Peter Jackson’s favourite song by The Beatles: “I love it to death”
The answer to the question ‘what’s your favourite Beatles song?’ is a good litmus test for a person’s character. After all, most people tend to have an opinion one way or another when it comes to the most influential band of all time – even if they say ‘I don’t listen to The Beatles’, at least you know that that person isn’t worth talking to.
One person who is more qualified to answer that question than most is film director Peter Jackson, who spent months pouring over footage of The Beatles for his epic eight-hour documentary Get Back.
No sane person would devote so much time and energy to a band if they were not already something of a super-fan, but it seems as though working on Get Back allowed Jackson to add a new layer to his Beatles obsession. Clearly, Jackson is not alone in his all-encompassing love of the Liverpool band, as there is scarcely a musician or artist alive that is not indebted, in one form or another, to the songwriting and performance of The Beatles.
Initially, Jackson seemed an odd choice to direct the documentary. The filmmaker is perhaps best known for his work directing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in addition to various other fiction-based movies. Furthermore, Jackson was born in 1976, years after The Beatles finally disbanded, so his connection to the era in which the documentary is focused is tentative, to say the least. On the other hand, one of the things that is so endearing about the band is that their music transcends time, with multiple generations finding a deep love for the group years after their split.
Despite initial doubts, the resulting film was nothing short of a masterpiece. At nearly eight hours long, composed of studio footage from the sessions of the band’s final record, Let It Be, Get Back is a must-watch film for any Beatles fanatic. Unsurprisingly, the project led Jackson to reconsider aspects of the band’s discography that he had previously overlooked. Talking to CinemaBlend, the director said, “The thing with the Get Back project is, so many songs that I haven’t paid much attention to in my 40 years of Beatle fandom, I absolutely adore and love now”.
Which brings us to the eternal question of, ‘what is your favourite Beatles song?’. Reportedly, Jackson’s usual answer to that question lies with ‘Penny Lane’, an undisputed highlight of the band’s discography. However, after spending a colossal amount of time pouring over footage of the Let It Be sessions, it is almost inevitable that he would have a soft spot for some of the group’s later tracks.
A prime example of this comes with Jackson’s newfound appreciation for a far too often overlooked Beatles track. “A song like ‘Dig a Pony’,” he explained, “which to me, if you asked me five years ago to listen, that would be down in the bottom 10% of Beatles songs”. The same could probably be said by most Beatles fans, as the song is rarely mentioned among the band’s most-loved hits. “I never make any effort to listen to ‘Dig a Pony’,” the director said, “But I absolutely adore that song now. I love it. I love it to death.”
In contrast, John Lennon himself often spoke of his dislike for ‘Dig a Pony’, once calling it “a piece of garbage”. That review is particularly strange given that the song was reportedly written by Lennon for his wife, Yoko Ono. Nevertheless, Jackson still holds a candle for the overlooked song, thanks largely to his directing work on Get Back.
