You have got to read this--à
HOW PETER JACKSON’S new version of LET IT BE will shatter your view of the
BEATLES, By Mark Beaumont: (But only if your younger than thirty.)
The Lord Of The Rings director is set to release his own version
of the classic Beatles film, documenting studio days Paul McCartney has
described as “hell… the most miserable sessions on earth”
If we’ve learnt anything from reality TV, it’s that if you put
cameras anywhere – a restaurant, an Ibiza rep pub crawl, a village bake off,
even the most arse-scratching sofa telly sesh – the egos involved will explode.
So put a film crew into the most hot-house environment outside of Theresa May’s
emergency supplication lessons – The Beatles on the brink of collapse in
Twickenham Film Studios, January 1969 – and it’s no surprise that tensions were
amplified.
That’s what makes Let It Be project the one that the Beatles
machine is most reluctant to revisit. After all, when you’re flicking through
old pictures of a relationship, you tend to skip over the ones of the tense
final meal that ended with the bill being rammed down your throat.
So fans are getting understandably excited by the news that Peter
Jackson is set to direct a new version of the film from the 55 hours of
original footage and 140 hours of audio recordings, including the 42 minute
film of the band playing on the roof of Apple Corps, the original guerrilla
gig. Unless he somehow contrives the notion that the Beatles split was down to
in-fighting over some manner of magical ring, it promises to be the most
revealing new Beatles project in decades. Here’s why…Let It Be is a semi-lost
film –
For such a high-profile slice of rock’n’roll history, Let It Be is
surprisingly obscure. It’s been unavailable on any non-defunct technology since
the last VHS copy got chewed up in the 1980s. There’s never been a DVD or Blu
Ray release of the film, and you won’t find this baby on Netflix. It’s almost
as though the remaining Beatles were happy to let it fade into antiquity –
after all, it didn’t paint McCartney in a particularly favorable light… It
might include more hints about the split.
The original film contained the barest of traces of dissent in The
Beatles ranks – when McCartney criticized Harrison’s guitar part on ‘Two Of Us’
and George curtly replied “I’ll play whatever you want me to play, or I won’t
play at all if you don’t want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you,
I’ll do it.” McCartney has called the sessions “hell… the most miserable
sessions on earth” and George actually walked out of the sessions – and the
band – a few days into filming, but that event didn’t make it into director
Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s original version.
Considering various members convinced Lindsay-Hogg to remove other
contentious scenes, it’s not unfair to consider the original film as The
Whitewash Album. So there’s great potential for a more warts-and-all version
that spotlights the divisions, like footage of open-band surgery. Or will Macca
want Jackson to erase all of his narkiness and concentrate on delivering a
forensic study of the musical construction process? Actually, we’re not sure
which we’d find more fascinating.
We haven’t seen half the rooftop concert yet.
The last ever Beatles gig is amongst the most legendary live
performances ever, yet of its 42 minutes the original film included just 21.
OK, so most of the remaining footage consists of another three or four runs
through ‘Get Back’, but at this point, we’ll take anything we can get.
Jackson’s film had better include every second of footage from when they step
onto the roof to when the filth drags them off, or we’re calling the police
again.
We might get to hear the lost post-Beatles album (sort of).
There’s always been a haze of mystery around the solo records that
the various Beatles made during the life of the group, as John, Paul and George
slunk away to let off their own individual creative pressure valves. In fact,
many songs that ended up on solo albums were played during the Let It be
sessions, so with astute editing we might get to hear what ‘Every Night’, ‘The
Back Seat Of My Car’, ‘Gimme Some Truth’, ‘Jealous Guy’ and ‘All Things Must
Pass’ might’ve sounded like on a record together, played by the Fabs. Sigh.
Besides the solo songs, several ‘Abbey Road’ tracks were worked on
during the sessions, but didn’t make the cut for the movie. So here, hopefully,
will be our chance to imagine what ‘Let It Be’ could’ve been like with ‘I Want
You (She’s So Heavy)’ and ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’ in place of
‘Dig It’ or ‘Maggie Mae’. Plus, there’s a chance we might get to hear Lennon
singing ‘I Lost My Little Girl’, the first song McCartney ever wrote aged 14,
another lost cut.
