Photo: Ethan A. Russell / © Apple Corps Ltd.
Ahh,Let It Be. No band would ever attempt to make a record under similar circumstances today. Imagine: You’ve just spent nearly five months toiling away on a gargantuan double album of 30 songs. The tense experience has wiped out your stockpile of new material and your collective goodwill. What’s your next move? If your answer is, “Go immediately back into the studio and give yourself three weeks to write a whole new album from scratch to perform during your first live concert in over two years — all while a camera crew documents your every move,” well…congratulations. You have the same streak of bravery, optimism and creative verve thatthe Beatlespossessed at the dawn of 1969.
Those with even the sketchiest knowledge of Beatle history are aware of the project’s difficult birth, chiefly because the problems were so public. Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary film allowed audiences to bear witness to the unhappy initial sessions in a drab and drafty soundstage at Twickenham Studios,site of the infamous squabblesthat droveGeorge Harrisonto temporarily resign the group in frustration.Paul McCartney’s fury over producer Phil Spector’s unchecked maximalism on “The Long and Winding Road” made headlines, and waslater cited in the court proceedingsthat officially dissolved the greatest group of all time. Reports of the Beatles' split reverberated across the world in the month beforeLet It Bewas released on May 8, 1970. The album’s cover appeared to confirm the news with stark clarity. A funereal black border divides photographer Ethan Russell’s four very separate headshots of the once inseparable foursome.
© Apple Corps Ltd
The constant presence of cameras and Nagra synchronized sound recorders ensured thatLet It Be’s development was documented almost from start to finish, a rare phenomenon for an album in progress. By culling through the 140 hours of audio, Martin found himself in the unique position of observing the Beatles' creative process and internal dynamics better than anyone without the aid of a time machine.
“The whole project was fascinating because you got a glimpse of their creativity,” he says. “You hear the interplay between them. You hear the relationships.” The immersive experience led him to question the traditional narrative which presentsLet It Beas a miserable slog that finished off the band. “I think there’s a balance of joy and frustration that goes on. I don’t think it’s a bed of roses, but I think it’s a bed of roses compared to what people thought it was going to be. I’m sure they had arguments while making [prior albums like]Rubber Soul,Revolver,Sgt. Pepper, etc. They’re just not recorded like they are inLet It Be.”
The myth thatLet It Bewas the Beatles’coup de grâcehas persisted despite a major flaw in logic. Though production delays made it the final album they released, the band stayed together long enough to record another album,Abbey Road, released in September of 1969. “The fact of the matter is that everyone seesLet It Beas the Beatles' breakup album,” says Martin, “but they were back in the studio [three] weeks later doing ‘I Want You/She’s So Heavy’ forAbbey Road.” Instead of a breakup, he compares theLet It Besessions to a date night. True to its working title of “Get Back,” the production was intended as a return to their rock ‘n’ roll roots in a last-ditch attempt to restore a sense of unity amid the business and personal turmoil. “They’re trying to find the spark they once had,” Martin explains. “I think they’d just grown tired of being the Beatles. So they said, ‘Let’s go back to being four guys in the Cavern Club. That’s what makes us happy.’ And that’s what they planned to do.”
It’s tempting to dub the entire endeavor doomed from the start. “It’s just crazy,” admits Martin. “The idea is, ‘Okay, in two-and-a-half weeks we’ll do our first live show in years. We haven’t got any songs yet and we haven’t got a place to play it in, but this is the plan, guys! Oh, and we’re going to film it as well.’ But the Beatles had complete confidence in their own abilities. That’s the thing that strikes me about them: no one believes in the Beatles' ability more than the Beatles do.” In their defense, they had previously banged out stone-cold classics likeRubber Soulduring brief breaks in their tour schedule. “I think they thought they could do that again,” says Martin. “It’s a bit like Usain Bolt going, ‘Okay, I’m going to run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds now.’ They weren’t match fit. Plus, they’ve got so many other things going on. Outside forces are at play. They’ve got wives and girlfriends. They’re not locked in a hotel room together on tour anymore. You can’t recreate that intimacy and magic.”
