Line #32 Music/LetItBe


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/letitbe_9045.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"I wake up to the sound of music..."'']]
3
4	''Let It Be'' is the thirteenth and final studio album by Music/TheBeatles, released through Apple Records in 1970, almost a month after the group's breakup. However, it was mostly recorded in early 1969 months before they started work on ''Music/AbbeyRoad'', which got a release later on in the year and was the actual final album recorded during the band's lifetime.
5
6	It is also the only Beatles album not produced by George Martin, instead being produced by Music/PhilSpector, who incorporated his trademark "Wall of Sound" production techniques by adding prominent orchestral embellishments throughout the album, as well as their only album to be partially recorded at Twickenham Film Studios rather than EMI (now Abbey Road) Studios. Most of the album, however, was recorded at the band's own Apple Studio, including three tracks ("Dig a Pony", "I've Got a Feeling", "One After 909") from a famous rooftop concert which marked the band's final live performance before an audience.[[note]]The band also performed "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down" at the rooftop concert; the ''Let It Be... Naked'' version of "Don't Let Me Down" is a splice of the two rooftop performances, while the version released as the B-side to "Get Back" was recorded in the studio two days earlier. "Get Back" itself, both on the album and in its single release, are an earlier studio performance, though Spector spliced in some applause and chatter from the end of the rooftop concert at the end of the album.[[/note]] Only one track, Music/GeorgeHarrison's "I Me Mine", was recorded following ''Abbey Road'', by which Music/JohnLennon had already departed the band in late 1969.
7
8	Music/PaulMcCartney hated what Spector did to their final album, having intended for it to be a "[[RevisitingTheRoots back-to-basics]]" BluesRock approach for the Beatles rather than the ChamberPop record Spector turned it into. Lennon, for his part, felt completely different, crediting Spector for crafting something listenable out of what he called "badly recorded" tracks.
9
10	To this day, ''Let It Be'' ranks as the most divisive Beatles album among fans, who argue as to whether it's an underrated masterpiece or an overblown mess emblematic of just how far the band had fallen on a personal level. However, that difference in opinion did not stop the album from winning numerous awards, such as the MediaNotes/AcademyAward for Best Music, Original Song Score and the MediaNotes/GrammyAward for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special.
11
12	In 2003, a totally new version of the album was released, named ''Let It Be... Naked'', where Paul's original vision could finally be heard. All the material on this album was devoid of Spector's production and showcased a simple rock sound in-line with the pre-''Music/RubberSoul'' era, with its originally intended track listing in place. (Lennon's "Dig It" jam and the brief cover of "Maggie Mae" were both deleted and replaced with "Don't Let Me Down".) As a bonus CD, a [[LeaveTheCameraRunning Leave the Microphone Running]] recording from the Beatles in their studio was released, too, containing more chatting and clowning about than actual recording.
13
14	The making of the album was documented in a film, also titled ''Film/LetItBe'', which was released in 1970. ''Series/TheBeatlesGetBack'', a three-part miniseries produced by Creator/PeterJackson and comprised of six out of 57 hours worth of footage shot at Twickenham, was released on Creator/DisneyPlus in November 2021. The miniseries serves as a corrective to some longstanding myths about the sessions: contrary to her reputation, Music/YokoOno does not influence the band's creative process at all, and despite Harrison's brief departure, the sessions weren't as acrimonious as they were reputed to have been, particularly once they moved from Twickenham to Apple Headquarters; the band are mostly cordial with one another, joking around and having fun playing covers of old rock tunes.
15
16	A five-disc reissue of the album also appeared in 2021; highlights include a new stereo remix of the album by Giles Martin (son of the Beatles' longtime producer George), which effectively splits the difference between Spector's mix and ''Let It Be... Naked'', and a remaster of Glyn Johns' long-bootlegged original mix, which is much rawer than the official versions. There are also multiple discs of outtakes and jams.