The original film is set for reissue too: For the purists, a
reissue of the original Let It Be is due to follow Jackson’s film in 2020, to
mark its 50th anniversary. Let It Be marathon it is, then.
Jackson himself relishes in the stroke of luck opportunity--Peter
Jackson said, "The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of
audio made available to us, ensures this movie will be the ultimate 'fly on the
wall' experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about - it's like a time
machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching
these four friends make great music together."
"I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to
the myth," continues Jackson, "After reviewing all the footage and
audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it's
simply an amazing historical treasure-trove. Sure, there's moments of drama -
but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John,
Paul, George, and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch,
is not only fascinating - it's funny, uplifting and surprisingly
intimate."
"I'm thrilled and honored to have been entrusted with this
remarkable footage - making the movie will be a sheer joy."
Well, I hope this article has struck a nerve toward excited
premise? Now, let’s dig into our memory and revisit the making of LET IT BE…
The Beatles' last album to be released, Let It Be was mostly
recorded in early 1969, prior to Abbey Road. The music was produced by George
Martin, and was then prepared for release in 1970 by Phil Spector.
Following the often-fractious sessions for the White Album in the
summer of 1968, Paul McCartney realized The Beatles were in danger of
fragmenting further if they continued to work independently of each other.
Since the death of Brian Epstein on 27 August 1967 he had worked hard to keep
the group motivated, and towards the end of 1968 he hit upon the idea of
filming a television special in front of an audience.
“We started Let It Be in January 1969 at Twickenham Studios, under
the working title Get Back. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was the director. The idea was
that you'd see The Beatles rehearsing, jamming, getting their act together and
then finally performing somewhere in a big end-of-show concert. We would show
how the whole process worked. I remember I had an idea for the final scene
which would be a massive tracking shot, forever and ever, and then we'd be in
the concert. The original idea was to go on an ocean liner and get away from
the world; you would see us rehearsing and then you'd finally see the pay-off.
But we ended up in Twickenham. I think it was a safer situation for the
director and everybody. Nobody was that keen on going on an ocean liner anyway.
It was getting a bit fraught between us at that point, because we'd been
together a long time and cracks were beginning to appear.” Paul McCartney,
Anthology.
The effort was to be a continuation of the back-to-basics ethos
the group had adopted since Lady Madonna in February 1968. That single had
marked a move away from The Beatles' elaborate studio experimentation of 1966
and 1967, with a return to more straightforward rock and roll, and much of the
White Album and the Yellow Submarine soundtrack had followed in a similar vein.
Reconvening in January 1969 at Twickenham Film Studios, The Beatles began work
on what was initially known as the Get Back project: the concept was a chance
for the group to get back to their roots, with perhaps a return to live
performance for the first time since 29 August 1966.
“In a nutshell, Paul wanted to make – it was time for another
Beatle movie or something, and Paul wanted us to go on the road or do
something. As usual, George and I were going, 'Oh, we don't want to do it, fuck,'
and all that. He set it up and there was all discussions about where to go and
all that. I would just tag along and I had Yoko by then, I didn't even give a
shit about anything. I was stoned all the time, too, on H etc. And I just
didn't give a shit. And nobody did, you know. Anyway, it's like in the movie
where I go to do Across The Universe, Paul yawns and plays boogie, and I merely
say, 'Oh, anybody want to do a fast one?” John Lennon,
1970 - Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner.
The plan, vague as it was in the early stages, was to perform one
or more live shows, but with an added dimension of a television show and record
release. The January 1969 sessions began as rehearsals for a concert which was
to be filmed, which they hoped would yield enough suitable material for an
album.
The rehearsals were filmed at Twickenham by Michael Lindsay-Hogg,
who had previously directed promotional films for Paperback Writer/Rain and Hey
Jude/Revolution. Although none of it was intended to be released on record, on
snippet of dialogue was included on Let It Be: John Lennon's announcement that
"Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI members" prior to For You Blue.