The session tapes gathered dust until early 1970, when they were turned over to Phil Spector, who promptly threw the whole “live album” premise out the window. The notoriously autocratic studio auteur employed his so-called “Wall of Sound” production technique, loading the tracks with string overdubs, choirs, and thick lashings of reverb and echo. Spector’s heavy-handed approach has divided fans ever since, with those in the opposing camp arguing that his work undermined the stripped-down ethos of the original project. McCartney, who says the orchestral adornments to his twin piano ballads “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” were done without his involvement or permission, has always been outspoken about his dissatisfaction. In 2003 he spearheaded the release ofLet It Be…Naked, a remix album shorn of Spector’s bombast.
This all put Martin in a tricky spot while assembling the 2021Let It Beremix. How do you strike a balance between the artist’s creative vision and the record fans have known for half a century? “You have this album that comes out that Paul McCartney’s not happy with, and that’s unusual,” he explains. “The Beatles had been happy with all of their other albums when they [originally] came out. For this, I had to go to Paul and say, ‘Listen, do you actually want me to do this?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, but you know I wasn’t pleased with “The Long and Winding Road” arrangement.’ I said, ‘Well, I still got to mix it. It’s the album that’s there.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, but can you just take the harp down a bit?’ So that was a challenge with this. You don’t want to change history.”
But inadvertently, that’s just what this box set does. Listening to the outtakes and studio chatter, you’re left with a much brighter impression of the proceedings. Perhaps they’re no longer the Fab Four, but they’re still very much four friends. For Martin,Let It Beis a play in three acts. First, the emotionally fraught dates at the Twickenham soundstage, culminating in Harrison’s angry departure. Then the happy reunion at the newly constructed studio in the basement of the Beatles' Apple Records headquarters. And finally,the grand finale on the Apple rooftop, where they played their last ever concert to a crowd of (mostly) delighted Central London office workers. Despite all odds, they got back to where they once belonged. For 42 minutes they were just four guys playing a lunchtime set, as they did only a handful of years earlier in Liverpool.
“Let It Behas this scar on it because it was the last Beatles album to come out,” says Martin. “Therefore, people paint it as this climax of acrimony the Beatles had, because they want an equal and opposing force to the biggest band in the world suddenly stopping. And the fact of the matter is, the Beatles kind of petered out. The reality is less dramatic. But at the same time it’s much more heartwarming because it’sreal.”
Let It Behas no heroes, no villains, no blowups or juicy feuds. Instead, it’s a taleof growing pains and four men drifting apart. We all know how the story ends. As Martin observes, “Let It Bewas the Beatles trying to rekindle their youth and not quite making it.” But hearing them joke and play on these outtakes, you hold out hope that they might.
Read on for some of the most significant moments heard on this remarkable new collection.
Ethan A. Russell / © Apple Corps Ltd.
1.The First Known Recording of “Something” as a Collaborative Work-in-Progress
The song was still only partially complete when Harrison offered it up for consideration during the Get Back sessions on Jan. 28, 1969. Though never attempted as a formal take, this earliest known recording of “Something” is an intimate insight into the creation of a classic. In a touching display of camaraderie, the band rallies around Harrison as he struggles to fill the gaps in the lyrics. “What could it be, Paul?” he wonders while trying to finish the opening line. “Attracts me like a…?” Lennon suggests a stream of consciousness approach. “Just say whatever comes into your head each time…until you get the word.” He demonstrates with the less-than-romantic “attracts me like a cauliflower.” Harrison counters with “attracts me like a pomegranate,” which mercifully doesn’t make the final cut either. “I’ve been through this one for about six months!” he moans. “Just that line. I couldn’t think of anything.” They set it aside and move onto the bridge, which Harrison fills in with ad-libbed dummy lines (“What do you know, Mr. Show? I don’t know, I don’t know.") while his bandmates experiment with backing harmonies.
By the time Harrison demoed the song a month later on Feb. 25 — his 26th birthday — the now-famous lines were more or less in place.