17
18	----
19	!! Tracklist:
20
21	[[AC: Side One]]
22	# "Two of Us" (3:37)
23	# "Dig a Pony" (3:55)
24	# "Across the Universe" (3:48)
25	# "I Me Mine" (2:26)
26	# "Dig It" (0:50)
27	# "Let It Be" (4:03)
28	# "Maggie Mae" (0:40)
29
30	[[AC: Side Two]]
31	[numlist:8]
32	# "I've Got a Feeling" (3:38)
33	# "One After 909" (2:54)
34	# "The Long and Winding Road" (3:38)
35	# "For You Blue" (2:32)
36	# "Get Back" (3:09)
37	[/numlist]
38	----
39	!! Let it Be: Naked Tracklist:
40
41	[[AC: Side One]]
42	# "Get Back - Naked Version" (2:34)
43	# "Dig a Pony - Naked Version" (3:38)
44	# "For You Blue - Naked Version" (2:27)
45	# "The Long and Winding Road - Naked Version" (3:34)
46	# "Two of Us - Naked Version" (3:20)
47	# "I've Got a Feeling- Naked Version" (3:30)
48	# "One After 909 - Naked Version" (2:24)
49	# "Don't Let Me Down - Naked Version" (3:18)
50	# "I Me Mine - Naked Version" (2:21)
51	# "Across The Universe - Naked Version" (3:38)
52	# "Let It Be - Naked Version" (3:55)
53	----
54	!!Principal Members:
55
56	* Music/GeorgeHarrison - guitar, backing and lead vocals, tambura
57	* Music/JohnLennon - lead vocals, guitar, bass
58	* Music/PaulMcCartney - lead vocals, bass, guitar, piano, organ, keyboard, maracas
59	* Music/RingoStarr - drums, percussion, maracas
60
61	----
62	!! "Tropes are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup":
63	* AbortedArc: In 1969, the band decided to record some songs together in a studio, and later in an impromptu concert on the Apple rooftop, in what would become the album ''Get Back'', all while filming a documentary about the experience. The GloryDays revival would even be illustrated with an album cover replicating the ''Music/PleasePleaseMe'' one. The whole ordeal wound up just raising tensions and ultimately leading to the Beatles' breakup, but not before they decided to make ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' before calling it quits. Then the ''Get Back'' sessions were submitted to Phil Spector for an orchestral makeover, and the result was ''Let It Be''. The ''Please Please Me'' parody was later famously repurposed for the compilation ''1966-1970'', a.k.a. ''The Blue Album''.
64	* AddedAlliterativeAppeal:
65	** "'''M'''aggie '''M'''ae".
66	** "I '''M'''e '''M'''ine"
67	** "'''M'''other '''M'''ary" and "'''W'''hisper '''w'''ords of '''w'''isdom, let it be...".
68	* AlbumFiller:
69	** The inclusion of "Across the Universe". "Across the Universe" had originally been recorded in 1968, poorly, and given away to a World Wildlife Fund charity album. John Lennon, who was struggling to come up with material during these sessions, went back to "Across the Universe" and the band rehearsed the song extensively. Unfortunately they failed to record a decent track, and in the end Phil Spector simply took the original 1968 version, slowed it down, and put it on the album.
70	** "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" were both jams that Glyn Johns had placed in his early mixes of the album, to give a sense of the spontaneous feel of the sessions, and Spector re-used them (cutting "Dig It" down to less than a minute), but they still weren't really part of the project. When the album was remixed as ''Let It Be... Naked'' in 2002, both were dropped from the track list, replaced by Lennon's "Don't Let Me Down".
71	** The band rehearsed "I Me Mine" during the sessions, and a clip of them playing it is included in the ''Let It Be'' movie. But they never got a good take recorded, so Paul, George, and Ringo assembled on Jan. 3, 1970 (a year to the day after the ''Get Back'' sessions started) and recorded the song to fill out the album, in what turned out to be the last-ever Beatles recording session.
72	* AndStarring: Billy Preston on piano. The "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down" single was attributed to "The Beatles with Billy Preston". This was the only time the band shared billing with another artist. Preston played keyboards and piano for all ten days of recording after the band reconvened at Abbey Road studios, and can be seen in ''Let It Be'' film.
73	* AntiClimax: Many critics and listeners considered the album as a whole to be this for The Beatles' career. The [=NME=] famously dismissed it as "a shabby epitaph, a cardboard tombstone". Although a lot of people still consider the album to be quite good, and with some genuinely great songs, there is a fair bit of debate over whether it or ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' should be considered their true "final album", as ''Abbey Road'' was the last to be recorded and is viewed by many as a more fitting finale.
74	* BookEnds: The original ''Get Back'' album was supposed to have a 1969 photo of the Beatles in the exact same pose that they used for their breakout 1963 ''Music/PleasePleaseMe'' album. This idea was abandoned when the ''Get Back'' album was reworked into ''Let It Be'', but the photo was eventually used for the cover of the ''1967–1970'' compilation album.
75	* BrokenRecord: The word "everybody" in "I've Got A Feeling".
76	* CharacterCheck: "One After 909" was actually one of the earliest songs that Lennon and [=McCartney=] ever wrote, but never actually made it onto an album until this point. It accordingly sounds a lot more old-school rock-pop than most of the music they'd been producing since the mid-1960s.
77	* CoverVersion: "Maggie Mae". This was an old PublicDomain traditional song that Julia Lennon taught her teenaged son John as she was teaching him how to play banjo.
78	* CounterpointDuet: After Paul sings his part of "I've Got a Feeling" and then John sings his part, this effect is produced at the end when each sings their own song at the same time.
