Sunday, January 26, 1969
Get Back sessions • Day 17
For The Beatles
Last updated on January 22, 2025
Sunday, January 26, 1969
For The Beatles
Last updated on January 22, 2025
The "Get Back / Let It Be" sessions
January 1969 • Songs recorded during this session appear on Let It Be (Limited Edition)
Recording studio: Apple Studios, 3 Savile Row, London
Session January 24 & January 26, 1969 • Mixing the "Get Back" album (1st compilation)
Session Jan 25, 1969 • Get Back sessions • Day 16
Session Jan 26, 1969 • Get Back sessions • Day 17
Article Jan 27, 1969 • Allen Klein meets with John Lennon
AlbumSome of the songs worked on during this session were first released on the "Let It Be (Limited Edition)" LP
By The Beatles
On this Sunday, The Beatles continued their “Get Back” sessions at Apple Studios in London, marking the sixth day at their new studio and the 17th day overall for the project. This was also the first time in nearly a year that they worked through both days of a weekend.
The previous day, they had come up with the idea to perform on the rooftop of the Apple building (tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, 29) and use the live performance as the climax of the future film to be directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, documenting the sessions.
The decision to work on a Sunday was driven largely by practical considerations. Ringo Starr was due to start filming The Magic Christian in just eight days, Glyn Johns was leaving for his honeymoon the following Thursday, and only a few songs were ready for recording.
George Harrison and Ringo were the first to arrive at the session. George played a few of his own compositions on acoustic guitar, including “Isn’t It A Pity,” “Let It Down,” and the unreleased “Window, Window.” He also worked with Ringo on developing “Octopus’s Garden.”
Paul McCartney’s girlfriend, Linda Eastman, and her six-year-old daughter, Heather, were present in the studio, and Billy Preston rejoined the band after being absent for the past two days.
The focus of the day was primarily on two of Paul’s songs: “Let It Be” and “The Long And Winding Road.” By the end of the session, they had recorded the best take of “Let It Be” up to that point. A version of “The Long And Winding Road” recorded this day was later included on “Anthology 3” in 1996, and served as the basic track for the version released on the “Let It Be” album.
In between rehearsals and recording these two tracks, the band also recorded several energetic oldies and a 12-minute jam of “Dig It,” a 50-second snippet of which was included on the “Let It Be” album. Cover versions of “Rip It Up,” “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” were released as a medley on “Anthology 3“.
About the “Let It Be” takes recorded on this day, from beatlesebooks.com:
Billy Preston was due to be present for the next day’s rehearsal, January 26th, 1969 in their basement studio at Apple Headquarters, as was Linda Eastman and her daughter Heather, the youngster actually playing hi-hat with Ringo during rehearsals for the song “Let It Be” on this day. Paul was enthusiastic about seeing how Billy’s Hammond organ contributions to “Let It Be” would work with The Beatles’ performance but, since he was late in arriving, George Martin filled in on organ for the taped rehearsals on this day. “It’s very country and western in a way,” George Martin commented, which prompted John to exclaim, “Country and gospel, it is.” When listening to a playback of a take in their control room, as seen in Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” series, John suggests, “Do that old gospel ending,” to which George humorously counters, “We’ll all kneel as we do it.“
They still began each rendition with “the F bit” heard after the second chorus, deciding to repeat it twice on this day. Another refinement was instituted just before “take ten” on this day at George Harrison’s suggestion, “Maybe just have one chorus on the first time and two choruses on the second time,” Paul replying, “Ok, I think that’s good.” As heard in various Anniversary editions of the “Let It Be” album, Paul sings and plays a bit of “Please Please Me” on piano before starting off “take ten,” John exclaiming, “That was daft, y’know!” When Paul kept delaying, John once again humorously complained, “C’mon, I only get two notes in this song!” The performance of “Let It Be” comes across well, George Martin’s organ part being quite rudimentary probably due to his not having played it before this day.