2. A Full Band Rendition of “All Things Must Pass”
The familiar narrative of the Get Back/Let It Besessions is that George Harrison was subjected to daily disrespect from the Lennon-McCartney braintrust and his songs were given next to no attention. And that’s true —to an extent. “John and Paul saw themselves asthesongwriting partnership for the Beatles,” says Giles Martin. “[On the tapes] they talk about how they need to write songs and how they have to deliver and all that kind of stuff. But George, on the other hand, has grown as a songwriter. He’s writing amazing work at that stage.” In addition to the aforementioned “Something,” Harrison presented future solo standouts like “All Things Must Pass,” “Isn’t It a Pity,” “Hear Me Lord” and “Let It Down” for consideration. None made the final tracklist forLet It Be.
On the session tapes, Lennon can frequently be heard referring to Harrison as “Harrisongs,” a playful (though no doubt painful) dig at his song publishing company. The implication was clear: Harrison’s songs were all well and good, but they were very much his own thing. “John and Paul isolated him to a certain degree,” says Martin. “I find it remarkable that you never get a Lennon-Harrison or a McCartney-Harrison song. Most other bands have that if they have more than one songwriter. But there isn’t that in the Beatles.”
George Harrison in 1969.Ethan A. Russell / © Apple Corps Ltd.
While the chief composers certainly struggled to view the youngest Beatle as an equal, even a cursory look at the session tapes reveals thatthey put significant effort into a number of Harrison’s musical offerings. Case in point: “All Things Must Pass,” which Harrison debuted the first day of sessions on Jan. 2. The Beatles attempted the tune 37 times the following day, and 11 more times on the 8th.
Destined to become the title track to Harrison’s first post-Beatles solo statement, the song drew inspiration from “All Things Pass,” a poem published in LSD guru Timothy Leary’s 1966 bookPsychedelic Prayers —itself a psychedelic reinterpretation of the Tao Te Ching. George admits as much on the session tapes from Jan. 3. “It’s Timothy Leary, I suppose. That gave me the idea…Apart fromlifegiving me the idea!” Having spent the past autumn in the Catskills withBob Dylanand his musical brethren in the Band, Harrison drew on these memories when working out an arrangement for the new song. “The motion of it is very, you know, Band-y” he tells the others. To facilitate this request, Lennon adds washes from a Lowery organ, a favorite of the Band’s keyboard player Garth Hudson (who, Harrison points out,McCartney closely resembles with his new beard).
Lennon, McCartney and Harrison work out a charming three-part blend for the choruses, with McCartney’s high harmony providing a fascinating glimpse of what Harrison’s solo favorite could have been as a full-fledged Beatles track. Rather than treat “All Things Must Pass” like a chore — as has often been claimed — the whole band appears happily engaged in the task of shaping Harrison’s song. McCartney suggests an instrumental break, and Lennon offers a lyrical adjustment, tweaking “a wind can blow those clouds away” to “a mind can blow those clouds away” after misreading Harrison’s lyric sheet. “Get a little bit of psychedelia in it, y’know,” he jokes.
The new line remained in place when Harrison recorded the song for his solo disc in late May 1970, weeks after news of the Beatles' split made headlines around the world.
3. The Belated Debut of “Fancy Me Chances,” an Early “Lennon-McCartney Original”
Rehearsals for “Two of Us” on Jan. 24 triggered a particularly acute burst of nostalgia as McCartney and Lennon worked out Everly Brothers harmonies over two acoustic guitars. It reminded them of their teenage writing sessions camped out in McCartney’s father’s living room, scrawling words and chord changes in a school exercise book. Each completed composition was topped off with the lofty heading: “Another Lennon-McCartney original.” Now, years later, McCartney couldn’t resist writing “Another Quarrymen Original” on the lyric sheet to “Two Of Us.” Though McCartney had written the song about aimless drives with new girlfriend Linda Eastman, it may as well have been about his friendship with Lennon, and the choice of arrangement underscored the sentimentality of the song.
The Beatles busked through two takes of the song, both delivered with comically thick Scouse accents. The abbreviated second version surfaced on the officialLet It Bealbum, while the first segued into another early Lennon-McCartney original, “Fancy Me Chances.” (Later heard in part on theLet It Be…Naked"Fly on the Wall” bonus disc.) Though slight, it’s a sweet tune and the moment is oddly thrilling. The chance to hear a lost Lennon-McCartney song is always cause for celebration, and their voices brim with exuberance. But it also fulfilled the poignant promise of “Two Of Us” — their memories stretching back longer than the road ahead.
