NAKED–NOT

“It’s not the Beatles playing alone live with no overdubs. That take of ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ is very famous for Lennon flubbing the lyric in the middle. In the film, he sings a gibberish lyric in the middle verse and they just edit that out. So it’s not naked; it’s patched up.


“The original idea was to show them in rehearsal, get them on tape and on film rehearsing songs and then do a live set of songs. It was supposed to be, ‘Look, this is how we sound when we don’t have any fancy studio stuff.’ And now, they’re putting it out and trying to say, ‘Well, this is how we sound with no studio stuff.’ And there’s all kinds of studio stuff on it. …


“Any Beatle fan who knows these tracks will tell you exactly what’s going on. They’re trying to whitewash their legacy. That’s what bothers me. They have a great legacy. There’s no need to whitewash it.”


plus a string of other quotes collected by Ed Masley in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.


Think about it: here was a chance for McCartney and Starr to release GET BACK, use the EMI terrace cover (from the “blue” album compilation), and win all kinds of praise for cunning and ingenuity. These folks used to EXCEL at packaging. Now we get “Fly on the Wall,” which is totally lame on every level, and McCartney talking about overdubs as if they’re a crime. These guys INVENTED overdubs. Hmph.