In much the same way David Lynch gave us way more Twin Peaks than we’d ever hoped for in 2017, Peter Jack­son and the Bea­t­les are giv­ing us noth­ing like the lit­tle seen and quick­ly shelved Let It Be doc­u­men­tary from 1970, but a full six hours of the final musi­cal works of the Bea­t­les. Pre­mier­ing on Dis­ney Plus (yes, I know, you got­ta pay mon­ey to the Mouse) over three days after Thanks­giv­ing, this six-hour series is the big one fans of the var­i­ous remas­ters, repack­ages, and remix­es have been wait­ing for.

The Get Back ses­sions have long been a sour note in a career that was most­ly joy­ous. Appear­ing over and over again in boot­leg form, the var­i­ous jam ses­sions, cov­er ver­sions, and rehearsals through the songs that would turn up on Abbey Road and Let It Be can be grim lis­ten­ing. (I know, I’ve lis­tened to a lot of it. The Bea­t­les prac­tic­ing is just as tedious as any oth­er band work­ing through songs.) The gen­er­al nar­ra­tive is that the acri­mo­ny among the band mem­bers, the wraith-like pres­ence of Yoko Ono, and Paul’s relent­less­ly upbeat bad­ger­ing of every­body else caused the world’s most famous band to break up. Aban­don­ing the project, they per­formed some of the songs on a Sav­ille Row rooftop, and the rest was left up to the lawyers (and Phil Spec­tor) to sort out.

Jackson’s Get Back, made with the bless­ings of the sur­viv­ing Bea­t­les, intends to upend that nar­ra­tive.

“The thing is, when the film was released, The Bea­t­les were break­ing up, but they weren’t break­ing up when they were mak­ing Let It Be, which was record­ed a year ear­li­er,” Jack­son told GQ Mag­a­zine. “So I sup­pose it would have been odd to release a film where they are all enjoy­ing each other’s com­pa­ny.”

The acri­mo­ny only set in lat­er, when Allen Klein became their man­ag­er, he added.

This is Bea­t­les as a fam­i­ly, and fam­i­lies argue, joke about, and get down to fam­i­ly busi­ness.

Hon­ing the tech­niques Jack­son used to bring to life old World War I footage in They Shall Not Grow Old, the film takes the 57 hours of footage shot by Michael Lind­say-Hogg and makes it look like it was shot yes­ter­day. The col­ors you see in the trail­er, how­ev­er, have not been altered. “I mean, it does make you jeal­ous of the 1960s, because the cloth­ing is so fan­tas­tic,” Jack­son said.

The album Let It Be always had the shad­ow of a bad breakup over it, but for new­er gen­er­a­tions, that may no longer be the case after this doc­u­men­tary drops next month.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les’ 8 Pio­neer­ing Inno­va­tions: A Video Essay Explor­ing How the Fab Four Changed Pop Music

A Vir­tu­al Tour of Every Place Ref­er­enced in The Bea­t­les’ Lyrics: In 12 Min­utes, Trav­el 25,000 Miles Across Eng­land, France, Rus­sia, India & the US

How Peter Jack­son Made His State-of-the-Art World War I Doc­u­men­tary, They Shall Not Grow Old: An Inside Look

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

How do you make the show go on after a bro­ken leg?

The bless­ing we give per­form­ers before they go onstage isn’t some­thing we actu­al­ly want to see hap­pen. Nonethe­less, stage injuries occur fre­quent­ly, and in some cas­es, severe­ly, as when Pat­ti Smith fell 15 feet into a con­crete orches­tra pit in 1977 and broke sev­er­al ver­te­brae in her back. “I felt like an ass­hole,” she told Cir­cus mag­a­zine, “but my doc­tor told me not to wor­ry, it hap­pens to every­body.”

Maybe not every­body, but when the Foo Fight­ers played Gothen­burg, Swe­den in 2015, Dave Grohl took a major spill from the front of the stage, break­ing his leg, while a crowd of 52,000 peo­ple watched. They also watched as, sev­er­al min­utes lat­er, his crew car­ried him back onstage while the rest of the band fit­ting­ly played Queen’s “Under Pres­sure.”

The fall hap­pened dur­ing the sec­ond song of the show, and Grohl returned to play the entire 26-song set, his doc­tor kneel­ing next to him, hold­ing his leg togeth­er.

It didn’t hurt until I wound up on my couch in my hotel room, with a beer in my hand. They gave me some real­ly strong painkillers—I nev­er take pills, but with­in half an hour I was like, “Get me the f—ing Oxys right now, man!” It was pret­ty painful. And then I thought I could just get up and do a show a week lat­er after surgery, but I lit­er­al­ly could not get out of bed for about six or sev­en days. It was so f—ing painful. I had nev­er expe­ri­enced any­thing like that in my life. 

