[This contains spoilers, in the sense that I talk about stuff that happens in the Get Back documentary. I don’t think this takes away from the fun of actually watching it as there is no “story” to spoil. Yet if you want to freshly encounter everything on your viewing, be warned.]

Everything about the story of The Beatles is legendary. Their early days playing dive bars in Liverpool and Hamburg, their meteoric rise to fame and frenzied arrival in America. Their record breaking concerts, their extraordinary studio creativity. Even the members themselves stand like caricatures in our cultural imagination: John Lennon, the peace loving hippie with a piercing wit who also battled personal demons that haunt him and his public perception. Paul McCartney, the eternal optimist, the people pleaser, the only one who wanted to be a star, and probably one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century. George Harrison, the sensitive one, drawn to spirituality and displaying a wry aloofness. Ringo Starr, the goofy everyman, along for the ride and loving every minute of it. Oftentimes these personas obscure the fact that The Beatles were actually people, living their lives one day at a time, with all the tedious minutiae that entails. We fans have read about events and moments in their career again and again, always yearning to be a fly on the wall, or to just be able to hang out with the band for one day in the studio.