4.The Barrel House Piano Version of “One After 909”
“‘One After 909’…is one that I wrote separately from Paul when [I was] 17 or 18 in Liverpool,” Lennon said of this early composition, which takes its cue from locomotive-centric skiffle mainstays like “Rock Island Line” and “Freight Train.” The song’s journey from Lennon’s teenage bedroom to the tracklist ofLet It Beis certainly a long and winding road. The earliest known recording of the songdates from April 1960, when Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and early Beatles bassist Stu Sutcliffe borrowed a Grundig reel-to-reel tape machine to record themselves performing (supposedly) in the McCartney family bathroom, where the tile provided a Sun Records-like echo.
An additional bootleg has surfaced of the band performing the songduring an afternoon rehearsal at Liverpool’s Cavern Clubin October 1962. This tape is believed to have served as a reference for their (relatively) new drummerRingo Starr, who had joined their ranks weeks earlier in mid-August.
The first formal attempt the band made to record “One After 909” occurred on March 5, 1963, during the first flush of Beatlemania. Earlier in the day they’d knocked out a new single, “From Me to You,” and its B-side, “Thank You Girl,” but Lennon’s train song proved harder to nail and all but one of their takes broke down. (Lennon can be heard on the tapes chastising McCartney for losing his guitar pick,calling him a “soft arse.") Ultimately this studio version was shelved until 1995, when it was released as part ofThe Beatles Anthologycollection.
“One After 909” languished until the start of the Get Back sessions in January 1969. The project began less than six weeks after the release of the White Album, the 30-song epic that the band had worked on for much of the second half of 1968. The sprawling collection had more or less cleaned out Lennon’s reserve of new compositions, and he arrived at Twickenham short of songs — at least compared to the prolific McCartney and Harrison. “John was obviously in the midst of a writing block duringLet It Be,” Giles Martin says. “He’s really relaxed in most of the sessions. That’s the funny thing. Paul’s going, ‘Come on, guys!’ And John’s just going, ‘Ehh, I’ll do whatever…'”
Lennon would later cite his own “lack of material” as his reason for suggesting they dust off “One After 909.” The band fondly embraced the song, and it was quickly earmarked as a serious contender for inclusion in the climactic concert and subsequent album.
5. An Extended Version of Lennon’s Stream-of-Consciousness Jam “Dig It”
For over 50 years,Let It Belisteners have only known “Dig It” as a bizarre 50-second snippet that ushered in the album’s title track with Billy Preston’s swirling, furiously-pumped organ and John Lennon’s free-associative nonsense lyrics. In reality, this is just a fraction of the song’s unwieldy 12-minute length. Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s (difficult to find)Let It Bedocumentary featured a clip just over three minutes in length, showing the Beatles having a ball as they improvise the song with a little help from George Martin on percussion while McCartney’s soon-to-be stepdaughter Heather twirls. Though unabashedly silly, the loose jam packs an undeniable groove. Now, for the first time ever, an extended excerpt of “Dig It” is available as part of Glyn Johns’ mix of the album.
6.George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s “Octopus’s Garden” Writing Session
One of the most touching moments on theLet It Bebox set occurred on the morning of Jan. 26, 1969. George Harrison can be heard helping Ringo Starr flesh out a new song that would ultimately become the stickman’s second solo compositional contribution to the Beatles' canon. Starr had begun writing the piece while on vacation the previous August, after having temporarily left the Beatles during the increasingly tense sessions for the White Album. “That time was pretty stressful,“Starr told PEOPLE in 2019. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I said, ‘I’m going with [wife] Maureen and the kids.’ We went off to Sardinia on Peter Sellers' yacht…Later on, thanks to some ‘Bob Marley products,’ I was hanging out with the captain. He was telling me about how octopuses make these gardens. They go around the ocean finding shiny things and putting them in front of their cave. It was like, ‘Whoa, that sounds good.’ That’s how I wrote ‘Octopus’s Garden.’ I wanted to be under the sea then. It was just a down time.”
