George Harrison – Get Back Review

One of The Beatles’ best songs, and George Harrison is the man who gives it a fascinating twist. That’ll be no surprise to longstanding fans of the Fab Four. His desire to innovate and appreciate what The Beatles had at hand is his greatest strength. His rendition of Get Back brings in a sincerity and deeper layer that the catchy, Paul McCartney-led original, has but tucks away. A run-through for Doris Troy, who was recording her self-titled album, is where this Get Back performance comes from. It was meant as a run-through for Troy before she herself covered the song, but the tapes of Harrison presumably offering a guide vocal still exist. He brings a swinging charm to the song, a tone that The Beatles had flirted with as tempo changes and instrumental arrangements were thrown around on Abbey Road and Let It Be. Harrison predicts not his own future works but the mood of the times and how piano and percussion would lead the charge through the 1970s.  

Not as lead players as they are here, but as necessary backing to guitar-led charms. A real thrilling route through the song. Harrison has a hearty voice and there’s a depth here that lets the instrumentals overlap, overtake, and eventually overwhelm his work. He’s more interested in the instrumental additions, and rightly so. A little bit of brass, a tremendous rise of piano throughout this two-minute rendition, it paints a picture of Harrison as an innovator. It’s the same attitude to deconstructing classic tracks that Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello would administer to their own hits, but decades after Harrison had tackled the fundamentals of Get Back. Harrison had such a wonderful vocal style. Hearty, hopeful, and crucially, it sounds as though he’s having a real fun time with Troy and her session players. It’s a far cry from the work with The Beatles at the time.  

Hearing Harrison cut loose on a song which would come to define McCartney is quite a treat. It smacks of irony given how little of Harrison’s material was appreciated by his bandmates at the time, but he was clearly the brains of the instrumental operation. His ability to hear a new and fitting sound for Get Back is a masterstroke. Brief this performance may be, the little flickers of new instrumental life make all the difference. Piano-led and booming on through at times, it’s almost better than the original. We cannot say that it is though given the context of that classic original. Had it been fleshed out and tidied up, then there’s every chance Get Back could’ve been a Harrison classic, piano and all. It’s a refreshing take on a song played into an overplayed place.  

But that’s no fault of Harrison or McCartney. That’s just the general public who have put Get Back on and on, and on again. For those wanting a bit of a palette cleanse from one of The Beatles’ all-time greatest songs, then look no further than this. Like when McCartney performs Something, there’s a new layer to Get Back which is found in instrumental variation and vocal change. The emotion of the times certainly lends itself to the occasion too, with Harrison presiding over a rendition which comes at a time where tensions between The Beatles couldn’t be higher. It’s a full circle moment in that spectacular, Beatles way. McCartney was inspired by Sour Milk Sea, a song Harrison had written and handed off to Jackie Lomax. Harrison influences McCartney, who in turn garners a response from Harrison with this roaringly strong Get Back rendition.