Peter Jackson details "The Beatles: Get Back"

British GQ has a long interview with Peter Jackson about the director's upcoming documentary about the Beatles' "Let it Be/Get Back" project.

Were there any idiomatic exchanges you had to cut because they just wouldn’t have made sense 50 years later?

There are a lot of references to culture at the time, so what we’ve tried to do is to show photographs of what they’re talking about and explain it. There’s a thing where John’s doing “Dig A Pony” and he starts singing these alternative lyrics, “Dickie, Dickie, Dickie Murdock”. Apparently he was a heavyweight wrestler in 1969, so we’ve shown a photo of him as John sings. At one point the band turn “Get Back” into a protest song about Enoch Powell’s immigration policies, and if you’re going to use their Pakistani lyrics from the alternative version, satirizing Enoch Powell, then you can’t really do that without explaining to people who Enoch Powell was. The thing is, satire doesn’t really work in a pop song, so they were in danger of sounding like they supported Enoch Powell, rather than trying to send him up. 

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