The mood was only marginally better in January, as Harrison and Starr huddled around a piano in the Beatles' Apple Studios at 3 Savile Row. Harrison himself had only recently returned to the fold after walking out on the rehearsals at Twickenham Studios two weeks before. The fraught backstory lends a complex subtext to an otherwise simple tune, a collaboration between two men who had already quit the Beatles. AsStarr pounds out the unfinished song, Harrison goes out of his way to praise his rudimentary piano playing (“You’ve learnt A-minor, eh?") before suggesting some new chord changes of his own. He’s patient and kind, strumming along on an acoustic guitar as they iron out lyrics that, at this early stage, include the slightly clunky couplet, “It would be nice / a paradise.”
“As Paul and John had grown [as writers], I think the other two became more isolated,” Giles Martin suggests. “Everyone thinks a rift between Lennon and McCartney ended the Beatles. I don’t think it was, actually. I think that Lennon and McCartney take up a lot of space — and rightfully, so! But the energy of them needing to work together in the studio probably isolated the other two.”
“Octopus’s Garden,” which Starr debuted on Jan. 6, would enjoy a more illustrious fate. After a brief run-through on the 23rd and a writing workshop with Harrison three days later, the song was shelved until that spring, when it was resurrected for what would become the Beatles' studio swan song,Abbey Road. Despite his creative input, Harrison declined to take a writer’s credit.
7.The “Save The Last Dance for Me” Medley from Glyn Johns’Get BackMix
The Beatles performed some 229 covers (give or take) over the course of the 20-day Get Back/Let It Beodyssey. Some were full performances and others just a tossed-off line or two. Regardless, the breadth of these songs is staggering, spanning everything from gritty R&B deep cuts to hilariously square contemporary pop hits, classical instrumental pieces, archaic folk songs and even pre-war Easy Listening standards. The speed with which they could conjure up an arrangement of just about anything recalls their years as human jukeboxes on the punishing club circuit in Hamburg, Germany. It’s also a reminder that all four of the Fabs were major music fans and serious record nerds. The list of covers reads like a cross section of their influences and heroes.Chuck Berrymakes the strongest showing with a whopping 15 songs.Bob Dylanracks up 13,Elvis Presley12, andBuddy Hollyhas nine — plus healthy amounts ofLittle Richard, Eddie Cochran,Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins,Smokey Robinsonand Ray Charles.
A highlight of the set is a Jan. 22 medley from Glyn Johns’Get Backthat combines a loose rocky jam (which usesFats Domino’s “I’m Ready"as a starting point) with a tongue-in-cheek version of the Drifters' perennial prom closer"Save the Last Dance for Me.“From there, the Beatles seamlessly segue into a chaotic chorus from Lennon’s new song, “Don’t Let Me Down.” In addition to the sheer novelty of a new cover song from the Beatles, the piece showcases the musical telepathy they shared as they bounced from song to song and idea to idea.
8. The Long Fadeout of “Get Back” (Take 8)
After filling out the melody with dummy words and syllables, he stumbled on “Get back to where you once belonged.” It’s a variation of a lyric from"Sour Milk Sea,“a song Harrison had written for Apple Records artist Jackie Lomax. (McCartney can even be heard exclaiming “C’mon Jackie!” on one early take.) The evocative phrase initially led McCartney to improvisea satirical anti-immigration tirade — “Don’t dig no Pakistanis taking all the people’s jobs”— in parody of conservative politician Enoch Powell and the racist attitudes of his supporters. Fearing that fans would miss the reference and take his words at face value, McCartney wisely shifted the lyrics into a vague chronicle of two characters named Loretta Martin and Jo Jo. (It’s unsurprising that the so-called “No Pakistanis” number isnotfeatured on the expanded box set.)
