The Beatles to release book companion to “Let it Be.”

Hello, Good Evening, and Remain Mindful of Social Distancing Protocols! With the 50th anniversary of the release of Let it Be having come and gone with neither re-release of the original film nor the Peter Jackson recut, due in no small part to the current pandemic, it’s nice to see that there’s still some progress being made and it’s still being released. How did I find out?

It turns out that there’s going to be a companion book published, called The Beatles: Get Back. It’s the first official book credited to the Fab Four to be released since 2000’s Beatles Anthology, and it will be released in a 240-page hardback book worldwide on 31 August 2021. Its trailer can be seen here:

The format, as foreshadowed by the trailer, will cover the first month of 1969, from the stressful early sessions that were so frustrating that George temporarily quit the band, all the way up to the rooftop performance, told from transcribed conversations of the band’s 120 hours in the studio and previously unseen photos taken by Linda McCartney and Ethan A. Russell, the man who took the photos on the cover of Let it Be. A foreword will be written by Peter Jackson, whose documentary of the same name is still scheduled to go out, even if it is on 27 August 2021, and an introduction by novelist Hanif Kureishi of My Beautiful Laundrette and Buddha of Suburbia fame, with him saying: “In fact this was a productive time for them, when they created some of their best work. And it is here that we have the privilege of witnessing their early drafts, the mistakes, the drift and digressions, the boredom, the excitement, joyous jamming and sudden breakthroughs that led to the work we now know and admire.”

And, remarkably, despite the fact that it’s going to be a bit less than a year before anyone’s going to get their hands on a copy, it’s already available for pre-order.