nonsensical. Some of his other tracks were "Dig a Pony", "Don't Let Me Down", "Everybody Had a Hard Year", and an older Beatles song, "The One After 909", dating back to the
Please Please Me sessions.
Paul's tracks consisted of the title track "Get Back", "Oh! Darling", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", and "I've Got a Feeling", which was later mashed up with John's "Everybody Had a Hard Year", forming the one true Lennon/McCartney song of the album. Ringo's sole contribution was "Don't Pass Me By", with origins tracing back to 1962 when he first joined the Beatles, and George, to his disgruntlement, was left with two tracks; "Old Brown Shoe" and "For You Blue". In addition, there was a cover version of the Tin Pan Alley standard "Ain't She Sweet".
10 August 1969
 |
| George Harrison and Paul McCartney, 1969. This photo was taken a few hours before their blowout. |
PATTIE BOYD: "
When George came home after the last day of the Get Back
sessions, he told me that they may have been the worst of his entire career. 'I thought I'd earned a place in the band,' he said, 'but apparently, I was proven wrong.'" (
Wonderful Today, 2007)
The last sessions for
Get Back focused on the definitive version of "Don't Let Me Down". After the recording had finished, George attempted once again to get Paul to take his songwriting more seriously by playing "Let It Down" in a solo acoustic performance.
"You've already filled out your quota, George," Paul had said. "Your job's pretty much done."
"Who said you and I had to have all the space on the album?" John snapped.
"That's kind of the way it's been since we started," said Paul. "Up until now, George's material has been kind of subpar..." Hearing that was the final straw for George; he put down his guitar and stormed over to his left-handed bandmate.
"But at least I can actually write something that's serious!" he yelled, taking Paul by surprise. "You know that 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' was the best song on
Beatles '68, but you're too afraid to admit it!"
Paul stared at George dumbfounded. "Well, erm, yes, it's a very good song, George," he stammered, trying to defuse the situation before it got worse. "But do you really need more space on an album?"
"Yes! Yes, I do!" snapped George. "I've been growing as a songwriter and you've been completely ignorant of that! John appreciated what I did during our trip to India, so why not you? Are you afraid of the sacred Lennon/McCartney legend being tarnished? Sharing songwriting royalties with both Harrison and Starr?"
"Oh, come now, George..." Paul chuckled, a bit more condescending than he intended. But George cut him off before he could continue, having punched him right in the face, even telling Paul to shut up.
 |
| The poster for the 1969 Woodstock festival. This is an earlier version where the list of acts had yet to be included. |
RINGO STARR: "
Paul and George got into a brawl in the studio, and [George] Martin and [Geoff] Emerick had to come down form the control room to break them up. When things had calmed down, George stormed out of the studio. Paul asked if anyone else had anything to say, but John said, 'No, Macca; George said all for the three of us.' Three of us; it meant that Paul was beginning to split from the rest of us. It was the beginning of the end." (1976)
The brawl between Paul McCartney and George Harrison could not have come at a worse time; earlier in July, Brian Epstein had scheduled for the Beatles to turn up at a music festival in New York the organizers had called Woodstock. The band had agreed to the performance as long as they got an early slot before people got too rowdy. Crosby, Stills and Nash, another Apple band, would also take part with a Canadian artist called Neil Young, Stephen Stills' former bandmate in Buffalo Springfield. James Taylor would also take part in Woodstock.[1]
But with George having temporarily left the Beatles, two options seemed to be up front; either play as a trio or drop out altogether. There was the possibility of substituting George for Eric Clapton, but Clapton was not available at the time.
Three days after the blowout, all four members met up to discuss their future, with Harrison in a commanding position. He'd made it clear that he would leave the group unless he was given equal treatment for future Beatles projects, and even insisted on having more say in what songs to record. Several hours later, they were soon on the plane to New York.
August 15 - 30, 1969
BOB DYLAN: "
I was reluctant to appear at Woodstock until I heard from George about the Beatles playing at the Isle of Wight. I then decided to show up at Woodstock after all." (2001)
 |
| John Lennon performing with the Beatles at Woodstock, August 15, 1969. |
Despite John and George's drug busts earlier that year, the Beatles still managed to make it into America to perform at Woodstock. Their setlist would consist only of songs they had recorded for
Get Back, along with a couple of older Beatles songs for an encore, as a way of promoting the new album, due out next month. The group arrived on stage at 5:00 in the evening as the opening act, even before Swami Satchidananda's opening speech.