One thing noticeable on this and all of the 28 rehearsals of the song on this day was the fact that Paul still hadn’t written the lyrics to the final set of verses. After listening to a playback of a recording from the day before he stated, “I’ll have to think of some more words. But that’s all right, because if I do think of the right words then it’ll tie it up.” This led to amusing vocal ad libs, such as “You will be a good girl, let it be / and though you may be told off, you will still be able to see / that there must be an answer, let it be.”
While Paul is instructing Ringo to “play it lighter” during the song’s conclusion, George adlibs a third verse singing, “Somewhere in the heaven there he sees a man call Babragi / singing words of wisdom, let it be.” This is immediately followed by John singing, “Somewhere out in Weybridge there’s a cat who’s name is Pavagi / singing words of wisdom, let it B, H, I, J, K.” Paul later repeats John’s lyric but changes the cat’s name to “Banagy,” continuing, “there will be the answer, let it be / and in my darkest hour, she is…,” George then interrupting with “…sitting on the lavatory,” causing John to repeat the phrase while laughing. Once Billy Preston arrived, Paul asked him to play “the F bit” like Bach. After his demonstration impressed everyone, Paul retorted, “Oh, look, that’s all right. That’ll do!“
From beatlesebooks.com
About “The Long And Winding Road” takes recorded on this day, from beatlesebooks.com:
The day that The Beatles first seriously worked on “The Long And Winding Road” was January 26th, 1969, at Apple Studios. With the rock-and-roll songs pretty much perfected, Paul thought to focus on the ballads he had been working on, including the song “Let It Be.” With all of the lyrics as we know them finally in place, sixteen rehearsals of “The Long And Winding Road” took place on this day, all with Paul on piano, George on his Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar run through a Leslie speaker, John on Fender Bass VI, Ringo on drums and Billy Preston on electric piano. Over an hour of attention was given to this song at this session. It took some time for Paul to explain the syncopated beats he wanted in the second measure of each verse, Ringo and George habitually coming back in too early. “No, no, you’ve got to wait a lot longer than that,” Paul instructs, “’cause if you syncopate it, it’s like double syncopation.“
Since they all were just getting acquainted with the chords and starting to work out an arrangement, many of these performances were quite dreadful. John in particular was having a hard time playing bass, which is not his usual instrument. Since their determination was to perform all of the songs in this project without overdubs and Paul was on piano on this occasion, John needed to play bass this time around. Paul even felt the need to call out chords and sing “bomm, bomm, bomm” at times to demonstrate vocally to John what he needed to play. John was not happy to learn that the song was in E flat major and that a capo wouldn’t fit on the Fender VI bass he was using. “E flat? F*cking hell! All right. I’ll just have to go hysterical,” he joked.
At one point, Paul had to instruct John not to play too many notes but only play on chord changes. Lennon did eventually fall upon the habit of pulling up the note on the neck of his bass in measures 6 and 8 of each verse as well as during the conclusion of the song, something he decided to stick with for the remainder of the month. In order to dispel some of the tension in learning the song, they delved into a cha-cha Latin-influenced version that lasted around one-and-a-half minutes, a portion of this being featured in the “Let It Be” movie and Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” documentary series. Paul calls this to a halt with the words, “All right lads, that’s enough! We could go on all bloody day!”