Nonetheless, many hours of rehearsal and performance were filmed
at Twickenham from 2-14 January 1969. The audio was captured by the camera crew
on mono Nagra reel-to-reel machines, as it was expected to be used on the film
soundtrack. It is due to these Nagra reels, which were also rolling at the
Apple Studios sessions from 21-31 January, that so much of The Beatles' works
in progress from the Let It Be sessions survives.
“Paul had this idea that we were going to rehearse or... see it
all was more like Simon and Garfunkel, like looking for perfection all the
time. And so he has these ideas that we'll rehearse and then make the album.
And of course, we're lazy fuckers and we've been playing for twenty years, for
fuck's sake, we're grown men, we're not going to sit around rehearsing. I'm
not, anyway. And we couldn't get into it. And we put down a few tracks and
nobody was in it at all. It was a dreadful, dreadful feeling in Twickenham
Studio, and being filmed all the time. I just wanted them to go away, and we'd
be there, eight in the morning. You couldn't make music at eight in the morning
or ten or whenever it was, in a strange place with people filming you and
colored lights.” John Lennon, 1970 - Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner.
Once they started work on the Get Back project, it became clear to
The Beatles that their collective enthusiasm was low. John Lennon was addicted to
heroin and rarely enthused by the sessions, and arguments among the group
eventually led to George Harrison temporarily leaving the band.
At the time The Beatles were exhausted after spending five months
recording the White Album, and had also worked on Apple projects by James
Taylor, Mary Hopkin, Jackie Lomax and solo works. At Twickenham they were
forced to keep to film industry schedules, which involved starting work at
8.30am each day.
The cameras were kept rolling at all times, and captured the strains
and tensions of this fragile period. However, there were many moments of true
inspiration, and The Beatles' humor and warmth for one another was often
evident.
“There was some amazing stuff – their humor got to me as much as
the music, and I didn't stop laughing for six weeks. John Lennon only had to
walk in a room, and I'd just crack up. Their whole mood was wonderful, and that
was the thing, and there was all this nonsense going on at the time about the
problems surrounding the group, and the press being at them, and in fact, there
they were, just doing it, having a wonderful time and being incredibly funny,
and none of that's in the film.” Glyn Johns, Record Producer.
The Beatles performed partial or complete versions of literally
hundreds of cover versions and original songs in January 1969. These ranged
from traditional songs and rock and roll classics to unreleased
works-in-progress and those that eventually appeared on Let It Be, Abbey Road,
and The Beatles' early solo albums. Among them were versions of Love Me Do,
Child Of Nature, Something, Don't Let Me Down, All Things Must Pass, songs by
Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, George Formby, The Beach Boys and others,
as well as blues-based improvisations, aimless jams, off-the-cuff song sketches
and many hours of dialogue. The Beatles worked at Twickenham from 2-14 January
1969. On 10 January George Harrison quit the band, after separate disagreements
with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
“For me, to come back into the winter of discontent with The
Beatles in Twickenham was very unhealthy and unhappy. But I can remember
feeling quite optimistic about it. I thought, 'OK, it's the New Year and we
have a new approach to recording.' I think the first couple of days were OK,
but it was soon quite apparent that it was just the same as it had been when we
were last in the studio, and it was going to be painful again. There was a lot
of trivia and games being played.
As everybody knows, we never had much privacy – and now they were
filming us rehearsing. One day there was a row going on between Paul and me.
It's actually in the film: you can see where he's saying, 'Well, don't play
this,' and I'm saying, 'I'll play whatever you want me to play, or I won't play
at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I'll
do it...'
They were filming us having a row. It never came to blows, but I
thought, 'What's the point of this? I'm quite capable of being relatively happy
on my own and I'm not able to be happy in this situation. I'm getting out of
here.'
Everybody had gone through that. Ringo had left at one point. I
know John wanted out. It was a very, very difficult, stressful time, and being
filmed having a row as well was terrible. I got up and I thought, 'I'm not
doing this anymore. I'm out of here.” George Harrison, Anthology.
After Harrison walked out of the Twickenham rehearsals, the other
three Beatles carried on performing without him. At one point, Yoko Ono wailed
some vocals over their jamming. John Lennon can be heard on the tapes
suggesting that if Harrison didn't return within a few days they should replace
him with Eric Clapton.
