Get Back Session - January 10, 1969

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Event
Date January 10, 1969
Short description Get Back Session. George quits The Beatles.
Location Twickenham Film Studios

Seventh "Get Back" session. During the rehearsals, George quits the band. Several reasons could be possible. It is known that he was getting fed up with Yoko, and with John and Paul usually having more say in the band than him, he was now fourth in charge, now behind Yoko. After he ate lunch, he announced that he was immediately leaving the group, and suggested taking out an ad for his replacement in New Musical Express (NME). George came up to John while he was playing Chuck Berry's Talkin' Bout You and said "I'm Leaving The Band Now." John asked "When?," to which George replied "Now." George shouted "See you 'round the clubs" as he walked out. He then went to his mom's house and wrote Wah-Wah, which went on his 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass. Interestingly enough, although most material recorded during the Get Back rehearsals are available via bootleg, the exact moment where George quits is missing from the circulating tapes. After George left, John and Paul kept rehearsing, playing A Quick One, While He's Away. In this rehearsal, John sarcastically asks George to take the solo. After that, they played a long, angry jam, featuring Ringo banging on his drums and Yoko wailing. The jam lasted more than ten minutes. Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg described the jam as "weird, angry, brutal and passionate." George later said, "There’s a scene in the film where Paul and I are having an argument… and we’re trying to cover it up. Then the next scene I’m not there, and Yoko’s just screaming, doing her screeching number. Well, that’s where I’d left, and I went home and wrote Wah-Wah. It’d given me a wah-wah, like I had such a headache with that whole argument, it was such a headache…" Back at Twickenham, The Beatles discussed the live show some more. Paul suggested that they play in the mouth of a volcano. Then Lindsay-Hogg asked what they would do if George didn't come back. Jokingly, John replied, "We’ll split his instruments." He then suggested "if he doesn’t come back by Tuesday, then we’ll get Eric Clapton to play with us. If he leaves, do we want to carry on? I do. We’ll just get other members… We should just carry on as if nothing’s happened." Paul then joked to Maureen Starkey, Ringo's wife, that if she could learn three chords by the weekend, she was in the band.

[edit] Recorded On This Date

All of the below recordings are available on bootlegs.

[edit] Source

  • [1]
  • [2] See 'honorable mention' section.
  • [3]
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