With his leg in a cast, he deter­mined that the band would make their Fourth of July show in Wash­ing­ton, DC, a return to Grohl’s home­town. “I start­ed think­ing… ‘I might not be able to get onstage next week,’” he told Enter­tain­ment Week­ly, “‘but I’m not miss­ing that Fourth of July show, and if that goes OK then we’re just going to keep going.’” The gig went so well the band kept tour­ing, Grohl perched in a spe­cial­ly-designed stage throne.

“I love my job,” Grohl said, “I mean, f–, I’m out there with a bro­ken leg and a plate and pins in a bone and I can’t even stand up, but I still want to get on stage and play, with my fam­i­ly. We’re not break­ing up any­time soon, that would be like your grand­par­ents get­ting a divorce.” There’s no shame in tak­ing it easy after an injury, but if you’re a ded­i­cat­ed per­former who lives onstage, you might heal even faster if you don’t. At the time, Grohl epit­o­mized anoth­er old cliche — if you love what you do, you won’t have to work a day in your life, even when you have to work with a bro­ken leg. Watch the fall just above and the tri­umphant return min­utes lat­er at the top of the post. Below you can see the reunion with the doc­tor who held his leg togeth­er.

Grohl’s fall, and oth­er moments, get revis­it­ed in his new mem­oir, The Sto­ry­teller: Tales of Life and Music.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Watch 1,000 Musi­cians Play the Foo Fight­ers’ “Learn to Fly,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” and The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Foo Fight­ers Per­form “Back in Black” with AC/DC’s Bri­an John­son: When Live Music Returns

Hear Dave Grohl’s First Foo Fight­ers Demo Record­ings, As Kurt Cobain Did in 1992

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

It all took place at this week­end’s Ohio State-Mary­land game. Enjoy.…

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

The Anti-Con­formist, Lib­er­tar­i­an Phi­los­o­phy That Shaped Rush’s Clas­sic Albums

Wit­ness Rush Drum­mer Neil Peart’s (RIP) Finest Moments On Stage and Screen

Notre Dame March­ing Band Per­forms “This Too Shall Pass”

In ear­ly 1964, there could hard­ly have been an Amer­i­can teenag­er igno­rant of the Beach Boys. Singing in immac­u­late har­monies about surf­ing, hot rods, girls, and root beer — as well as var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions and per­mu­ta­tions there­of — they soon found them­selves rid­ing an unprece­dent­ed­ly high wave, so to speak, of post­war teen cul­ture. On the oth­er side of the pond, the Bea­t­les had been hard at work play­ing to demo­graph­i­cal­ly sim­i­lar, also-enrap­tured audi­ences. In Feb­ru­ary of 1964 the Fab Four arrived in Amer­i­ca, and their per­for­mance on The Ed Sul­li­van Show alone put them on at least an equal foot­ing there with the Beach Boys.

“The next oppor­tu­ni­ty for your aver­age Amer­i­can Beat­le­ma­ni­ac to see the Bea­t­les per­form would have been at the movie the­ater watch­ing the Bea­t­les’ Wash­ing­ton D.C. con­cert at the Col­i­se­um on a closed cir­cuit broad­cast on March 14 or 15, 1964,” says the blog Meet the Bea­t­les for Real. “This was the first time in his­to­ry that the closed-cir­cuit was used for a con­cert. Pre­vi­ous­ly, it had only been used to show box­ing match­es.”

The direct-to-the­aters broad­cast also includ­ed short­er open­ing acts Les­ley Gore and the Beach Boys, the lat­ter of whose per­for­mance was thought lost until its redis­cov­ery in 1998. In the video above, you can see its entire 22 min­utes at an audio­vi­su­al qual­i­ty well exceed­ing most con­cert films of its era.

Begin­ning with “Fun, Fun, Fun,” the Beach Boys play a vari­ety of ear­ly num­bers that would turn out to rank among their most beloved songs, also includ­ing “Lit­tle Deuce Coupe,” “Surfer Girl,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” and “Shut Down.” (“Long Tall Tex­an” would only be prop­er­ly record­ed 32 years lat­er, with the late coun­try singer Doug Super­naw.) The set even fea­tures “In My Room,” whose melan­cholic break from the surf­ing-cars-girls spec­trum offered a sign of things to come from the group’s musi­cal mas­ter­mind Bri­an Wil­son. Unsuit­ed to the stress of star­dom, he would recuse him­self from live per­for­mance the fol­low­ing year. This show thus marks the onstage zenith of the Beach Boys’ clas­sic line­up of the Wil­son broth­ers Bri­an, Carl, and Den­nis with Al Jar­dine and Mike Love. But as mak­ers of clas­sic albums — and clas­sic albums pushed to heights of ambi­tion by com­pe­ti­tion with the Bea­t­les — they’d only just begun.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Beach Boys Cre­at­ed Their Pop Mas­ter­pieces: “Good Vibra­tions,” Pet Sounds, and More

