The Beatles had already announced their breakup to the world by the time Let It Be was released in 1970. They left behind a somewhat star-crossed project that had been hanging around for more than a year after its initial sessions before its release.
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The chaos going on behind the scenes wasn’t able to overwhelm what the Fab Four accomplished from a musical sense. Here are five stories behind the songs on Let It Be that you might not know.
The “Two” are Paul and Linda
When you listen to the song “Two Of Us” without any context behind its making, you might assume that it’s about the relationship between Paul McCartney and John Lennon. After all, the pair sing in close, two-part harmony in the song in a way that they hadn’t done in years. And the lyrics speak with nostalgia about warm memories and great times spent together. But McCartney, who wrote the track, was actually referring to the getaways he took with wife Linda whenever The Beatles’ drama seemed overwhelming.
Faster, then Slower
“Across The Universe” was the song that The Beatles couldn’t get right, despite the inherent beauty of the John Lennon composition. They first recorded it back in 1968, with a pair of female fans pulled from outside of Apple singing backup. Lennon didn’t like this version, although it was sped up and used on a charity compilation album in 1969. The Beatles revived it for Let It Be, only this time with Lennon’s voice slowed down and orchestration added. To hear his voice at its actual speed as recorded, check out the version from Let It Be…Naked.
A Tribute to Mom
John Lennon once criticized “Let It Be” as a rip-off of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel. The only problem with that theory is that there’s no way Paul McCartney could have even heard of the S&G song before writing his opus. In actuality, McCartney did indeed receive inspiration from a dream, one that recalled his mother, Mary McCartney. She died of cancer when Paul was still a teenager. If anything, “Let It Be”, with its repetitive, sing-along chorus, seemed like an attempt to recapture the magic of “Hey Jude”.
A John/Paul Mashup
Throughout the group’s history, the differences in disposition and outlook between John Lennon and Paul McCartney fueled many a wonderful song. “I’ve Got A Feeling” might give the clearest example of how that dynamic worked. The track actually encompasses two different songs, one by Lennon and one by McCartney, that the two jammed together. Macca sings energetically about this all-encompassing, positive feeling that has overtaken him. And Lennon moans about everybody having a “hard year.”
Mad Macca
After The Beatles turned down several different mixes of Let It Be done by Glyn Johns in 1969, they enlisted Phil Spector to take the endless recordings and create an album of them. By this part of the process, Paul McCartney was somewhat estranged from the other three members due to battles over who would control the group’s business affairs. As a result, he wasn’t at all consulted on Spector’s decision to add strings and a choir to “The Long And Winding Road”. Macca hated the changes. That spurred his decision to spearhead the Let It Be…Naked project over 40 years after the fact.
Photo by Roy Cummings/THA/Shutterstock
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