“George left because Paul and he were having a heated discussion.
They weren't getting on that day and George decided to leave, but he didn't
tell John or me or Paul. There'd been some tension going down in the morning,
and arguments would go on anyway, so none of us realised until we went to lunch
that George had gone home. When we came back, he still wasn't there, so we
started jamming violently. Paul was playing his bass into the amp and John was
off, and I was playing some weird drumming that I hadn't done before. I don't
play like that as a rule. Our reaction was really, really interesting at the
time. And Yoko jumped in, of course; she was there.” Ringo Starr, Anthology.
Harrison was persuaded to rejoin on 15 January, during a five-hour
meeting in which he insisted he would only rejoin if the idea of a live show
was dropped. He also demanded that sessions be moved from Twickenham to a new studio
in the basement of Apple's headquarters in Savile Row, London. He didn't object
to The Beatles being filmed making their album, and his conditions didn't rule
out a live performance for the cameras.
“I was called to a meeting out in Elstead in Surrey, at Ringo’s
house that he bought from Peter Sellers. It was decided that it would be better
if we got back together and finished the record. Twickenham Studios were very
cold and not a very nice atmosphere, so we decided to abandon that and go to
Savile Row into the recording studio.” George Harrison, Anthology.
The Apple Studios sessions began on 21 January 1969. From the
following day, until the end of the Let It Be recordings on 31 January, they
were joined by keyboard player Billy Preston, who was in London performing with
Ray Charles.
The Beatles knew Preston from their Hamburg days, and George
Harrison invited him to participate in the sessions to help alleviate the
tensions. Five of the songs on Let It Be featured Billy Preston on organ or
electric piano, as did Don't Let Me Down, the B-side to the Get Back single,
also recorded during the sessions.
“Billy came down and I said, 'Remember Billy? Here he is – he can
play the piano.' He got on the electric piano, and straight away there was 100%
improvement in the vibe in the room. Having this fifth person was just enough
to cut the ice that we'd created among ourselves. Billy didn't know all the
politics and the games that had been going on, so in his innocence he got stuck
in and gave an extra little kick to the band. Everybody was happier to have
somebody else playing and it made what we were doing more enjoyable. We all
played better and that was a great session. It was more or less just as it is
on the record.” George Harrison, Anthology.
As at Twickenham, The Beatles performed a large variety of songs
at Apple, although the original material became more focused. The sessions
culminated with the famous rooftop performance on 30 January, and with a live
studio set the following day for those songs which were less well suited for an
outside performance. The Let It Be songs – Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling and
One After 909 – were taken from the 30 January 1969 rooftop performance on the
top of the Apple building. Dialogue from the event was also added to the end of
a studio take of Get Back, with John Lennon closing The Beatles' book with the
line: "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and
I hope we've passed the audition."
From the final studio session on 31 January, versions of Two Of Us
and Let It Be were used on the album, and various other performances from the
day were used in the film.
Glyn Johns' Get Back: Eventually, once the recording and filming
was complete, The Beatles realized they had little aptitude to sift through the
hours of recordings for suitable songs. That task was given to Glyn Johns, who
prepared two different versions of an album, titled Get Back, both of which
were rejected by The Beatles.
“We let Glyn John remix it and we didn't want to know, we just
left it to him and said, 'Here, do it.' It's the first time since the first
album we didn't have anything to... we just said, 'Do it.' Glyn Johns did it,
none of us could be bothered going in and Paul... nobody called each other
about it. The tapes were left there, and we got an acetate each, and we'd call
each other and say, 'Well, what do you think? Oh, let it out.' We were going to
let it out with a really shitty condition, disgusted. And I wanted... I didn't
care, I thought it was good to go out to show people what had happened to us.
Like this is where we're at now, we couldn't get – we can't get it together and
don't play together anymore. Leave us alone. Glyn Johns did a terrible job on
it, 'cause he's got no idea, etc. Never mind. But he hasn't, really. And so the
bootleg version is what it was like. Paul was probably thinking, 'Well, I'm not
going to fucking work on it.' It was twenty-nine hours of tape, it was like a
movie. I mean just so much tape. Ten, twenty takes of everything, because we're
rehearsing and taking everything. Nobody could face looking at it.” John
Lennon, 1970, Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner.
