The forthcoming Beatles book Get Back contains a conversation between John Lennon and Paul McCartney after George Harrison quit the band on January 10th, 1969 following a tense recording session for the songs "Two of Us" and "Get Back."
Author John Harris, who put together the companion piece to the docuseries of the same name, was provided with hundreds of hours of recordings.
Harris writes in The Guardian: “Lennon, [Yoko] Ono and McCartney had lunch, and recorded a remarkable conversation. On the audio I was given, it began suddenly and unexpectedly."
First Lennon said he would "sacrifice you all for her [Yoko]… She comes everywhere, you know."
Then McCartney asked, "So where’s George?"
Lennon: "[Bleep] knows where George is."
Yoko: "Oh, you can get back George so easily, you know that."
Lennon: "But it’s not that easy because it’s a festering wound…and yesterday we allowed it to go even deeper, and we didn’t give him any bandages."
McCartney: "See, I’m just assuming he’s coming back, you know. I’m assuming he’s coming back."
Lennon: "Well, do you…"
McCartney: "If he isn’t, then he isn’t; then it’s a new problem."
Lennon: "If we want him -- I’m still not sure whether I do want him -- but if we do decide we want him as a policy, I can go along with that because the policy has kept us together."
Harrison returned to the band on January 15th following a five-hour meeting with John, Paul and Ringo.
The conversation was secretly recorded by Let It Be filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who hid a microphone in the studio cafeteria.
In another recording, McCartney is heard talking about Yoko constantly being by John's side. "They’re going overboard about it, but John always does, you know, and Yoko probably always does. So that’s their scene. You can’t go saying: ‘Don’t go overboard about this thing, be sensible about it and don’t bring her to meetings.’ It’s his decision, that. It’s none of our business starting to interfere in that.”
Get Back will be published on October 12th, and Peter Jackson's film will stream on Disney+ on November 25th, 26th and 27th.
Source: TheBeatles.com and Premiere