The Beatles' Woodstock Setlist[3]
1. Get Back
2. Come Together
3. Old Brown Shoe
4. Don't Let Me Down
5. I've Got a Feeling
6. One After 909
7. Dig a Pony
8. Don't Pass Me By
9. Give Peace a Chance
10. Helter Skelter
The 45-minute setlist was very well-received by the crowd, and they even sang along to "Give Peace a Chance". George would later admit that despite the bad blood going on between him and Paul at the time, he had a bit of fondness for the performance. The performances of James Taylor later in the evening, Bob Dylan in the afternoon of the 16th, and Crosby, Stills and Nash with Neil Young in the early morning of the 18th were also well received.
 |
| Bob Dylan performing at the Isle of Wight Festival, 30 August 1969. |
When the Beatles performed on the second day at the Isle of Wight Festival, 30 August, their setlist was the same as it was from when they performed at Woodstock, with some tracks re-arranged as well as the excluding of "Come Together" and "Helter Skelter". In the case of the latter, they had been informed that due to the murder spree enacted by Charles Manson a few days prior to Woodstock, an event Manson had dubbed Helter Skelter, claiming that it was an apocalyptic war arising from racial tensions between blacks and whites, performing "Helter Skelter" live had not been a wise decision.
PAUL McCARTNEY: "
We thought we'd rocked the crowd that evening when we played it ['Helter Skelter'] live, but having heard about the atrocities Manson had committed, well... in hindsight, we should've picked something else as an encore instead. Unfortunate timing for us, really. News didn't travel to us as fast as it does nowadays." (2008)
Still, the Beatles' setlist was met with positive audience reception, and during Bob Dylan's set, the Beatles joined him onstage for "Like a Rolling Stone", "She Belongs to Me", "Mr. Tambourine Man", "Lay, Lady, Lay", and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35". Those five performances made the true (wet) dream to every rock manager and every fan a reality.
The Beatles' live performances at both Woodstock and the Isle of Wight that August built up the hype surrounding
Get Back, with the title track being released as a single on the 25th with "Don't Let Me Down" as its B-side, reaching #1 in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
26 September 1969
Released: 26 September 1969
Recorded: 14 & 15 April, 21 July - 10 August 1969
Get Back
Dig a Pony
Oh! Darling
Old Brown Shoe
I've Got a Feeling
One After 909
Don't Let Me Down
Side B
Come Together
Don't Pass Me By
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
For You Blue
Ain't She Sweet
Two of Us
The Ballad of John and Yoko
"On Top of the World Once Again!" The New York Times crowed in a headline when Get Back was released. The reception towards the album was almost unanimously positive, contrasting it with their previous album, Back in Your Safely Beds. The second single off of the album, "Come Together" backed with "Old Brown Shoe", was released on 6 October and, like the "Get Back" single, also reached #1 in the United States, but topped out at #4 in the United Kingdom.
Because only twelve new recordings were done for Get Back, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and "Two of Us" were included at the end to fill the album to fourteen songs, much like the earlier records from 1963 to 1968, excluding A Hard Day's Night and Beatles '68, which had thirteen each, and Yellow Submarine which had twelve. Some international releases of Get Back excluded the April 1969 single and instead shifted "The One After 909" as the third song on side B. Some fans thought that much like the album cover calling back to Please Please Me, the inclusion of the April 1969 single called back to the inclusion of the "Love Me Do" single on said album, being released in 1962 months before the album was even recorded.
The week after Get Back was released, Paul McCartney had announced to the press that the Beatles would soon be back in the studio to record another album.
24 October 1969
The Yardbirds - Whole Lotta Love
Released: 24 October 1969
Recorded: April - August 1969
Whole Lotta Love
What Is and What Should Never Be
The Lemon Song
Thank You
Side B
Your Time is Gonna Come
Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman)
Ramble On
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Bring It On Home
Whilst the re-vamped Yardbirds were performing concert tours in the United States and the United Kingdom, they were working on their seventh album, as well as their first without founding members Keith Relf and Jim McCarty. The two men had formed Renaissance with Relf's younger sister Jane, bassist Louis Cennamo and pianist John Hawken.