Glyn Johns had been approached by Paul McCartney in December 1968
to work on the Get Back sessions. He was present throughout the sessions, and
afterwards began the mammoth task of compiling an album from the tapes.
“I originally put together an album of rehearsals, with chat and
jokes and bits of general conversation in between the tracks, which was the way
I wanted Let It Be to be – breakdowns, false starts. Really the idea was that
at the time, they were viewed as being the be-all-and-end-all, sort of up on a
pedestal, beyond touch, just Gods, completely Gods, and what I witnessed going
on at these rehearsals was that, in fact, they were hysterically funny, but
very ordinary people in many ways, and they were capable of playing as a band,
which everybody was beginning to wonder about at that point, because they
hadn't done so for some time – everything had been prepared in advance, everything
had been overdubbed and everything, and they proved in that rehearsal that they
could still sing and play at the same time, and they could make records without
all those weird and wonderful sounds on them.
That became an obsession with me, and I got the bit between my
teeth about it, and one night, I mixed a bunch of stuff that they didn't even
know I'd recorded half the time – I just whacked the recorder on for a lot of
stuff that they did, and gave them an acetate the following morning of what I'd
done, as a rough idea of what an album could be like, released as it was…
They
came back and said they didn't like it, or each individual bloke came in and
said he didn't like it, and that was the end of that. A period of time went by
and I went to America to work with Steve Miller, and when I came back, I got a
call from John and Paul asking me to meet them at EMI, which I duly did. They
pointed to a big pile of tapes in the corner, and said, 'Remember that idea you
had about putting together an album?' and I said, 'Yes'. They said, 'Well,
there are the tapes – go and do it'. So I was absolutely petrified – you can
imagine. I was actually being asked to put together a Beatle album on my own.
So I did – I went off and locked myself away for a week or so and pieced an
album together out of these rehearsed tapes, which they then all liked, really
liked. This was some months after the thing had actually been recorded, and
we'd actually started work on Abbey Road about the same time.” Glyn johns,
Record Producer.
Glyn Johns began sifting through the session tapes on 10 March
1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London. The Beatles themselves had little
involvement, having begun work on Abbey Road around the same time. Johns mixed
the session tapes at Olympic from 10-13 March, and on 7, 9 and 28 May. At this
stage, side one of the Get Back album was to have contained One After 909,
Rocker, Save The Last Dance For Me, Don't Let Me Down, Dig A Pony, I've Got A
Feeling and Get Back; side two featured For You Blue, Teddy Boy, Two Of Us,
Maggie Mae, Dig It, Let It Be, The Long And Winding Road and Get Back
(Reprise).
For the Get Back project, it was The Beatles' intention to
recreate the cover of Please Please Me, showing how thy had changed visually
since 1963. In May 1969 the group returned to EMI's headquarters in London's
Manchester Square, and the same photographer, Angus McBean, photographed them
as they resumed their poses.
The artwork was prepared for Glyn Johns' Get Back album, which was
to bear the strapline "with Let It Be and 11 other songs". For
reasons unknown, however, the session photographs remained unused until the
1962-1966 and 1967-1970 (the so-called Red and Blue albums) were released in
1973.
The Beatles rejected Johns' first Get Back album, and new recording
sessions for two Let It Be songs took place on 3 and 4 January 1970 – a year
after the initial recordings were made.
The first of these was for George Harrison's I Me Mine, which had
briefly performed attempts before the cameras during the 1969 sessions. In the
film, Harrison first plays the song to Ringo Starr, followed by a version
performed by Harrison, Paul McCartney and Starr, during which John Lennon
dances with Yoko Ono.
“I Me Mine, it's called. I don't care if you don't want it... It's
a heavy waltz.
George Harrison, Let It Be.
No proper studio recording of I Me Mine existed until 3 January
1970. It featured just Harrison, McCartney and Starr, as Lennon was on holiday
in Denmark. The following day, 4 January, overdubs were recorded for Let It Be,
in the band's final proper recording session together.
