It’s hard to write about the Beatles, since almost single move they made has been analyzed over & over again. But here’s one fact I rarely hear. Never has a group that was as big, financially & creatively as well as in popularity, disbanded without getting back together again. Not even an appearance at an awards show or token jam session. I don’t think the 4 Beatles were ever in the same room again after their announced April 1970 breakup. You can’t say that about any band that’s worth a damn. Of course little did they know they would only have a 10-year window. [Wham!, on the other hand, is 25 years and counting…] Which makes this next stat even more impressive: After their split and not counting the Let It Be singles, they went on to have 5 more Top 40 hits, 4 of them Top 20, 2 in the Top 10, their last Top 10 coming 25 years after their divorce.
Every generation seems to rediscover what an incredible recording history they have and how much they influenced in pop music. Heck they kicked off a genre called horn rock, book-ending with the song, Got To Get You Into My Life from 1966’s Revolver. It was the first time the Beatles has used horns on record and Paul assembled 3 trumpets & 2 saxophones to give the song some soulful muscle. It’s Paul at his catchiest, even John Lennon agreed. Not many other folks could write a pop song about their love affair with pot; such is the genius of McCartney.
Where would Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears be without this song? In fact both groups used to play this is their sets during the 70s. And as the horn rock genre wound down in the mid 70s, with BS&T, now a group with a revolving door membership and Chicago discovering their inner soft side, the Beatles aka Capitol Records released this 45 from their compilation, Rock & Roll Music. It peaked at #7 during the summer of 76, just as Wings’ Let Em In was getting ready to leapfrog them in the Top 10.
As a young kid growing I never really knew a world where the Beatles didn’t exist. It didn’t matter to me whether they were together or not. I would spend countless hours staring at the cover of Magical Mystery Tour while I Am The Walrus played, intrigued, scared but always wanting more. Hearing this 45 on American Top 40 didn’t seem strange to me. Paul’s voice on this mid-60s track sounded no different than him belting out Band On The Run. None of this situation really hit me until John’s death 5 years later. Until then the Beatles existed along side every other band that was still together and always reigned supreme.
7 Inches of 70s Pop 
J.A. Bartlett
/ January 17, 2012One of the things I love about the summer of 1976 is that the Beatles and the Beach Boys were in the top 10 at the same time, with “Got to Get You Into My Life” and “Rock and Roll Music.” First time in nearly 10 years that it had happened.
porky
/ January 17, 2012I try not to think that this tune planted the seed for Chicago and B,S & T but hope it is mainly remembered for George’s awesome little “solo” near the end of the record; basically a strummed three-note chord and a couple of bent strings. He says more with that than Yngwie Malmsteen ever will.
Steve Carras
/ January 23, 2012Love affair with POT?? Hey, I knew the Fab Four were into that stuff and more but this as about pot??
WaysToFall70sBlog
/ January 24, 2012My first exposure to this song was Earth, Wind and Fire’s funky Fender Rhodes-drenched version on the, otherwise awful, Stigwood-produced Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie soundtrack.
And yes, McCartney was definitely writing about his affection for jazz cigarettes.
porky
/ January 28, 2012something I didn’t know was B, S & T put this out as a single before the Beatles’ re-release.
Also according to the indispensable book “Revolution in the Head” Lennon, in a 1980 interview, “made the strange observation that he thought the lyric (of Got to Get…), which he particularly liked, referred obliquely to McCartney’s belated experience of LSD.”
One last thing, Ringo in particular voiced his displeasure with Capitol re-releasing material, citing the silver-covered Rock and Roll Music in particular with its irrelevant 50’s imagery.