KEITH RELF: "
We wanted to do our own thing since the start of '68. Jimmy [Page] and the others [Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham] were capable of handling the Yardbirds without me and Jim [McCarty] to guide them. It was for the best, really. I can't picture what would happen if we had stayed on." (1976, his last interview weeks before his death)
Jimmy Page had envisioned the newer Yardbirds albums as to having no commercial expectations, and even didn't like having existing tracks edited down just for single releases.
Whole Lotta Love was going to be an even heavier release than
Going Down Like a Lead Zeppelin, exhibiting the Yardbirds' evolving style of blues-derived material and their guitar riff-based sound. The title track was partially adapted from Willie Dixon's "You Need Love", of which Muddy Waters recorded as a single in 1962. It was advised to Page that Dixon get songwriting credits as well to avoid a lawsuit, which he agreed to.
 |
| The Yardbirds, 1969. |
Whole Lotta Love was the Yardbirds' first album to reach number one in both the United States and the United Kingdom, and the title track was released as a single, topping at #4 in the
Billboard chart. By the start of 1970, it would have sold a million copies, helping to cement the band's newfound popularity. Whenever they played in concerts, they would sometimes last longer than four hours, largely in part of improvising live versions of some of their tracks.
As their concerts developed the band members' reputation for off-stage excess, some music fans believed that they had joined the battle of the bands that had begun with the Who trying to steal the Rolling Stones' crown as being the bad boys of rock and roll, but Jimmy Page was dismissive of those claims. "The Stones and the Who have their thing, and the Yardbirds have theirs," he said when asked about this so-called battle of the bands in 1971. "Though it doesn't really hurt to have a slice of the action every now and again."
But commercial success does not always translate to critical success; like
Going Down Like a Lead Zeppelin,
Whole Lotta Love was not met with good reviews from critics, with John Mendelsohn of
Rolling Stone being especially harsh. Others even criticized the loss of Keith Relf and Jim McCarty, whilst the latter spoke in defense of the album the week after its release, admitting that "whilst it doesn't have the classic Yardbirds sound, Jimmy and the others know what they're doing."
Still, as time went on,
Whole Lotta Love would be regarded as the quintessential heavy metal album, and would be ranked by
Rolling Stone at #75 for the 500 greatest albums of all time. Artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Alex Lifeson, Freddie Mercury, Steven Tyler, Dave Mustaine, Joey Ramone and Eddie Vedder would cite the album as being influential to their music.
1 June 1969
 |
| David Bowie, 1969. |
David Robert Jones - known to the world as David Bowie - released his first studio album around the same time as the Beatles'
Merseyside. The singles "Rubber Band" and "Love You Till Tuesday" both failed to chart, and his label Deram dropped him in April 1968. For a while, it looked as though Bowie didn't have a big future in music, until a chance encounter with the Rolling Stones.
DAVID BOWIE: "
I went into the Olympic Studios whilst the band were working on a project they had planned on calling Let It Bleed
. Brian wasn't with them cause they were fed up with how unreliable he had become at this point. One of the first songs we did was 'Live with Me', but then I told Mick that I could write songs as well as sing." (2001)[5]
MICK JAGGER: "
It seemed like a bombshell for us; we'd just gotten David Bowie into the group and he came out saying he had songs of his own. After the shock wore off, I said, 'Alright, Dave; let's see what you got.'" (1983)
The first song David Bowie performed for the Rolling Stones was "Space Oddity", with the lyrics of the subject matter inspired from Stanley Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey with the main character being called Major Tom. The Rolling Stones were in awe at the majesty of the recording, and it soon became the title of their next album.
Then there was the matter of what would be on the album; the Jagger/Richards duo had around eight songs written together, whilst Bowie had nine. There were plans to put out a double album, but the idea was nixed and instead, some tracks would be released as non-album B-sides whilst others would be held in reserve for later albums.
2 - 5 July 1969
 |
| Mick Jagger performing with the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park, 5 July 1969. |
Former Rolling Stones member Brian Jones was found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool at the age of 27. An autospy confirmed that his liver and heart had been enlarged by past drug and alcohol abuse, but there were rumors in years to come that Jones had been murdered by construction worker Frank Thorogood, who was the last person to see him alive. However, some have chosen to dismiss the theory, saying Jones died by misadventure.
A few days after Jones' death, the Rolling Stones, with David Bowie, performed their first full concert since 1967 at Hyde Park in London to a crowd of a quarter of a million. The show was dedicated to Jones' memory, and marked the debut of David Bowie as a Rolling Stone, to which his performance of "Space Oddity" was met with applause. Some believed it was written as a tribute to Jones, but Bowie denied those claims, having written the song before Brian Jones' death.
