Forty year ago today(30th May) Liverpool rocked to the sound of Get Back, later to become the closing track of Let It Be (1970), which was The Beatles' last album released before the group formally split.

 

Written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon/McCartney, it was originally credited to The Beatles with Billy Preston.

 

It was The Beatles' only single that credited another artist (Preston), although Tony Sheridan had shared billing with The Beatles on his own single My Bonnie.

 

The song's melody grew out of some unstructured jamming on January 7, 1969 during rehearsal sessions on the sound stage at Twickenham Studios. Over the next few minutes McCartney introduced some of the lyrics, reworking "Get back to the place you should be" from George Harrison's Sour Milk Sea into "Get back to where you once belonged."

 

On April 11, 1969, Apple Records released Get Back as a single in the United Kingdom, paired with Don't Let Me Down on the B-Side. The single went straight to number one and stayed for six weeks, making it the only Beatles single to enter the UK charts at number one.

 

When Phil Spector came to remix Get Back for Let It Be, he decided to make it seem different from the version released as the single.

 

He included part of the studio chatter recorded immediately before the master take (recorded on January 27) and added the close of the rooftop performance. This made the album version appear to be a live version.

 

Source: Liverpool Echo

 

I always thought it was strange that only this one song had a joint credit with Billy Preston. Why this one, and why did they not work with other artists back then. On reflection, however I am actually surprised they gave him joint credit, after all they were the Beatles.

I always thought Get Back was originally written by Paul as a pastiche of Alf Garnett's character in Till Death Us Do Part (titled "Pakistani's") which upon sensible reflection, he quickly wrote some alternative lyrics to.

 

As for Billy Preston my favourite track of his was this:

 

Billy Preston - Will It Go Round In Circles (1973 USA#1)