"Let It Be" is a beautiful song. My only real issue with it is the breakdown section in the middle. The decending organ line feels a bit clunky. On the single, "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" for some reason gets to accompany "Let It Be" as a B-side. I'm throwing my hat down right here and saying this, without question, is the worst Beatles song ever made. I don't think I even need to hear the Let It Be album to make that judgement. Listen for yourself if you've never heard it. What a piece of junk.
And now for our closing act, Let It Be the album. By the time this album was finally put together The Beatles had broken up and begun their careers as solo artists. EMI Records had paid for the Beatles' aborted 1969 recording sessions and were surely hoping to get more out of them than a couple of singles. With at least John Lennon and George Harrison's consent the Get Back recording sessions were handed over to producer Phil Spector, who worked his "magic" and created Let It Be.
Not all of The Beatles were content with Spector's work. As a producer, Spector had the habit of adding blaring orchestration and editing music with what is described as a "wall of sound" technique. Paul McCartney was particularly harsh in his criticism of Spector's work, since the album was meant to "get back" to The Beatles stripped-down roots. On the other hand John Lennon praised what Spector was able to do with what he called "the shittiest load of badly-recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever." I can't wait to find out who was right.
I like how Spector edited in some brief studio chatter around the songs. It gives the album an easy laid-back feel, which I know wasn't the case during the sessions. "Two of Us" is a really good acoustic guitar song. Nice hopping beat, shifty rhythm, and simple melody. The album version of "Across The Universe" is different from the compilation version I previously reviewed in both a good and bad way. John Lennon's whiny-ness is toned down on this recording, but the ochestral overdubs are turned way up and really hurt the somber tone. On both versions too much was done when it really should have been kept simple.
"I Mean Mine" has a nice dark melody, but the tacked-on orchestration really hurts. "Dig It" would be in the running for worst Beatles song if it were an actual song and not a throw-in 30-second scrap that should have been left on the studio floor. The album version of "Let It Be" gets an unfortunate Spectorization that is jarring if you're used to the single (which is the version you probably know best). It starts off just as gentle as the single, but suddenly midway through the second chorus there's a sudden "BWAAAAHHH!" from an added horn section. There's also an overdubbed guitar solo that tears through the recording. The single was better.
Another cut that should have been left on the floor is "Maggie Mae". It doesn't add anything to the album, not even a hint of a good song idea. On the album's B-side is a crazy example of trying to do too much with an ordinary song. The sappy orchestral treatment given to "The Long Winding Road" is really funny. It makes it sound like an outtake from the Grease soundtrack. Other than that song and a reprise of "Get Back" the B-side contains pretty standard B-material in the form of some lame blues numbers.
Let It Be isn't a bad album, but I can see why these recordings were left on the shelf. What's here is fine, but it feels like The Beatles were stretching to come up with enough ideas. My guess is the Get Back sessions were shelved because there wasn't enough cohesive music for a strong Beatles album, so the band released the good songs as singles and consigned the rest to the "outtakes" pile.
Fans who knew Let It Be was pretty much it after the band broke up had to find the material a bit unsatisfying. It's actually kinda unnerving to hear Lennon at the end say, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition." He didn't say that in the moment knowing The Beatles were splitting up, but I can imagine myself as a Beatles fan in 1970 hearing Let It Be for the first time and saying, "What? That's all you have to say? How about, 'Thanks for seven years at the top!'" Well, I don't know if I would have said that. It would be interesting to talk to a Beatles fan who listened to this record knowing it was their final output and getting their thoughts on the matter.
I think changing the title from Get Back to Let It Be was fitting, even if it was changed just to ape off the success of the "Let It Be" single. For one, the original idea was that the album was going to represent The Beatles "getting back" to a simpler form of music they used to play. That is what the album ended up being, but since The Beatles broke up before the album appeared, they didn't really end up getting back to anything.
I also think what this album and Abbey Road together show is The Beatles were past their prime and weren't the world-beaters they once were. Sure they could still write a good song, but unlike their most coherent works or grand masterpieces you need to sift through a lot of blandness to get a hold of it. So it was probably best to just let it be... Let The Beatles break up and go on with their solo careers, because it clearly wasn't working to the same level any more. 2 stars- not because the music was bad, but because the resulting album is pretty weak by Beatles standards.
For those interested there are two versions of Let It Be in existence. The second version was released by Paul McCartney in 2003 and is called Let It Be... Naked.
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| This is the Let It Be you should be listening to. |
This altered version strips a lot of the stuff I complained about such as Spector's orchestral overdubs and the two worthless song chunks. It also rearranges the running order and remixes everything to have a much tighter, solid sound. But it also takes out the studio chatter which I felt gave the album a more relaxed feel. The naked version does feature much better versions of "Get Back", "Two Of Us", "Across The Universe", and "Let It Be" than I've ever heard before. It also confirms that "The Long and Winding Road" is an incredibly cheesy song regardless of Spector's orchestration. I'd give the naked version 3 stars because it is a much better presentation of the material. But it doesn't really count since it's not an "official" Beatles album.
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