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played that second day was staggering, considering how long it had been since its early days when some of the songs would have been part of its live stage show. The group ran through ragged versions of songs that were either written or recorded by Carl Perkins, the Coasters, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Larry Willams, Leadbelly, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. In addition, they continued working on “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Two of Us.” They also worked on George’s “All Things Must Pass” and resurrected “One After 909.”
    “One After 909,” written by John sometime in 1957, was one of the earliest original compositions written by John and/or Paul and was performed by John’s first group, the Quarry Men, in 1957. The song was one of many that John and/or Paul composed at Paul’s Liverpool home on 20 Forthlin Road, where the McCartney family lived from 1955 until 1964. The two wrote many songs around Paul’s father’s piano in the small front parlor. Songs written there, but not recorded untilmuch later, included “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Love Me Do,” and even “When I’m 64.”
    The Quarry Men continued to play “One After 909” live, and it later comprised part of the Beatles’ live set. It was performed every year continuously from 1957 until as late as 1962. The Beatles attempted to record it in March of 1963 at an Abbey Road session that produced “From Me To You” and “Thank You Girl.” Five takes of the song were done at that session and part of one of them and the final two takes were edited together and included on the Beatles’ first
Anthology
release.
    During the second day of rehearsals at Twickenham, two songs from
The White Album,
“I’m So Tired” and “Ob La Di, Ob La Da,” were performed. The group also reached back to “You Can’t Do That.” Another future
Abbey Road
number, “I Want You,” was also done that day.
    “Let It Be,” although written by Paul during the sessions for
The White Album
and played by him between takes at that time, was debuted on the second day at Twickenham. It is ironic and perhaps fitting that “Get Back” was the initial name of what would become
Let It Be.
“Get Back” suggested a fresh start for the group, while “Let It Be” was a hymn for finding a way to deal with a difficult situation. The song, one of Paul’sgreatest moments, simultaneously reflects his reluctance to watch his beloved group end and his subconscious awareness that eventually it would have to. The imagery of his mother, whom he lost when he was 14 years old, coming to him and offering him hope, solace, and advice, is both heartbreaking and comforting.
    The second day of rehearsals was also notable for seeing the beginnings of the song that gave the project its initial name: “Get Back.” In many ways, as we shall soon see, the song began its musical life in one way and its lyrical life in another. At one point Paul played a snippet of the song “Going Up the Country,” a big hit at the time by the American blues and boogie band Canned Heat. George then retorted with Canned Heat’s other big song of the time, “On The Road Again.” The sound of the two songs clearly influenced the musical direction of “Get Back.”
    Days later, on January 7, Paul played a little more than a minute of an instrumental that bore a strong relationship to a hit at the time by Lulu entitled “I’m A Tiger,” which had some of the chugging, rollicking feel of what would become “Get Back.” Two days after that, the song finally began to take shape as the group ran through five consecutive versions of it. The first, which added even further influences to the song, bore a strong musical relationship to George Harrison’s “Sour Milk Sea,” which George had recently produced for theJackie Lomax album. Lyrically, all that Paul had at that point was the chorus “Get Back,” which he sang over and over again. The next version introduced some of