Let It Be

The Beatles: Let It Be

Let It Be is a strange album to go back to. Released in early 1970 the album included McCartney's two big-selling ballads, the title track, Let It Be

"...I had a lot of bad times in the '60s. We used to lie in bed and wonder what was going on and feel quite paranoid. Probably all the drugs. I had a dream one night about my mother. She died when I was fourteen so I hadn't really heard from her in quite a while, and it was very good. It gave me some strength..." Paul McCartney 1986 (see Beatles quotes about Let It Be, below)

...and The Long And Winding Road, which Phil Spector was encouraged by Lennon new business manager, Allen Klein, to dollop syrupy strings and a girls choir over (see McCartney for the ramifications of that decision). "(The Long And Winding Road) is rather a sad song. I like writing sad songs...because you can actually acknowledge some deeper feelings of your own and put them in it...it saves having to go to a psychiatrist...but you don't embarrass yourself because it's only a song, or is it? You are putting the things that are bothering you on the table and you are reviewing them but because it's a song, you don't have to argue with anyone... It's a sad song because it's all about...the road that you never get to the end of..." Paul McCartney circa 1994 (see Beatles quotes about Let It Be, below)

The Beatles: The Long & Winding Road

Just a short time before, McCartney's solo album had been released, with the wonderful Maybe I'm Amazed all over the radio...and Lennon's cool single Instant Karma was about to storming angrily up the charts. 

Meanwhile, the pop world was still reeling in disbelief that The Beatles were gone (the world was a simpler place, then). Disbelief was replaced by shock when the Let It Be movie was released in May, starring four not very happy moptops, now men, men who didn't seem particularly pleased to be around each other.

Of course, the Let It Be debacle had actually been filmed a year earlier, when The Beatles and their new business empire, Apple, were seriously starting to rot.

N.B.: You can get a good account of what was going on in former Apple Executive Peter Brown's The Love You Make & former Apple "house hippy", Richard Dilello's The Longest Cocktail Party, (see Beatle Books #9 & #11, respectively).

Let It Be, then, like The Magical Mystery Tour, was another McCartney project, resented, in particular, by Lennon & Harrison. Early rehearsals, camera crews, weeks of drudgery, supposedly capturing The Beatles at work and other than the McCartney tracks, there's not much that stands out other than McCartney's Two Of Us & George Harrison's oh-so-simple For You Blue...which are pleasant. Lennon's Don't Let Me Down is powerful but undeveloped. Some of the jams on early rock'n'roll numbers are fine, too...but e.g. there was never any insight into what made Sgt. Peppers or even Abbey Road interesting. This was mostly just four guys jamming...and so be it.

The Let It Be album is a lot easier to take but for me, it's better for memories than for being memorable. It's a strange album, not so much raw...as disinterested e.g. Across The Universe, a superb Lennon track (which should have been a single instead of Lady Madonna)...is just frittered away as an almost forgotten album track. Unbelievable!

"...I was lying next to my first wife in bed, (the song was originally written in 1967) you know, and I was irritated. She must have been going on and on about something and she'd gone to sleep - and I kept hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream. I went downstairs and it turned into a sort of cosmic song rather than an irritated song - rather than 'Why are you always mouthing off at me?' or whatever, right? ...and I've sat down and looked at it and said, 'Can I write another one with this meter?' It's so interesting: Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while the pass, they slip away across the universe...Such an extraordinary meter and I can never repeat it! It's not a matter of craftsmanship - it wrote itself. It drove me out of bed. I didn't want to write it... and I couldn't get to sleep until I put it on paper... It's like being possessed - like a psychic or a medium. The thing has to go down. It won't let you sleep, so you have to get up, make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. That's always in the middle of the night when you're half-awake or tired and your critical facilities are switched off..." John Lennon 1980 (see Beatles quotes about Let It Be, below)

...and the b-side of the Get Back single, Lennon's powerful, soulful but undisciplined Don't Let Me Down, which has always struck me as two halves of two potentially great songs that have been uncomfortably grafted together.

"...It was a very tense period. John was with Yoko, and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias and he was putting himself out on a limb. I think that, as much as it excited and amused him, at the same time, it secretly terrified him. So Don't Let Me Down was a genuine plea, 'Don't let me down, please, whatever you do. I'm out on this limb'..." Paul McCartney circa 1994 (see Beatles quotes about Let It Be, below)

One little gem which obviously couldn't get on the album was the punchy but sloppy John Lennon-led version of McCartney's Get Back (with some improvised lyrics).

N.B.: If you've read the selected Lennon quotes on these Beatle album reviews, I think you'll agree that Lennon was a little in awe of McCartney's then-capacity to churn out great music for songs (the lyrics were another matter altogether). For me, it's the biggest reason for the split, Lennon was jealous and angry that he couldn't match his former partner. Yoko was just a rebound that lasted the rest of his life! 

Other than McCartney's singles which still get played on the radio and the continued momentum of Adult Beatlemania, I found it hard to believe that anybody would really still care about the Let It Be soundtrack, some 33 years after its original release...

Well, that shows how much I know!

Out of the blue, Let It Be Naked was released for Christmas 2003 and it basically de-Phil-Spectorises the album, restoring it to its naked self*. With any other band this might be considered ridiculous, especially with the existence of the movie...but for The Beatles...or more accurately, the Beatles' fans, Let It Be Naked can give them a genuine feeling of completion about this remarkable band.

There are a couple of marked differences to the Phil Spector album. Lennon's Don't Let Me Down has been thankfully substituted for the rather silly Dig It & Maggie May...and to my ears, the album definitely "sounds better". Unfortunately, I don't have the techincal background to tell you why, it just does.

Let It Be Naked

"...Much cleaner version and definite improvement without the strings and choral effects on some tracks. Particularly improved is The Long And Winding Road without the drowning of overpowering orchestral sounds. The inclusion of Don't Let Me Down is an added bonus and one of John Lennon's best. The extra disc is definitely a bonus! Altogether a great album..." David Harris Exeter, BBC.co.uk reviewer

"...I use to lose my patience litening to Let It Be and I'd turn it off. Now it flows much better because of the song order and production-wise, it sounds more intimate..." Jean, Austin, TX BBC.co.uk reviewer

I doubt that Let It Be Naked will ever sell a fraction of what Let It Be still does...but if you can bear your memories being played with, I recommend checking out Let It Be Naked, you may be pleasantly surprised.

For more info, see:

• wikipedia Let It Be
• wikipedia Let It Be Naked
• Ringo interviewed by Scene & Heard in January 1969 about Apple finances and the future of The Beatles
• Two Of Us looked at in some detail by Saki
• The Beatles, quotes over the years about Let It Be 

*George Harrison did the same thing a few years before with his remastered version of All Things Must Pass