After this, John begins to get the feel for the song on bass, although he appears to be mimicking Paul’s vocal work. Paul, however, begins to get punchy, purposely goofing around on vocals by incorporating silly voices. After McCartney gives some instructions to Ringo on how he wants him to tinkle around on the cymbals during the verses, which we witness Ringo demonstrating in Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” series, the drummer leans back at his drums and falls asleep as the others continue rehearsing the song. “There wouldn’t be much drumming, would there?”, Paul responds. The laid-back feel of the drum-less song prompts McCartney to state, “It sounds a bit like a, sort of, dance orchestra,” and as the song continues, he announces, “…and that slow foxtrot by Rita and Thomas Williams!” John chimes in with, “Peter is wearing a dark sombrero and a beard,” to which Paul adds, “the husband is wearing a crimling skirt which he made himself!“
While Ringo was still sleeping, George Martin inquired why George Harrison’s guitar was not being heard very well and if he was playing the proper chords to the song. He said the chords were probably not correct because he couldn’t hear himself. Assistant Mal Evans then brought over a pick-up which would be attached to the body of the guitar to boost the volume. Before it can be attached, George holds the pick-up to his neck and pokes fun at the song by singing Paul’s melody line with exagerated vibrato, which makes George Martin explode with laughter.
After Ringo wakes up, Paul instructs producer Glyn Johns to properly record the song. Following a couple of false starts, one of which has the producer interrupting the beginning of a take to which Paul sings, “The long and winding road / yes, Glyn Johns? / what do you want?” they put in a near perfect performance with Linda Eastman and her daughter Heather looking on.
From beatlesebooks.com
After recording the last take of “The Long and Winding Road,” The Beatles gathered in the control room of the studio to listen to it. An interesting exchange ensued when Paul McCartney mentioned that he was considering adding strings to the track. This conversation is notable for two reasons. First, the “Get Back” sessions had been conceived so far with a strict “no overdubs” rule in mind. Second, when Phil Spector was asked to produce an album from the “Get Back” sessions in 1970, he chose to add strings to “The Long and Winding Road.” This decision caused the ire of Paul, upon hearing Spector’s version of the track:
George Martin: Paul’s thinking of having strings anyway.
George Harrison: Paul, are you gonna have strings?
Paul McCartney: Dunno
George Martin: George was saying that the piano and the electric piano tends to be doing the same thing.
Paul McCartney: Yeah.
George Harrison: Well, it’s like – There’s only parts where you can hear the electric piano properly, or the piano properly.
Paul McCartney: Yes.
George Harrison: Most of the time, you know, like, they mix together.
George Martin: Like your Leslie guitar contributes too. I mean, it is a bit in the same range as the electric piano with that vibrato on.
Paul McCartney: Yeah. I think it needs, like, a lot of, uh…
Ringo Starr: Cleaning.
Paul McCartney: Cleaning, yeah.
George Martin: Actually, the thing is, it’s a nice feel to it, but it’s rather like everything else we’ve done. And this particular song doesn’t need that. It needs something a little more clinical.
Paul McCartney: See, the only way I’ve ever heard it is, like, in my head, is, like, Ray Charles’s band. I haven’t really even listened to them.
George Harrison: It would be nice with some brass just doing the sustaining chord thing.
Paul McCartney: Yeah.
George Martin: It’s hardly Beatles mode… […]
Paul McCartney: We were planning to do it anyway for a couple of numbers, just to have a bit of brass and bit of strings.
From Peter Jackson’s film “The Beatles: Get Back“, 2021
The performances are sequentially numbered using the nomenclature from the book "Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image" by Doug Sulpy. DDSI 2.01 is, for example, the first performance from January 2nd, while DDSI 31.65 is the sixty-fifth performance from January 31st. This numbering is at times different from the DDSI numbers used on the bootleg collection "A/B Road Complete Get Back Sessions", likely because "Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image" was updated since the release of this collection.
