The Beatles never shared credit for a song with anyone. Well, hardly ever. It has only happened twice. Once back in 1964, the single “My Bonnie” hit number 23 on the Top 40 and Tony Sheridan was given credit for playing along with the Beatles. He even sang some of the lyrics for that song. That was because “My Bonnie” had been recorded back in 1961 when the Beatles were not that well known.

The second and only other time the Beatles shared credit on a song was this one, “Get Back,” in which Billy Preston plays keyboards. Billy says he did not know he was going to get credit until the record came out and he was pleasantly surprised to see it.

“Get Back” was the Beatles seventeenth number one hit. It was written by Paul McCartney although credit is given to Lennon-McCartney as was the custom.

While the group was recording an as yet unnamed album on January 7, 1969 at the famous Twickenham Studios in London, Paul brought up the song as a possible single to record. At the time, he only had the chorus of “Get Back.” The words in the song “Get back to where you once belonged” started out as “Get back to the place you should be.” As they jammed, the words were changed. John says that every time Paul sang the words, “Get back to where you once belonged,” he would look at Yoko Ono who was in the studio during the recording. That may just be John being paranoid but we know that Paul did not approve of Yoko.

It was during the recording session that George left the building and went to see Ray Charles at the Royal Festival Hall. Some say that George was actually quitting the band. He really didn’t want to go back. There on stage, he saw an old friend, Billy Preston, who he had played with back in 1962 when no one had heard of the Beatles. George invited Billy back to the studio to sit in on the jam that would eventually turn into “Get Back.” The keyboard solo Billy plays during the song, which has become world famous, is probably what got him credit on the song. To this day Billy Preston is sometimes called “the fifth Beatle,” a label of which he is very proud.

The song was released as a single and then a few months later, it was re-mixed and included as the last song on the Let It Be album. Let It Be was the last album the Beatles released before the band broke up. As of the writing of this article, there are no videos on YouTube of the Beatles and Billy Preston playing this song. You can find just the Beatles singing it and there are videos of Billy Preston singing the song himself, but none of the five of them together.

“Get Back” entered the pop charts on May 10, 1969 and spent five weeks at number one.