Getting Back to Let It Be

Controversy has swirled around The Beatles’ Let It Be album ever since its release in 1970. For what is often referred to as the “breakup album,” the hot debates and finger-pointing of that fraught period have largely cooled with the passing decades. As in all things human, the reality was more complicated and nuanced.

Which brings us to the Special Edition of Let It Be. This release mirrors the format of the recent The White Album and Abbey Road remixes. Let It Be is available in various bundles, from the modest single CD containing new mixes by Giles Martin and Sam Okell to the lavish multiple disc collections (a five-LP box set and six-CD/BD) which contain outtakes, rehearsals, jams, and studio chatter, plus the 14-track Get Back “soundtrack” as mixed by engineer Glyn Johns in 1969. The six-disc Special Edition also includes a Blu-ray with a 5.1-channel DTS and Dolby Atmos mix, a 24/96kHz stereo version, plus a four-track EP. The enclosed hardcover book contains terrific Ethan Russell photos, a forward by Paul McCartney, and reminiscences by Giles Martin, Glyn Johns, and Kevin Howlett. The release is part of a wider retrospective culminating in the highly anticipated seven-hour Get Back documentary on Disney+. Compiled from 57 hours of original archival footage restored and edited by director Peter Jackson, this doc promises to shed more light on the band’s end stages than ever before. 

The original concept of Let It Be was to film a documentary depicting the band rehearsing new material and culminating in a live TV performance—which would have marked their first concert in three years. For 21 days in January 1969, filming commenced on a soundstage at Twickenham Film Studios in London under the direction of Michael Lindsay-Hogg. The conditions were less than ideal, the stage was frigid, the atmosphere gloomy. The production soon decamped back to the studio at Apple HQ on Savile Row to complete the sessions. After debating about where to actually perform, expediency won out and the band famously ended up on the rooftop of Apple, causing a heroic lunchtime traffic jam until the police pulled the plug.  Later, and unbeknownst to Paul McCartney, producer Phil Spector was invited by John, George, and Ringo to “improve” or in the words of producer George Martin overproduce some of the finished tracks, most notably “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road.” The film and album were released in May 1970, a month after the formal break-up. 

The Martin/Okell remixes on CD are consistent with their recent efforts in that they heighten and focus vocals, and shift the main body of the band’s energy towards center stage. The bottom end is punchier, kick drum and electric bass guitar certainly more tuneful, the top end warmer and less strident. The soundstage is a bit narrower and shallower. For this occasion, I listened to Let It Be from The Beatles in Stereo LP box set of 2012. In my view this was the template for what was to come—that is, heavier bass, excellent image separation, and a more midrange-forward presentation. However, compared with an all-analog LP like the MoFi remastering in 1982 (not perfect by any means), the remixes have produced vocals that sound over-isolated, the individual tracks too carefully manicured. On the vinyl, when George tears into the guitar solo during “Let It Be,” the passion in those riffs and the immediacy of attack from Ringo’s high-hat rips at your heart—like listening straight out of the amp. 

What shines through while listening to the session/jams is not only the creative output of the band, but the willingness to experiment with tempos, style, and harmonies. Fly-on-the-wall moments include George pitching “All Things Must Pass” for the album (how did that not make the cut?) or searching for a lyric to “Something,” Ringo demoing “Octopus’s Garden,” John trying out “Polythene Pam,” and Paul delivering snippets of “Teddy Boy” or nostalgically launching into a verse of “Please Please Me.” The mood is collegial, even light-hearted, laced with bonhomie banter and joking—a rebuttal to the darker conventional wisdom of four discordant individuals emotionally walled-off from one another. 

In the forward to the Special Edition, Paul aims to set the record straight in stating that he’s always thought the original film “was pretty sad as it dealt with the break-up of our band.” As for the notorious Spector additions, time has prompted him to acknowledge their legitimacy. Referring to Jackson’s film and the Let It Be remixes, he concludes that “it is how I want to remember The Beatles.” I suspect most fans will agree.

Indeed, lest we forget, The Beatles were far from finished. Only weeks after the Let It Be sessions concluded, they were back in the studio recording their triumphant final album, for the last time summoning forth their magical and unparalleled musical creativity. Remarkably, when Abbey Road was released in September 1969, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were all still in their twenties.