Isn't It A Pity
Recording • DDSI.26.01 • 2:34
Performed by : George Harrison
Window, Window
Recording • DDSI.26.02 • 2:26
Performed by : George Harrison
Let It Down
Recording • DDSI.26.03 • 1:16
Performed by : George Harrison
Let It Down
Recording • DDSI.26.04 • 0:47
Performed by : George Harrison
Octopus's Garden
Recording • DDSI.26.05 • 10:07
Performed by : Ringo Starr • George Harrison
Octopus's Garden
Recording • DDSI.26.06 • 1:46
Performed by : Ringo Starr • George Harrison
Octopus's Garden
Recording • DDSI.26.07 • 0:59
Performed by : Ringo Starr • George Harrison
Octopus's Garden
Recording • DDSI.26.08 • 1:56
Performed by : Ringo Starr • George Harrison
Unknown
Recording • DDSI.26.09 • 0:37
Written by Ringo Starr
Recording • DDSI.26.10 • 4:03
"Little Piece Of Leather"
Recording • DDSI.26.11 • 0:31
Performed by : John Lennon
Recording • DDSI.26.12 • 1:04
Recording • DDSI.26.13 • 0:34
Written by Ringo Starr
Recording • DDSI.26.14 • 1:16
Written by Ringo Starr
Recording • DDSI.26.15 • 1:41
Written by Ringo Starr
Recording • DDSI.26.16 • 9:00
Written by Ringo Starr
Recording • DDSI.26.17 • 2:31
Recording • DDSI.26.18 • 3:46
"It Was So Blue"
Recording • DDSI.26.19 • 0:41
Performed by : Paul McCartney
Written by Jerry Lee Lewis, Ron Hargrave
Recording • DDSI.26.20 • 1:20
Performed by : Paul McCartney
Written by Otis Blackwell, Jack Hammer
Recording • DDSI.26.21 • 2:23
Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying
Written by Joe Greene
Recording • DDSI.26.22 • 2:41
Recording • DDSI.26.23 • 0:20
"I Left My Home In The World"
Recording • DDSI.26.24 • 0:30 • Blues improvisation by Paul
Performed by : Paul McCartney
"I Left My Home In The World"
Recording • DDSI.26.25 • 1:18 • Blues improvisation by Paul
Recording • DDSI.26.26 • 13:37
Improvisation
Recording • DDSI.26.27 • 0:30
Performed by : Paul McCartney • Billy Preston
Written by Paul McCartney
Recording • DDSI.26.28 • 0:47
Paul McCartney : Piano, VocalsPerformed by : John Lennon
Recording • DDSI.26.29 • 0:58
Recording • DDSI.26.30 • 2:26
Recording • DDSI.26.31 • 1:12
Recording • DDSI.26.32 • 2:03
Recording • DDSI.26.33 • 1:42
Recording • DDSI.26.34 • 3:27
Recording • DDSI.26.35 • 2:35
Recording • DDSI.26.36 • 1:49
Recording • DDSI.26.37 • 4:32
Recording • DDSI.26.38 • 4:11
Recording • DDSI.26.39 • 1:33
Recording • DDSI.26.40 • 1:23
Improvisation
Recording • DDSI.26.41 • 1:04
Recording • DDSI.26.42 • 1:06
Recording • DDSI.26.43 • 3:59
Recording • DDSI.26.44 • 1:56
Recording • DDSI.26.45 • 1:40
Recording • DDSI.26.46 • 1:20
Recording • DDSI.26.47 • 2:40
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
Recording • DDSI.26.48 • 1:23
Performed by : John Lennon
Recording • DDSI.26.49 • 0:54
Written by Smokey Robinson
Recording • DDSI.26.50 • 0:22
Recording • DDSI.26.51 • 0:09
Recording • DDSI.26.52 • 3:55
Written by Bob Dylan
Recording • DDSI.26.53 • 1:57
Performed by : Paul McCartney • John Lennon
Written by Phil Medley, Bert Russell
Recording • DDSI.26.54 • 1:42
Written by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, George Harrison
Recording • DDSI.26.55 • 11:58 • A 50-second long snippet of the "Dig It" jam was issued on the "Let It Be" album
AlbumOfficially released on Let It Be (Limited Edition)
Written by Robert Blackwell, John Marascalco
Recording • DDSI.26.56 • 2:47
AlbumOfficially released on Anthology 3
Written by Charles E. Calhoun
Recording • DDSI.26.57 • 1:45
Film Included in Peter Jackson's film "The Beatles: Get Back", 2021
AlbumOfficially released on Anthology 3
Written by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller
Recording • DDSI.26.58 • 4:08
