As a band the Beatles have brought pure joy to millions but it is easy to forget the joy that the band themselves have got from being Beatles and having the freedom to create such timeless music.

There is a moment in the recent Disney Plus documentary McCartney 3,2,1 that for me bottles that joy in a way I have never quite seen before.

Set against the moody monochrome that in itself creates a timeless feel to each episode, Paul and record producer Rick Rubin’s chatter moves onto the niche subject of the inclusion of a piccolo trumpet on Penny Lane. Now we all know the one, its impossibly high notes grabbing hold of us at every listen, its a solo that pierces through the song, the defining motif of a track that so very nearly made the cut onto Sgt. Pepper, if it was not for the rush to get a single out.

Thinking of that solo without visual aid, our mind might fill in the blanks, we can see the four Beatles on horseback, riding through the streets and over hills, such has the video for the song become part of rock culture and our culture, but back in the dimly lit studio, our only visuals are the faces of McCartney and Rubin and their reactions to listening to it as if hearing it for the first time.

As Rubin hits the faders on the desk in front of him to isolate that moment, we hear a hint of the flute arrangement that rolls out the red carpet for the solo to come and then bam, it begins. Both men stand a little taller, Paul is holding his hands in front of him, miming along in as if he is playing it himself and Rick looks on as if to tell Paul that he is digging this grove with a raise of his eyebrows.

Ricks eyes turn back to the desk, still fiddling with the faders as is the compulsion of any producer, but Paul gives him a nudge as if to say ‘Look at me, this is it, hear comes the kicker’ and all eyes turn back to Paul as we hear that impossible note (Officially out of the range of the piccolo trumpet, don’t you know) and this is it, this is the moment.

Etched across Paul’s face and he raises a finger skyward as if to stretch the note to the heavens himself is the moment of pure joy that proves that the Beatle magic has not faded one bit in the fifty plus years since its heyday.

They say do a job you love and you will never work a day in your life and its clear from the excitement that oozes from the nearly 80-year-old Paul that he might just have the best job in the world.

It is a moment as captivating and essential as any captured in Get Back, including the creation of the title track from thin air and Paul’s bass, but will probably fly under the radar for many who might not want to take the introspective journey with Paul and Rick over the dreamy technicolour of Peter Jackson’s restoration and that is a shame.

What we have here is Beatle magic in a bottle and for me this is why that odd little chat about a piccolo trumpet is my Beatle moment of 2021.

Who’d have thought it?