The Mag­ic of the Beach Boys’ Har­monies: Hear Iso­lat­ed Vocals from “Sloop John B.,” “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” & Oth­er Pet Sounds Clas­sics

Watch Lost Stu­dio Footage of Bri­an Wil­son Con­duct­ing “Good Vibra­tions,” The Beach Boys’ Bril­liant “Pock­et Sym­pho­ny”

Enter Bri­an Wilson’s Cre­ative Process While Mak­ing The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds 50 Years Ago: A Fly-on-the Wall View

Paul McCart­ney vs. Bri­an Wil­son: A Rival­ry That Inspired Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pep­per, and Oth­er Clas­sic Albums

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Music lives deep with­in us, in the mar­row of our evo­lu­tion­ary bones, tap­ping into “this very prim­i­tive sys­tem,” says British musi­col­o­gist John Deathridge, “which iden­ti­fies emo­tion on the basis of a vio­la­tion of expectan­cy.” In oth­er words, our brains are pre­dis­posed to hear cer­tain com­bi­na­tions of sounds as sooth­ing and oth­ers as dis­turb­ing. When we plot those sounds on a staff, we find one of the most dis­so­nant, yet intrigu­ing, com­bi­na­tions, what can be called an aug­ment­ed 4th or dimin­ished 5th but isn’t quite either one. But it’s much bet­ter known by its medieval nick­name, “the devil’s tri­tone” (or “devil’s inter­val”), a sequence of notes so sin­is­ter, they were once banned in the belief that they might con­jure Lucifer him­self…. Or so the sto­ry goes.

The truth is less sen­sa­tion­al. “To the cha­grin of many a musi­cian want­i­ng to tap into a badass rebel streak in music’s DNA,” James Ben­nett writes at WQXR, “there aren’t any records to sug­gest any rogue medieval com­posers took a hike to Perdi­tion after using this spooky, dev­il­ish inter­val.” In oth­er words, no one seems to have been tor­tured, impris­oned, or excom­mu­ni­cat­ed for a musi­cal arrange­ment, all inter­net asser­tions to the con­trary notwith­stand­ing. But the asso­ci­a­tion with the dev­il is his­tor­i­cal. In the 18th cen­tu­ry, the tri­tone acquired the name dia­bo­lus in musi­ca, or “the dev­il in music,” part of a mnemon­ic: “Mi con­tra fa est dia­bo­lus in musi­ca” or “mi against fa is the dev­il in music.”

If you’re already versed in music the­o­ry, you’ll find this tech­ni­cal expla­na­tion of the “devil’s inter­val” by musi­cian Jer­ry Tachoir help­ful. In the video above, bass play­er Adam Neely debunks the myth of the dev­il’s tri­tone as an actu­al curse. But his expla­na­tion is more than “one long, ‘Um, Actu­al­ly,’ ” he says. Instead, he tells us why the tri­tone is a musi­cal bless­ing, and was thought of as such a thou­sand years ago. His expla­na­tion also gets a lit­tle tech­ni­cal, but his visu­al and musi­cal demon­stra­tions make it fair­ly easy to fol­low, and if you don’t absorb the the­o­ry, you’ll pick up the true his­to­ry of the “dev­il’s tri­tone,” begin­ning with the Greek thinker Aris­tox­enus of Tar­en­tum, one of the first to write about the uncom­fort­able dis­so­nance of a note sit­ting between two oth­ers.

The tri­tone is what musi­col­o­gist Carl E. Gard­ner called a “depen­dent” chord, one char­ac­ter­is­tic of ten­sion. We may not reg­is­ter it con­scious­ly, but it primes our brains with anx­ious expec­ta­tion. “The rea­son it’s unset­tling is that it’s ambigu­ous, unre­solved,” says Ger­ald Moshell, Pro­fes­sor of Music at Trin­i­ty Col­lege in Hart­ford, Conn. “It wants to go some­where. It wants to set­tle here, or [there]. You don’t know where it’ll go, but it can’t stop where it is.” We hear this irres­o­lu­tion, this “dev­il” of musi­cal doubt in com­po­si­tions rang­ing from The Simp­sons theme to the cho­rus of Pearl Jam’s “Even­flow” to Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse macabre,” a piece of music that may not actu­al­ly con­jure evil, but sure sounds like it could if it want­ed to.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

How to Lis­ten to Music: A Free Course from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty

John Coltrane Draws a Pic­ture Illus­trat­ing the Math­e­mat­ics of Music

How Ornette Cole­man Freed Jazz with His The­o­ry of Har­molod­ics

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness