Twickenham rehearsals The Twickenham rehearsals quickly disintegrated into what Apple Corps executive
Peter Brown characterised as a "hostile lethargy". Lennon and his partner
Yoko Ono had descended into
heroin addiction after their arrest on drugs charges in October and Ono's subsequent miscarriage. Unable to supply his quota of new songs for the project, Lennon maintained an icy distance from his bandmates and scorned McCartney's ideas. By contrast, Harrison was inspired by his recent stay in the US; there, he enjoyed jamming with musicians in Los Angeles and experienced a musical camaraderie and creative freedom with
Bob Dylan and
the Band in
upstate New York that was lacking in the Beatles. Harrison presented several new songs for consideration at Twickenham, some of which were dismissed by Lennon and McCartney. McCartney's attempts to focus the band on their objective were construed as overly controlling, particularly by Harrison. The atmosphere in the film studios, the early start each day, and the intrusive cameras and microphones of Lindsay-Hogg's film crew combined to heighten the Beatles' discontent. When the band rehearsed McCartney's "
Two of Us" on 6 January, a tense exchange ensued between McCartney and Harrison about the latter's lead guitar part. During lunch on 10 January, Lennon and Harrison had a heated disagreement in which Harrison berated Lennon for his lack of engagement with the project. Harrison was also angry with Lennon for telling a music journalist that the Beatles' Apple organisation was in financial ruin. According to journalist Michael Housego's report in the
Daily Sketch, Harrison and Lennon's exchange descended into violence with the pair allegedly throwing punches at each other. Harrison denied this in a 16 January interview for the
Daily Express, saying: "There was no punch-up. We just fell out." After lunch on 10 January, Harrison announced that he was leaving the band and told the others, "See you round the clubs."
Apple sessions During a meeting on 15 January, the band agreed to Harrison's terms for returning to the group: they would abandon the plan to stage a public concert and move from the cavernous soundstage at Twickenham to their
Apple Studio, where they would be filmed recording a new album, using the material they had gathered to that point. He recalled that on 30 January, they had discussed it and then gone silent, until "John said in the silence, 'Fuck it – let's go do it. The four Beatles and Preston arrived on the roof at around 12:30 pm. When they began to play, there was confusion nearby among members of the public, many of whom were on their lunch break. As the news of the event spread, crowds began to congregate in the streets and on the flat rooftops of nearby buildings. Police officers ascended to the roof just as the Beatles began the second take of "Don't Let Me Down". The concert came to an end with the conclusion of "Get Back". Recording of the project (and filming) wrapped on 31 January.
Get Back mixes '' In early March, Lennon and McCartney called Johns to Abbey Road and offered him free rein to compile an album from the
Get Back recordings. Johns booked time at
Olympic Studios between 10 March and 28 May to mix the album and completed the final banded master tape on 28 May. Only one track, "One After 909", was taken from the rooftop concert, with "
I've Got a Feeling" and "
Dig a Pony" (then called "All I Want Is You") being studio recordings instead. Johns also favoured earlier, rougher versions of "Two of Us" and "
The Long and Winding Road" over the more polished performances from the final, 31 January session (which were eventually chosen for the
Let It Be film; the
Let It Be album used the 31 January take of "Two of Us" but the same 26 January take of "The Long and Winding Road" that Johns had used). It also included a
jam called "Rocker", a brief rendition of
the Drifters' "
Save the Last Dance for Me", Lennon's "
Don't Let Me Down" and a four-minute edit of "
Dig It". A tape copy of this acetate would later make its way to the United States, where it was played on radio stations in
Buffalo and
Boston over September 1969. The cover of the proposed album featured a photograph of the Beatles taken by
Angus McBean on 13 May in the interior stairwell at
EMI's
Manchester Square headquarters. The photo was intended as an update of the group's
Please Please Me cover image from 1963 and was particularly favoured by Lennon. The text design and placement similarly mirrored that of the 1963 LP sleeve. A different photograph from this shoot was later used for the cover of the
1967–1970 compilation album. The sequencing of "One After 909", a Lennon–McCartney composition from the early 1960s, as the opening track furthered the back-to-the-roots aesthetic. The Beatles rejected the album. The
Get Back album was intended for release in July 1969, but its release was pushed back to September to coincide with the planned television special and the theatrical film about the making of the album. In September, the release was pushed back to December, because the Beatles had just recorded
Abbey Road and wanted to issue that album instead. On 20 September, six days before
Abbey Road was released, Lennon told McCartney, Starr, and business manager
Allen Klein (Harrison was not present) that he "wanted a divorce" from the group. By December, the
Get Back album had been shelved. On 15 December, the Beatles again approached Johns to compile an album, but this time with the instruction that the songs must match those included in the as yet unreleased
Get Back film. Between 15 December 1969 and 8 January 1970, new mixes were prepared. Johns's new mix omitted "
Teddy Boy" as the song did not appear in the film. It added "
Across the Universe" (a
remix of the 1968 studio version, as the January 1969 rehearsals had not been properly recorded) and "
I Me Mine", on which only Harrison, McCartney and Starr performed, as Lennon had already left the band. "I Me Mine" was newly recorded on 3 January 1970, as it appeared in the film since no multi-track recording had yet been made. Johns also rearranged the playlist, moving "
Let It Be" away from "
The Long and Winding Road" onto the first side. The Beatles once again rejected the album.
Final mixing Producer
Phil Spector was invited by Lennon and Harrison to take on the task of turning the Beatles' abandoned
Get Back recording sessions into a usable album. The songs "
Get Back" and "
Don't Let Me Down" had been released on a single in April 1969 and "Let It Be" was the A-side of the band's March 1970 single. To coincide with the single, the project was renamed
Let It Be.
The film, now with the new title, was premiered in New York City on 13 May 1970. One week later, UK premieres were held at the
Liverpool Gaumont Cinema and the
London Pavilion. None of the Beatles attended any of the premieres. For the soundtrack album, Spector chose three tracks recorded live from the rooftop performance: "I've Got a Feeling", "One After 909" and "Dig a Pony". "Two of Us" was recorded "live in the studio" with the band members playing together in a single take, and without overdubs or splicing. Spector included "
Dig It" and "
Maggie Mae", which were improvised during the recordings. "Get Back", on the other hand, included only the section recorded on 27 January 1969, without the coda recorded the next day, and cross-faded to the remarks at the end of the rooftop concert. Seven of the tracks were thereby released in accordance with the original plans for the
Get Back project, whereas the album versions of "
For You Blue", "I Me Mine", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" include editing, splicing and/or overdubs. "Don't Let Me Down", recorded live in the studio two days before the rooftop concert, was omitted from the album. "Across the Universe" is an edited version of the original 1968 recording, played back at a slower speed (which lowered the
key from
D to
D♭), which had only been rehearsed at Twickenham and not professionally recorded on multi-track tape during the January 1969 sessions. McCartney was dissatisfied with Spector's treatment of some songs, particularly "The Long and Winding Road". McCartney had conceived of the song as a simple piano ballad, but Spector dubbed in orchestral and choral accompaniment. Lennon defended Spector's work in his "
Lennon Remembers" interview for
Rolling Stone, saying, "He was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit – and with a lousy feeling to it – ever. And he made something out of it. He did a great job. When I heard it, I didn't puke." Lennon chose not to credit Johns for his contribution as a producer. When EMI informed Martin that he would not get a production credit because Spector produced the final version, Martin commented, "I produced the original, and what you should do is have a credit saying 'Produced by George Martin, over-produced by Phil Spector'." ==Packaging==