Behind Get Back

Keyboardist and composer Billy Preston has died.



Preston is best known as the musician responsible for the delicious electric piano bits on "Get Back."

News of Preston's death prompted me to rummage through my collection of Beatle bootlegs in search of something semi-rare and interesting that Billy Preston played on.

I found a rehearsal tape of Lennon's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" which Preston actually sings on. It's interesting, but only in the way that Southerners call things interesting when they actually mean to say that they don't like something.

Far more interesting (to me, anyway) is one of the rehearsal recordings of "Get Back" that I found. Recorded before Billy Preston temporarily joined the band, it features Paul McCartney singing about "Pakistanis taking all the people's jobs." Before it was a nonsense song about transexuals in tight sweaters and marijuana, "Get Back" was a nonsense song spoofing nativist, anti-immigrant attitudes.

So here's the barely listenable rehearsal version of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" featuring Billy Preston and John Lennon singing.

And here's the gibberish, "No Pakistanis" version of "Get Back."

Rest in peace, Billy Preston.