While Johns still worked on the tapes, the band decided that the
album should include just songs featured in the forthcoming film. One of these,
Across The Universe, had been recorded in February 1968 prior to The Beatles'
trip to India.
On 5 January 1970 Glyn Johns began assembling a second Get Back
album, with the instruction that it should tie in with the songs which appeared
in the film. The track listing had One After 909, Rocker, Save The Last Dance
For Me, Don't Let Me Down, Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling, Get Back and Let It
Be on side one, and For You Blue, Two Of Us, Maggie Mae, Dig It, The Long And
Winding Road, I Me Mine, Across The Universe and Get Back (Reprise) on side
two.
Enter Phil Spector: Like Johns' earlier attempt at compiling a Get
Back LP from the tapes, this second version was rejected by The Beatles. The
project languished some more until 23 March 1970, when Phil Spector began work
on what would become Let It Be. Spector listened only to the songs already
selected by Johns, to avoid having to work through the many hours of session
tapes from Apple and EMI studios.
“When Spector came around, it was like, 'Well, all right, if you
want to work with us, go and do your audition, man.' And he worked like a pig
on it. He'd always wanted to work with The Beatles and he was given the
shittiest load of badly recorded shit – and with a lousy feeling to it – ever.
And he made something out of it. It wasn't fantastic, but I heard it, I didn't
puke. I was so relieved after six months of this black cloud hanging over, this
was going to go out. I thought it would be good to go out, the shitty version,
because it would break The Beatles, it would break the myth. That's us with no
trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hype. 'This is
what we're like with our trousers off. So would you please end the game now?' But
that didn't happen, and we ended up doing Abbey Road quickly and putting out
something to preserve the myth.” John Lennon, 1970 - Lennon Remembers, Jann S
Wenner.
Spector's involvement in Let It Be became one of the most
contentious episodes of The Beatles' story. He was invited to work on the
project by John Lennon and George Harrison, without the knowledge of Paul
McCartney or George Martin.
“I cannot bring myself to listen to the Phil Spector version of
the album – I heard a few bars of it once, and was totally disgusted, and I
think it's an absolute load of garbage. Obviously I'm biased, because they
didn't use my version, which upset me, but I wouldn't have minded so much if
things hadn't happened in the way they did. First of all, after The Beatles had
broken up, John Lennon, as an individual, took the tapes and gave them to Phil
Spector, without the others even being aware of it, which was extraordinary. I
think Spector did the most atrocious job, just utter puke.” Glyn Johns, Record
Producer.
Spector's editing, mixing and recording for the album lasted until
2 April 1970. The most controversial of these sessions took place on 1 April,
when orchestral and choral parts were added to Across The Universe and The Long
And Winding Road, and an orchestra to I Me Mine. The parts were arranged by
Richard Hewson, who had worked on Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days, and later
orchestrated Paul McCartney's Thrillington album.
Other changes made by Spector included editing out the "All I
want is..." vocals which opened and closed Dig A Pony, and extended I Me
Mine from 1'34" to 2'25" by repeating a section. He also left out
Don't Let Me Down, despite its inclusion in the Let It Be film. An edit of the
two rooftop performances of the song was eventually released on 2003's Let It
Be... Naked, in place of Dig It and Maggie Mae.
“I like what Phil did, actually. He put the music somewhere else
and he was king of the 'wall of sound'. There's no point bringing him in if
you're not going to like the way he does it – because that's what he does. His
credentials are solid.”
Ringo Starr, Anthology.
Paul McCartney's reaction
In April 1970, when Paul McCartney effectively announced The
Beatles' split by issuing a self-interview in a press release, he was still
referring to the Let It Be album as Get Back.
Q: The album was not known about until it was nearly completed.
Was this deliberate?
A: Yes, because normally an album is old before it even comes out.
(aside) Witness GET BACK.
Q: Were any of the songs on the album originally written with the
Beatles in mind?
A: The older ones were. JUNK was intended for ABBEY ROAD, but
something happened. TEDDY BOY was for GET BACK, but something happened.
In particular, McCartney took exception to Phil Spector's
additions to The Long And Winding Road, which turned a simple piano ballad into
a soaring orchestral epic.
