Richard Hogan: Why I think Paul McCartney was the father figure of The Beatles

What really strikes me about the Get Back documentary is just how decent a person Paul McCartney is

The Beatles: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison

One of the most magical things about being a parent is watching the formation of a person. The personality taking shape, interests developing. Watching my eldest daughter fall in love with The Beatles has been a joyous experience. Every night, she drifts off into reverie slumbering the sounds of The Beatles into her jaded ears. 

It gives me a great kick to walk past her room and hear, ‘Eleanor Rigby picked up the rice in the church where the wedding has been’ or ‘We all live in a yellow submarine’ spilling through the keyhole. Her first infatuation was the music of ‘Frozen’, in those early days I was Elsa, crown on head under the covers of her bed while she knocked on the bedroom door and sang ‘Elsa, do you want to build a snowman’. 

Take after take I’d have to stay in her bed until she was satisfied we had emulated the scene perfectly. Then she moved onto Michael Jackson, I had to tape her fingers together and buy her a glittering hat, there was a lot of ‘hehe’ and leg kicks around the house, and now, much to my delight, she has landed on the music of the greatest band that has ever tried to capture the human experience in song, The Beatles.

I remember the genesis of my own love affair with John, Paul, George and Ringo nearly 40 years ago. My eldest brother, Cian, had an eclectic taste in music. His room was a repository of all that was great from the 60’s and 70’s. The Beatles, The Stones, Harry Chapin, Simon & Garfunkel, David Bowie, The Doors, Bob Dylan, The Birds, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, he even had some obscure French band in there too called, Telephone. My mother also loved the early Beatles music. Whenever I played ‘a day in the life’ she’d say ‘turn off that rubbish, put on ‘do you want to know a secrete’. That’s the unique thing about The Beatles, you can enjoy them on so many different levels. When I go to the Philippines working with the Badjao tribe, ‘Let it Be’ is a song we all share. A universal song of peace and harmony that Paul McCartney dreamed into life. As you do!

I clearly remember the first time I opened out the sleeve of Sgt Pepper. Eyes drinking in the funeral scene with all those iconic figures around the kaleidoscope image of the fab four. The crackling sound of the LP playing those opening high notes and McCartney introducing his new band. My head was blown off! Reading all the lyrics on the back, has always stayed with me as one of those seminal moments in my life. 

Where my love for the English language was born. Like the first time I read ‘Prufrock’, ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ I just knew my life was never going to be the same. From that moment, The Beatles have been that old cliché, the sound track to my life. They have been with me every step of the way. Every step my wife took up the aisle was to McCartney’s, ‘I will’. 

I have been waiting for the new Peter Jackson project ‘Get Back’ impatiently ever since I first got a little glimpse of it early in lockdown. In today’s world where everything is abbreviated and instantaneous, bite size videos no more than 10 Minutes in length, Jackson is the antidote to it all. He has worked on this project for four years. And the product is one of the greatest insights into the creative process anyone has ever produced. 

There is this moment of magic in the first episode when Paul McCartney arrives early to the studio and starts to fiddle around with his bass. He starts to play it like a guitar, he is hammering on A driving it into D and back again. When he starts to sing the one note in this high falsetto voice that only Paul McCartney can do, it’s hard not to become a screaming fan. 

Myself and Hannah watched this together, ‘oh my god’, Hannah said, ‘that’s Get Back’. Her cry was in response to Paul’s voice moving up two notes into the sixth and seventh pushing for the melody, reaching for something that seems to be hanging in the air, and then out of nowhere, in this beautiful high voice he utters into the universe for the first time, ‘get back to where you once belonged’. 

It’s emotional viewing, no doubt about it. Jackson, has just brought us into the rag and bone shop of the creative process. What really strikes me about this documentary is just how decent a person Paul McCartney is. As a systemic psychotherapist, I’m consumed watching the dynamic between them, the system of The Beatles unit is a fascinating one. 

George Harrison is like the younger brother who isn’t taken so seriously, bringing incredible songs like ‘All things must pass’ only to be rejected. John Lennon, flanked by Yoko sitting on an amp, is more passive than I imagined. Like Achilles during the battle for Troy he seems to be doing his best to show how bored he is with the whole thing. 

Ringo is the glue, bringing them together and McCartney is the father figure attempting to drive the creative forces around him now that Epstein is no longer there to do it for him. How Peter Jackson achieves such clarity from material recorded over 50 years ago is another thing. Another bit of the magic of it all.