GET BACK

When I said to people that I was emigrating to Tucson, Arizona, more often than not they would say ‘Wasn’t that the place that was mentioned in a Beatles Song? I would say ‘Yes, in Get Back, you know, the one that goes’ and I would then make a pathetic tone deaf attempt to render the first line ‘Jojo was a man who thought he was a woman but he knew it couldn’t last, Jojo left his home in Tucson Arizona........’ I couldn’t even complete the sentence.

A couple of days after I got here it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to google ‘Get Back’ and find out what it was all about. The lyrics are as follows and reveal that I couldn’t even get half of the opening line right:

Jo Jo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it couldn’t last
Jo Jo left his home in Tucson Arizona for some California grass

Chorus:

Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged
Get back Jo Jo. Go home.

Chorus repeated.

Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
But she was another man
All the girls around her say she’s got it coming
But she gets it while she can

Chorus repeated

Get back Loretta
Your mama’s waiting for ya
Wearing her high - heel shoes
And a low neck sweater
Get back home Loretta

It seems that all roads in my life lead to immigration. Question: How do you go from Tucson, Arizona to Enoch Powell’s (right - wing anti - immigration British politician 1912 - 1998) rivers of blood speech (in which he used a reference in Virgil to the river Tiber foaming with blood to describe what he thought would happen if the tide of Commonwealth immigrants was not stemmed) ? Answer: Get back by the Beatles.

Apparently, in a jamming session, McCartney came up with the satirical lyric ‘You’d better get back to your commonwealth homes’ based on the Powell speech. The song developed as a protest song and, at one point, the draft third verse referred to 19 Pakistanis living in a council flat. It seems that the group shied away from including such overtly, racially charged lyrics.

Prior to its’ official release on 11th April 1969, the Beatles played Get Back, along with other songs, on the roof of Apple Studios in Savile Row in London’s exclusive Mayfair district. The third and final rooftop performance was interrupted by the police. Once released, it became the only Beatles’single to enter the charts at number one, staying there for 6 weeks. Please have a look at the live rooftop performance of Get Back, it’s awesome. Clock the city gent with the umbrella arriving on the roof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xra3UKhbG1o Also, the Let It Be - naked version which includes Billy Preston: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnfAmz_Oah0

There is rarely a consensus on Beatles lyrics but the California grass in the first verse is thought to be a reference to Marijuana and Linda McCartney’s former residence in Tucson is believed to be the reason for the city’s inclusion in the song. As regards the second verse, it is often said to be a playful dig at George Harrison, who had a brief fling with a transsexual.

Apparently, Paul looked at Yoko when he sang the line ‘get back to where you once belonged’ and both John and Yoko took it as a slight. Finally, the broad concept was for the Beatles to ‘get back’ to their roots and play new songs for live audiences without studio craft.
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I was buying a bagel the other day and the white working class woman who took my order was complaining that Mexicans in Tucson didn’t bother to learn English. Instead, the locals were expected to communicate with them in Spanish. Where have I heard that particular grievance before? As always, it’s an initially persuasive argument but, as is the case with many controversial issues, it’s over simplistic.

I actually think that it’s advisable to learn the lingo if you move abroad but it’s easier said than done. I don’t know about Tucson yet but, in London, it has never been a foregone conclusion that immigrants of any age and both genders are able to learn English, even if they are motivated to do so. Often, cultural, social and bureaucratic issues obstruct someone from doing so. For example, refugees in the UK often have difficulty getting into English classes which are either over subscribed or require a fee which they can’t afford and women are often expected, or made, to stay at home by their husbands. By and large, it’s harder for older people to learn languages than the younger generations.

Naturally, most people who arrive in a new country feel vulnerable and insecure, especially if they’ve escaped persecution. They'll pick up very quickly on any negative vibes and self - preservation will take priority over integration and language learning.

The language issue is one of many issues around immigration which is being hotly debated in the run up to the mid-term elections in the US. The Senate has voted in favour of a measure calling on the government to ‘ preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language’ although it also passed a milder amendment describing English as the ‘common and unifying language.’

Local councils are debating and voting on similar proposals. The whole language debate is being driven by right - wingers who are spreading the usual alarmist propaganda about threats to American identity and culture. The academic, Samuel Huntington, best known for his ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, has said that ‘Mexican Americans feel increasingly comfortable with their own culture and often contemptuous of American culture.’

Douglas Rivelin of the National Immigration Forum, has hit back, impressively I think, at this massive and incendiary claim. ‘He (Huntington) is totally missing what is going on in the US. The same thing could have been written in 1924 about Irish or other immigrants, and it would have been equally wrong. Bagels and pizzas and spaghetti were new things at one time...immigrants come and change America and are changed by America.’