79	* CultSoundtrack: Subverted. The film was actually intended to be a companion piece to the album. However, seeing that the movie has rarely been seen on TV ever since and has been unavailable on home media since the 1980's, this may be one example where the album is better known than the movie.
80	* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: The band once got bored with the void life of a superstar, so they went to India (or somewhere) looking for a spiritual guide to give them the purpose of life. It failed. The result was the song "Across the Universe":
81	-->''Jai Guru Deava Ommm'' (Which means "Thanks spiritual master" [[BilingualBonus in Sanskrit]])\
82	''Nothing's gonna change my world.''
83	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: "Let It Be" was inspired by a dream Paul had about his mother, who died when he was young.
84	* FaceOnTheCover: Four individual photos of the band members.
85	* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: In 2003, Music/PaulMcCartney would release ''Let It Be... Naked'', a remixed version of the album that stripped out Music/PhilSpector's choral and orchestral overdubs (which were probably necessary at the time to salvage parts of the material), and digitally cleaning tracks using technology not available at the time. Unlike most iterations of this trope, both versions remained readily available.
86	* GriefSong: It's difficult to listen to "The Long And Winding Road", without interpreting it as a goodbye song to the individual Beatles and each one of them parting to go their own way.
87	* {{Harmony}}: Averted in Lennon's bass playing on "The Long and Winding Road", where he clearly hasn't learned the chords and is completely winging it, not always successfully. To be fair, the version on the album was only intended to be a demo, but that makes it all the more unforgivable that it ended up on the final album, tarted up by Phil Spector with strings and a heavenly choir.
88	* InHarmonyWithNature: "Across the Universe" where the protagonist is in harmony with the universe, despite it never changing, but accepts it for what it is.
89	* IntentionallyAwkwardTitle: ''Let It Be...Naked''. Often called "Naked" for short and to differentiate it from the original. This trope makes it easier, alas, for "Naked" not to exist.
90	* {{Irony}}: A meta-example. The sessions for what would become ''Let It Be'' were intended by the band as a back-to-basics reset which would enable them to recharge their creativity and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, the resulting sessions ended up becoming so tense and bitter that Harrison quit at one point, and the album / film is ultimately remembered as one of the final nails in the coffin before they eventually split up for good (although they managed to rally themselves sufficiently to record ''Music/AbbeyRoad'').
91	** Even better? Paul wanted to do the sessions in a soundstage to allow them to work for a live show that would be filmed and broadcast on TV as a special treat for fans, and wanted the back-to-basics approach because the production style they'd become acclaimed for meant the band spent most of their time holed up in a studio. But when tensions were rising to the point where George quit and they needed to just ''finish the album'' what did they do the fix it? Abandon the soundstage and go ''back'' to the studio (Though they still performed ''as live'' to preserve the original intent), ditch the TV show that was supposed to be one last Beatles hurrah completely, and they didn't even end up doing a proper live show and instead resorted to the now famous Rooftop Concert.
92	* ItsAllAboutMe: "I Me Mine".
93	-->All I can hear\
94	I Me Mine
95	* LastNoteHilarity: The StudioChatter has some moments, such as John's childish voice after "Dig It", and "Get Back" featuring "I'd like to thank you all on behalf of ourselves and the group, and I hope we passed the audition."
96	* LiveAlbum: The original idea, with the band rehearsing and recording their new songs live. The sniping and tension within the band (as well as the creative funk John Lennon was mired in at this time) led to several songs being dubbed or altered in the studio, most infamously Paul's "The Long And Winding Road". However, eight tracks were still laid down live: "I've Got A Feeling", "One After 909" and "I Dig A Pony" from the Apple rooftop performance, and "Get Back", "For You Blue", "Two Of Us", "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" from studio performances. ("Don't Let Me Down", left off the album after being released as the B-side of the "Get Back" single, was also recorded live).
97	* LyricalColdOpen: "The Long and Winding Road".
98	* MinisculeRocking:
99	** "Maggie Mae", at forty-one seconds.
100	** "Dig It" is a short excerpt of an improvised jam that runs around [[EpicRocking 15 minutes]] in its unedited state.
101	** As recorded, "I Me Mine" only clocked in at 1:34. Spector decided to repeat a chorus and verse, extending the run time by 51 seconds.
102	* MusicalSquares: One of the {{Trope Codifier}}s for the four squares version.
103	* NewSoundAlbum: In a way. It's certainly not like any other Beatles album.
104	* NumerologicalMotif: "One After 909", a reference to the fact that Lennon considered ''nine'' his lucky number.
105	* OneWomanSong: "Maggie Mae".