Shortly after Jones' funeral, Mick Jagger flew down to Australia to film his part for the film
Ned Kelly, his first starring role in a feature-length movie, with
Up Against It alongside Ian McKellan as his second. It was during the filming that Jagger composed "Brown Sugar". Despite his absence, the Stones continued the sessions for
Space Oddity, focusing mainly on Bowie's songs.
21 November 1969
The Rolling Stones - Space Oddity
Released: 21 November 1969
Recorded: 16-17 November 1968, 23 February - 2 November 1969
Producer: Jimmy Miller, Tony Visconti
Space Oddity
Gimme Shelter
Honky Tonk Women
Letters to Hermione
Memory of a Free Festival
Let It Bleed
Side B
Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
Sister Morphine
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Cygnet Committee
Space Oddity marked a true departure for the Rolling Stones following the release of
Lazarus of England the year previous. Whilst there was still a heavy emphasis on hard rock and blues, there were also some progressive and psychedelic influences, no doubt due to Bowie's presence.
In July, four months before the album's release, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Honky Tonk Women" were released as a double A-side; whilst the former was almost five minutes long on the album, it was seven-and-a-half minutes in length for the single release, rivaling the Beatles' "Hey Jude" from
Beatles '68.[7]
 |
| David Bowie during the filming for the "Space Oddity" music video, 1969. |
The title track was released as a single in December with "Live with Me" as its B-side, topping the charts in the United Kingdom, and reaching #4 in the United States.[8] "Let It Bleed" was the third single from the album with "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" as the B-side, and although "Gimme Shelter" wasn't released for a single, it still remained one of the Rolling Stones' most popular songs.
Space Oddity reached #1 in the United Kingdom, temporarily dethroning the Beatles'
Get Back for three non-consecutive weeks. It topped at #3 in America, but critical reception was near universally positive, being called their greatest album of the 1960s, and a perfect album to close the decade.
MICK JAGGER: "
Mind you, we still had that issue with the Who trying to beat us at our game, but now we had David Bowie as our secret weapon to put them in their place. They put out Tommy
, and we put out Space Oddity
as a response to them. I think they should've given up right there and then, but they came out with Live at Leeds
in May. It seemed as if they didn't want to give up without a fight, and I don't know if that was brave or foolish of them to do so. Or both." (1997)
Footnotes
- There were rumors about the Beatles appearing at Woodstock, but due to the Beatles hating each other at the time, this did not happen. James Taylor also did not perform at Woodstock despite the invitation, nor did Bob Dylan.
- Adapted from the January 30 rooftop performance with additions. "Come Together", "Old Brown Shoe", "Don't Pass Me By", and "Helter Skelter" were later performed by their respective singers during their solo live performances.
- Tracks are sourced from Past Masters, Let It Be... Naked, Abbey Road, The White Album, and Anthology 3. The closing dialogue from the Anthology 3 version of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" is cut.
- All tracks are sourced from Led Zeppelin II excluding "Your Time is Gonna Come" and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", both sourced from Led Zeppelin I.
- In OTL, Mick Taylor began recording with the Rolling Stones on May 31, 1969 starting with "Live with Me" on the Let It Bleed album. Circumstances would've likely changed with Taylor due to butterflies.
- All of David Bowie's tracks come from his 1969 self-titled album (sometimes referred to as Space Oddity), with "Memory of a Free Festival" edited down to 3:59, per the single release. "Gimme Shelter" and "Let It Bleed" both come from Let It Bleed, "Honky Tonk Women" and the single edit of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" are from GRRR!, and "Sister Morphine" is from Sticky Fingers.
- In OTL, it was the other way around with "You Can't Always Get What You Want" being edited for single release.
- "Space Oddity" topped the charts in 1975, six years after its initial release.
Author's Comments
There's quite a lot to take in, isn't there? The Beatles are now in conflict with each other, mostly due to Paul being pushy, the Yardbirds have lost their founding members, and the Rolling Stones have brought in David Bowie. The latter half of the 1960s have really changed a lot from how they were in OTL; how it will effect the 1970s onwards remains to be seen.
At this point, you'll notice that I haven't put much focus on how Apple Corporation has been faring. Not to worry; the next chapter will serve as a summary as to how it's been going from August 1968 to December 1969. In addition, we'll see the full details as to who became part of the roster.