“The album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American
record producer Phil Spector was called in by John Lennon to tidy up some of
the tracks. But a few weeks ago, I was sent a re-mixed version of my song 'The
Long And Winding Road', with harps, horns, an orchestra and women's choir
added. No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn't believe it. I would never
have female voices on a Beatles record. The record came with a note from Allen
Klein saying he thought the changes were necessary. I don't blame Phil Spector
for doing it but it just goes to show that it's no good me sitting here
thinking I'm in control because obviously I'm not. Anyway, I've sent Klein a
letter asking for some of the things to be altered, but I haven't received an
answer yet.” Paul McCartney, April 1970, The Evening Standard.
McCartney's requests were ignored by Klein, and Spector's version
of Let It Be was released in May 1970. George Martin shared McCartney's dismay
at the results.
“It was always understood that the album would be like nothing the
Beatles had done before. It would be honest, no overdubbing, no editing, truly
live... almost amateurish. When John brought in Phil Spector, he contradicted
everything he had said before. When I heard the final sounds, I was shaken.
They were so uncharacteristic of the clean sounds the Beatles had always used.
At the time Spector was John's buddy, mate and pal... I was astonished because
I knew Paul would never have agreed to it. In fact, I contacted him and he said
nobody was more surprised than he was.” George Martin, Rolling Stone.
The back cover of Let It Be gave a note of thanks to George
Martin, although it didn't list him as a producer. Martin later drily noted
that the credits should have read: "Produced by George Martin,
overproduced by Phil Spector."
For his part, Spector remained unrepentant in the face of the
criticism:
“Paul had no problem picking up the Academy Award for the Let It
Be movie soundtrack, nor did he have any problem in using my arrangement of the
string and horn and choir parts when he performed it during 25 years of touring
on his own. If Paul wants to get into a pissing contest about it, he's got me
mixed up with someone who gives a shit.” Phil Spector.
In November 2003 a new version of the recordings was issued as Let
It Be... Naked. Remixed and remastered under McCartney's direction, it was intended
to sound closer to the original vision for the project.
The release: In the US, Let It Be was preceded by a single, The
Long And Winding Road/For You Blue. By the time it was issued on 11 May 1970,
news of The Beatles' split had broken. The single was one result of Allen
Klein's plan to rapidly increase The Beatles' income: 1.2m copies were sold in
its first two days on sale, and it became The Beatles' 20th and final number
one single in the US.
Let It Be had its US release on 18 May 1970. More than 3,700,000
advance orders had been placed, which at the time was the highest for any album
in the history of the US recording industry.
In the UK, Let It Be was initially released on 8 May 1970 as a box
set, with a 168-page book, titled Get Back, containing stills and dialogue from
the Let It Be film. The package retailed at £2 19s 11d, one pound more than the
normal selling price of an album, and on 6 November 1970 it was withdrawn and
replaced by a conventional album release.
The Let It Be film had its world première in New York City on 13
May 1970. On 20 May UK premieres were held at Liverpool's Gaumont Cinema and
the London Pavilion. Tellingly, none of The Beatles attended any of the events.
“The film was taken over by Allen Klein, who actually got The
Beatles much later, after Let It Be was all recorded, and that was when the rot
set in. Klein saw a rough-cut of it and said he didn't want anyone else in the
film but The Beatles, so everyone else who was in any shot at any time was
taken out, the net result being that it got a bit difficult to watch after a
while. Also, some of the stuff that I know was in there originally, and was
extremely interesting, was conversations with other people, members of the film
crew, people who were just around, people visiting, like Billy Preston – but
Klein said that only The Beatles could be in the film and that was it.” Glyn
Johns, Record Producer.
Cover Art: The Beatles' albums had been treated to a wealth of iconic images
during the 1960s, from Robert Freeman's photography on With The Beatles, A Hard
Day's Night, Beatles For Sale, Help! and Rubber Soul, to the artworks by Klaus
Voormann, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton on their 1966-68 releases.
Let It Be, when it eventually emerged, featured portraits of each
of The Beatles, taken during the recording sessions, separated by thick black
bars. The meaning was clear: the group was no longer together. They were not
even named on the cover, and the words Let It Be starkly underlined that it was
the group's epitaph.
