Dig It
From BeatlesWiki
"Dig It" is a song by The Beatles featured on their album Let It Be. The 51-second version on the album is an extract taken from a 12-minute jam (recorded at the Get Back/Let It Be Sessions in January 1969 at Apple Studio), which evolved from a loose "Twist And Shout" jam. A segment of the jam session, clocking in at 4:30, appears in the documentary film Let It Be. The participants in that session are John Lennon on vocals and George Harrison on guitar, Paul McCartney on piano, Ringo Starr on drums, and Billy Preston at the organ.
During the jam, Lennon sings the main lyric with interjections from Harrison, while McCartney sings a baritone backup vocal of "dig it up, dig it up, dig it up" and variations. The song was originally named Get Off and it included John and Paul naming off several people, such as: James Brown, Judy Garland, Wilson Pickett, Mal Evans, Eric Griffiths (former Quarry Men member), Ivan Vaughan (a member of The Quarry Men and Paul's friend), Dusty Springfield, Peter Brown (an Apple employee), John Lennon (after getting stuck on coming up with names), Mary Whitehouse, Richard Nixon, Ronnie Corbett, David Frost, Clark Kent (Superman’s alter-ego), Super Ajax (a cleaning product), Sean O’mahony (editor of the Beatles Monthly magazine), Enid Blyton, Bill Harry (editor of Mersey Beat), Norman Rossington, Tony Sheridan, Winston Churchill and Eric Cargo (AKA Eric Clapton).
The 51-second excerpt on the Let It Be album fades in on Lennon's second "Like a rolling stone" and concludes with Lennon speaking in a falsetto: "That was 'Can You Dig It?' by Georgie Wood, and now we'd like to do 'Hark, The Angels Come'." The second sentence of that line is cut off in Let It Be's film recording of the jam session. ("Wee Georgie Wood" was a 4'9" music-hall performer and child star.)
There was only one other performance of the song, this time clocking in at about 6:50, when Lennon sings the "famous persons" part (mentioning "the FBI", "the CIA", "the BBC", "B.B. King", "Doris Day", and "Matt Busby") at the beginning; and during the rest of the song he shouts out the titles of all of the tracks on the Let It Be album.
This song and the 39-second "Maggie Mae" appear on the Let It Be album, but are not included on the Let It Be... Naked album, instead being replaced with "Don't Let Me Down".
"Dig It" is credited to Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey, and is one of only a few songs to be credited to all of the Beatles; the others are "Flying" from Magical Mystery Tour, "Suzy Parker" from the Let It Be film, "12-Bar Original" from Anthology 2 and the Beatles' version of "Free as a Bird".
A live acoustic version appears on John Lennon's 31st Birthday Party bootleg. The bootleg which is included on the Complete Lost Lennon Tapes has guest appearances by Phil Spector and Ringo Starr. The song also incorporates Twist And Shout, Louie Louie and a stronger influence of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone".
Contents |
AKA and Working Titles
- Get Off, working title
Personnel
The Beatles
- Lead Vocals: John Lennon
- Bass: John Lennon
- Backing Vocals: Paul McCartney
- Piano: Paul McCartney
- Backing Vocals: George Harrison
- Lead Guitar: George Harrison
- Drums: Ringo Starr
Guest Musiians
- Organ: Billy Preston
- Percussion: George Martin
Production
- Producer: George Martin
- Engineer: Glyn Johns
Recording Sessions
- August 11, 1969: Recording Session. Songs Recorded: I Want You (She's So Heavy), Oh! Darling, and Here Comes The Sun. →
