It was a beautiful thing

And you feel a little melancholy—nothing lasts forever. [READER]( Watching Get Back, the recently released Beatles documentary, was a little like watching a classic sports flick—of which I’ve seen dozens in my life. Some more than once. The season starts with a bunch of malcontents playing poorly. Not united. Individuals, not a team. There’s fighting. Bickering. Guys walking off the field. Threatening to quit.[[Illustration of Ben Joravsky]]( And just when you think all is hopeless, out of nowhere steps an unexpected savior, who turns things around and lifts the team to the top. Think Sunshine—the surfer dude quarterback in Return of the Titans. Perhaps the best sports movie—ever! In Get Back, the role of savior is played by Billy Preston—may he rest in peace—the great keyboard player. Before Billy Preston showed up, the vibes in the recording studio were horrific and the movie seemed endless. That was in the first part of the three-part, six-hour series. If you haven’t seen it, imagine over two hours of things like . . . Ringo drifting off to sleep. George looking resentful. Paul anxious and edgy. And John? My beloved John? My favorite Beatle? He was the worst. Showing up late. Pouting. Sullen. Watching that first episode was so tedious, I started concentrating on oddball details—like their hair. It was unwashed. Really unwashed. You figure, folks as rich as The Beatles could afford a bottle of shampoo. But, nope. Never seen so much unwashed hair. If I had to rank them from best to worst in the category of unwashed hair, it would be . . . George, Paul, Ringo, and John. Yes, John, again—with the greasiest hair. Man, you know things are moving slow when you find yourself ranking the Fab Four by their unwashed hair. And then sometime in the middle of the second episode, Billy Preston stops by the recording studio. Happened to be in London for a TV show. Bumped into George, who invited him to drop by. And so, he did. They asked him to play. He sat at the electric piano and hit a chord and it was like—boom, the room came to life. And John, George, Paul, and Ringo realized their purpose was to make some music, not some noise. And instead of a rag-tag collection of malcontents, they were . . . The Beatles! It was a beautiful thing to watch them jam and write songs in collaboration and crack jokes and huddle in the control room to hear back the great cuts they’d just recorded. And it culminated, of course, with their famous concert on the rooftop. Their last public appearance together. And when that rooftop concert was over, and they’re sitting around the control room one last time, listening to a recording of the concert, it’s like the end of the sports movie, after the big game. You know the great run is over and they’re going to go their separate ways. And you feel a little melancholy—nothing lasts forever. Funny thing is, I’d been complaining that the first episode was too long. And now that the movie was finished, I was sorry it was over. I missed them. All of them. Especially John. Like I said, he was always my favorite. I wish he were still with us—greasy hair and all. [Ben Joravsky [signature]]( [Join us in the spirit of giving this Giving Tuesday!]( goal is to raise $10,000 to keep us free and freaky! Thanks to a generous donor, all donations will be MATCHED dollar-for-dollar—doubling your impact in support of local, independent media. Your support today helps keep the Reader publishing as we shift to a nonprofit newsroom. [Donate today!]( Jews Without Money by Michael Gold—a great novel about poor people on the Lower East Side of New York City at the start of the 20th century [Janaya Greene]( on Tick, Tick . . . Boom! [Ben Joravsky]( on the Rittenhouse verdict [Vincent E. 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