On the back cover there were four more black and white portraits,
along with a few words attempting to preserve the myth that Let It Be showed
The Beatles warts and all:
This is a new phase BEATLES album...Essential to the content of
the film, LET IT BE was that they performed live for many of the tracks; in
comes the warmth and the freshness of a live performance; as reproduced for
disc by Phil Spector.”
In a November 1971 interview with Melody Maker, Paul McCartney
spoke of his disapproval of the words, which he felt masked a greater truth.
“There was a bit of hype on the back of the sleeve for the first
time ever on a Beatles album. At the time, the Beatles were very strained with
each other and it wasn't a happy time. It said it was a 'new-phase Beatles
album' and there was nothing further from the truth. That was the last Beatles
album and everybody knew it.” Paul McCartney, Melody Maker, November 1971.
His comments prompted a letter of reply from John Lennon, who
requested that his version of events be given equal prominence to McCartney's.
The result was an unseemly public row between the two, which, although mostly
focused on wider issues, effectively trampled the reputation of Let It Be
further into the ground.
“One other little lie in your "It's only Paulie" MM bit:
Let It Be was not the first bit of hype on a Beatle album. Remember Tony
Barrow? And his wonderful writing on "Please Please Me" etc. etc. The
early Beatle Xmas records! And you gotta admit it was a 'new-phase' Beatle
album, incidentally written in the style of the great Barrow himself! By the
way, what happened to my idea of putting the parody of our first album cover on
the Let It Be cover?
Also, we were intending to parody Barrow originally, so it was
hype. But what is your LIFE article? Tony Barrow couldn't have done it better.
(And your writing inside of the Wings album [Wild Life] isn't exactly the
realist is it?) Anyway, enough of this petty bourgeois fun.” John Lennon, Melody
Maker, November 1971.
Critical reception: Let It Be won an Oscar for Best Original Song
Score at the 43rd Annual Academy Awards in 1971. The statuette was accepted on
their behalf by Quincy Jones. The soundtrack was also awarded a Grammy for Best
Original Score.
Music critics were generally positive in their appraisals of Let
It Be, though responses were mixed. In the Times newspaper, William Mann wrote:
"Let us attend the funeral when life is pronounced extinct; at the moment
the corporate vitality of The Beatles, to judge from Let It Be, is pulsating as
strongly as ever." Similarly, Robert Christgau in the Village Voice said:
"Though this is a little lightweight, it makes up in charm what it lacks
in dramatic brilliance."
Conversely, New Musical Express critic Alan Smith wrote: "If
the new Beatles soundtrack is to be their last then it will stand as a
cheapskate epitaph, a cardboard tombstone, a sad and tatty end to a musical
fusion which wiped clean and drew again the face of pop." Rolling Stone
magazine identified Phil Spector's production as the album's weakness:
"Musically, boys, you passed the audition. In terms of having the judgment
to avoid either over-producing yourselves or casting the fate of your get-back
statement to the most notorious of all over-producers, you didn't."
Although most Beatles fans were aware that the group was no more
by the time of Let It Be's release, it was still hoped that their final musical
word would be a suitable epitaph, one as creative as Abbey Road had been, and
with the drama and gravitas that might be expected of a final word. Instead,
many listeners considered the songs lightweight, half-hearted, and several
steps down from The Beatles' earlier heady heights.
In the years since then, the album has been embraced by newer
generations of fans, many of whom remain unaware of the difficulties
surrounding its gestation. Although few would argue that For You Blue, Dig It
or Maggie Mae are among The Beatles' best, the likes of Across The Universe,
Let It Be and One After 909 show the range of styles to which they could turn
their hands to. And, let us not forget, even if the collection wasn't The
Beatles' best, for many lesser bands these songs would have constituted a
career peak.
Please feel free to leave any comments or corrections and share
these articles plus the blog's website with your friends, especially Beatles’
fans. You and they might also enjoy knowing more about my Love Songs CD and my
novel, BEATLEMANIAC. Just click on the “My Shop” tab near the top of this page
for full details.
No comments:
Post a Comment