Art for Art’s Sake

January 30, 1969 – The Last Moment on the Roof: When The Beatles Played “Get Back” Like the World Didn’t Exist It was a freezing lunchtime on January 30, 1969. A bitter wind cut across the rooftop of 3 Savile Row in London. Four guys from Liverpool walked out, plugged in, and the first notes of “Get Back” spilled down into the street below. No big stage. No lights. No tickets. Just them, the January cold, and a very Beatles decision: screw the hesitation—let’s just do it. This wasn’t a normal concert. It was the last time The Beatles would ever play live in public. And none of them knew it at the time. They hadn’t performed live in almost three years. The Get Back project (which later became Let It Be) was stuck. They needed an ending for the film they were shooting. The original ideas were wilder: the Sahara Desert, an ancient amphitheater in Tunisia, the QE2 ocean liner, the Roundhouse… But time was running out. On January 26, someone (probably Paul) suggested the simplest option: “Let’s just go up on the roof.” Close. Easy. And no one had ever done it before. Right before they were supposed to start, everything almost fell apart. George was still reluctant. Ringo was complaining about the cold. The four of them stood in a small room under the stairs leading to the roof, tension thick in the air. Then John Lennon simply said, “Let’s do it.” And they walked out. The cold that day was brutal. John wore Yoko’s fur coat. Ringo put on his wife Maureen’s red raincoat. Between songs, someone kept lighting cigarettes and holding them out so George could warm his fingers. Sound engineer Alan Parsons had to run to a department store and buy women’s pantyhose to wrap around the microphones to block the wind. The salesclerk looked at him like he was either about to rob the place or try on the merchandise himself. The truck carrying the gear from EMI got pulled over by police who thought the equipment was for a burglary. It took a long explanation before they were allowed to continue. They played for exactly 42 minutes. Nine takes of five songs. “Get Back” got the most plays. During “Dig a Pony,” John forgot the lyrics and had an assistant kneel down holding up cue cards. When the police finally came up because of noise complaints from the neighboring businesses (especially the tailors and the bank across the street), Paul ad-libbed new lines into “Get Back” on the spot...