Film Included in Peter Jackson's film "The Beatles: Get Back", 2021
Written by Richard Penniman / Little Richard, Enotris Johnson
Recording • DDSI.26.58 • 4:08
Film Included in Peter Jackson's film "The Beatles: Get Back", 2021
Written by Lloyd Price
Recording • DDSI.26.58 • 4:08
Written by Carl Perkins
Recording • DDSI.26.59 • 2:16
Film Included in Peter Jackson's film "The Beatles: Get Back", 2021
AlbumOfficially released on Anthology 3
Written by Smokey Robinson
Recording • DDSI.26.60 • 3:55
The Tracks Of My Tears
Recording • DDSI.26.61 • 2:40
Performed by : John Lennon • George Harrison • Billy Preston
Agent Double-O-Soul
Recording • DDSI.26.62 • 2:23
Performed by : George Harrison • Billy Preston
SOS
Recording • DDSI.26.63 • 1:54
Performed by : John Lennon • George Harrison • Billy Preston
Rockin Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu
Recording • DDSI.26.64 • 0:38
Daddy Rollin’ Stone
Recording • DDSI.26.65 • 2:48
Performed by : John Lennon • George Harrison • Billy Preston
Improvisation
Recording • DDSI.26.66 • 1:21
Improvisation
Recording • DDSI.26.67 • 16:48
Improvisation
Recording • DDSI.26.68 • 3:52
Improvisation
Recording • DDSI.26.69 • 3:44
Recording • DDSI.26.70 • 1:13
Recording • DDSI.26.71 • 4:01
Recording • DDSI.26.72 • 5:38
Recording • DDSI.26.73 • 2:20
Recording • DDSI.26.74 • 4:13
Recording • DDSI.26.75 • 0:22
Little Yellow Pills
Recording • DDSI.26.76 • 3:29
Performed by : George Harrison
Written by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, George Harrison, Billy Preston
Recording • DDSI.26.77 • 11:36
Written by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, George Harrison, Billy Preston
Recording • DDSI.26.78 • 2:12
Written by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, George Harrison, Billy Preston
Recording • DDSI.26.79 • 12:37
Recording • DDSI.26.80 • 10:26
Recording • DDSI.26.81 • 4:40
Recording • DDSI.26.82 • 3:40
Recording • DDSI.26.83 • 1:46
Recording • DDSI.26.84 • 7:28
Recording • DDSI.26.85 • 5:15
Recording • DDSI.26.86 • 5:13
Recording • DDSI.26.87 • 4:16
Recording • DDSI.26.88 • 20:16
Recording • DDSI.26.89 • 9:02
Recording • DDSI.26.90 • 11:02
Recording • DDSI.26.91 • 4:46 • This version of “The Long And Winding Road” recorded this day was later included on “Anthology 3” in 1996, and served as the basic track for the version released on the “Let It Be” album.
AlbumOfficially released on Anthology 3
Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image - The Complete, Unauthorized Story of The Beatles' 'Get Back' Sessions
The definitive guide to the Get Back sessions, released in 1994 and updated in 2007. In the author's own words:
New, completely revised edition! This new volume isn t just a compilation of material from the 1994 book Drugs, Divorce and a Slipping Image (also later published as 'Get Back') and 'The 910's Guide To The Beatles Outtakes Part Two: The Complete Get Back Sessions' (2001). I've re-listened to the entire canon of available Get Back session tapes, come up with a bunch of new conclusions (and even a handful of new identifications!), and pretty much re-written half the book from scratch. In addition, great effort has been made to improve readability of the book. Songs have now been put into groups (generally by Nagra reel, or series of them), rather than describing each performance separately, as was done in the original. In every way, this is the book we wished we could have written in 1994.
As the paperback version is out of print, you can buy a PDF version on the author's website
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