The words were largely meaningless, but both the title and sound of the song perfectly distilled the spirit of the project in progress, and it was quickly seized upon as a potential theme for the documentary and album. Unfortunately, it also emphasized the hazards of their willfully regressive recording methods, which shunned overdubs, edits and other studio tools in favor of capturing a single live performance. As George Martin would later moan inThe Beatles Anthology, “We would start a track and it wasn’t quite right, and we would do it again and again…and then I’d get to take 19: ‘Well John, the bass wasn’t as good as it was on take 17, but the voice was pretty good, so let’s go on again.’ Take 43: ‘Well yes…’ So you go on forever because it was never perfect — and it got very tedious.” By most accounts, the endless versions of “Get Back” pushed all involved to the brink of sanity, but the many recordings reveal fascinating variations in the arrangement.One early version features a crashing opening chord, à la “A Hard Day’s Night.” The most interesting rendition included on theLet It Bebox set, Take 8, features an extended coda with Lennon’s punk-ish lead guitar stings and McCartney’s enthusiastic ad libs in an over-the-top Northern English accent: “It’s five o’clock.Your mother’s got your tea on. Take your cap off…” They sound as though they’re enjoying themselves on this take, but then Martin’s weary voice comes over the studio talkback. “Paul, I think it’s a shade too slow now. I think it’s lost a bit…”
9. A Bach-like “Let It Be” with a Cheeky Snippet of “Please Please Me”
In addition to a slightly different arrangement than the finished song, Take 10 of “Let It Be” is also notable for a moment at the start of the performance when McCartney ad libs a version of the Beatles' 1963 breakthrough “Please Please Me,” reimagined as a dramatic piano ballad. In doing so, he bookended the Beatles' first hit in their home country with their last, released just seven years — and a lifetime — apart. “It wasn’t actually that long ago,” marvels Giles Martin. “That’s the weird thing for us as mere mortals. You see the change in the whole way they worked. They sort of lived their lives in fast forward. "
10. A Flamenco-Style Rehearsal of “I Me Mine” and Audio from the Last True Beatles' Session
The dance break could be interpreted either as spontaneous goofiness or a mocking dismissal of his bandmate’s efforts. Thankfully, Harrison apparently opts for the former. (Though it’s worth noting that he would storm out of the sessions two days later and threaten to quit the band.) With good humor, he suggests they incorporate Lennon and Ono’s dance routine into the song’s performance at the climactic concert. This triggers a round of laughs as McCartney assumes the role of a circus MC, announcing “John and Yoko would like to waltz in their white bag!” Amazingly, this idea is seriously considered, and the couple rehearse the dance while McCartney and Harrison offer suggestions. Taking advantage of the lightened mood, the band logged some 41 run-throughs of the song (though not all complete) before breaking for the day.
Tragically, Lennon and Yoko’s waltz would not get its big premiere on the concert stage. Though it’s mentioned on several occasions, “I Me Mine” is never performed again as part of the Get Back sessions. For much of 1969, it appeared destined to remain part of Harrison’s ever-growing cache of unused songs, the bulk of which would form his first post-Beatles solo release, the majestic triple-discAll Things Must Pass. But when Lindsay-Hogg decided to incorporate footage of the “I Me Mine” dance into hisLet It Bedocumentary, it’s deemed necessary to add the song to the soundtrack album. The only problem is that the song wasn’t complete. Those few sketchy rehearsals, recorded on subpar cinema audio, were all that existed.
So on Jan. 3, 1970, the Beatles entered EMI Studios to record a new version from scratch. More precisely, it was the Beatles minus Lennon, who was on vacation in Denmark at the time. Harrison alludes to his absence with a joke about the pop group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, who had coped with the departure of frontman Dee Dave in September 1969.
That very same month, Lennon told his bandmates thathe wanted “a divorce.“Though the foursome kept the news amongst themselves — partially to protect business deals, and partially in hopes that Lennon would reconsider — it was obvious during the “I Me Mine” session that the Beatles' future was in question. Indeed, it would be the last new song the Beatles ever recorded before their split was announced publicly that April. Audio from this date, effectively the last true Beatles session, is included in theLet It Bebox set. In addition to George’s Dave Dee joke, the trio are heard performing a quick rendition of the Everly Brothers' chestnut “Wake Up Little Susie” between takes. Lennon’s absence is keenly felt. With McCartney’s longtime harmonic partner nowhere to be found, he sings it solo.
source: people.com