106	* PepTalkSong: "Let It Be"
107	-->''And when the broken hearted people\
108	Living in the world agree\
109	There will be an answer, let it be\
110	For though, they may be parted\
111	There is still a chance that they will see\
112	There will be an answer, let it be''
113	* ProtestSong:
114	** "Get Back" was written in reaction to the anti-immigration laws in the UK, though most of the original, [[https://genius.com/The-beatles-get-back-no-pakistanis-version-lyrics overtly political lyrics]] got cut, probably because the satire would've been easy to miss. The only clue to the song's political origins is in the chorus; the remaining lyrics come closer to WordSaladLyrics. An excerpt of the original version can be heard in the ''Get Back'' miniseries.
115	** An unreleased improvised song from the sessions, "[[https://genius.com/The-beatles-commonwealth-lyrics Commonwealth]]", is a very blatant attack on the anti-immigration movement, specifically subjecting the leader of the movement, Enoch Powell, to a TakeThat. The ''Get Back'' miniseries also contains an excerpt of "Commonwealth".
116	** Also from the sessions, an early version of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" (which later made it to ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' with much more minimalist lyrics) featured Billy Preston singing portions of Dr Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
117	* ReCut: Music/PaulMcCartney (who was the main advocate of the "back to the roots" approach in the first place) wasn't happy with Music/PhilSpector's production. Decades later, when the opportunity arose to re-edit the album, Paul jumped at it. The new version, ''Let It Be... Naked'', stripped away Phil Spector's overdubs, featured a different song selection and track order, and used different takes of some of the songs. ''Naked'' also used digital editing (which obviously hadn't been available when the album was originally released) to remove tape noises and to pitch-correct a few of the vocals. It was released in 2003.
118	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: "Get Back" was written as a TakeThat against the then recent anti-immigration laws in the UK.
119	* RearrangeTheSong:
120	** As heard in the outtake version recorded in 1963 (and released on ''Anthology 1''), "One After 909" was originally midtempo, but they sped it up for the rooftop performance.
121	** "Across the Universe" was originally released on the 1969 charity compilation ''No One's Gonna Change Our World'', as a sparse, acoustic-driven song. When included on ''Let it Be'', Phil Spector lowered the playback speed and added the same orchestral embellishments that the rest of the album received. When the song was included again on ''Let it Be... Naked'', the song was restored to the original 1969 version, but received extra digital modifications to correct tuning errors.
122	* RecordProducer: The liner notes say the album was "reproduced for disc by Music/PhilSpector", making it the only Beatles album without George Martin credited as producer. Martin got a "special thanks" credit, but he took over as the ''de facto'' producer after the studio facilities at Apple proved unusable. Another person in the "special thanks" list, Glyn Johns, was technically the album's engineer, but was given enough input into the album that he could arguably be considered a producer as well.
123	* RevisitingTheRoots: The album was originally going to be called ''Get Back'' because this was precisely the idea (and that of course is also the reason the song was called "Get Back"). This was an attempt to return to the sort of spontaneous, energetic rock and roll they'd played at the beginning of their career, as opposed to the sophisticated and intricately produced music they'd moved on to. This is also why they recorded "One After 909", a song that sounds like the early Beatles sound because it ''was'' the early Beatles sound, having been written in the Quarrymen days, then first recorded in 1963 but then shelved. The recording sessions were a disaster, and they largely abandoned the "back to basics" approach for their last recorded album, ''Music/AbbeyRoad''.
124	* RooftopConcert: "Dig a Pony", "One After 909", and "I've Got a Feeling" were recorded on the roof top of the Abbey Road Studios, January 30, 1969. This also makes them the TropeNamer.
125	* ShoutOut:
126	** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmore_James Elmore James ain't got nothing on this, baby!]]
127	** Lennon name-drops Music/BobDylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", the FBI, the CIA, Creator/TheBBC, Music/BBKing, Creator/DorisDay and Scottish soccer notable Matt Busby (who was the manager of Manchester United at the time) during "Dig It".
128	** "Across The Universe" uses the Sanskrit phrase "Jai Guru Deva". The Sanskrit phrase is a sentence fragment whose words could have many meanings. Literally it approximates as "glory to the shining remover of darkness," and can be paraphrased as "Victory to God divine", "Hail to the divine guru", or the phrase commonly invoked by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in referring to his spiritual teacher "All Glory to Guru Dev".
129	** "I Dig a Pygmy" by Creator/CharlesHawtrey and the Deaf Aids! Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats!
130	* SixthRanger: Or Fifth Beatle, in the case of Billy Preston after he joined the band for this album. The keyboard solo in "Get Back" was composed by Preston.
131	* SomethingBlues: "For You Blue" was originally titled "George's Blues (Because You're Sweet And Lovely)".
132	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: George Harrison sings lead on "I Me Mine" and "For Your Blue". It is one of the few Beatles albums not to have Ringo Starr on any vocals.
133	* StudioChatter:
134	** There are bits of nonsensical babbling from Lennon between several tracks. One instance, at the end of the album track of "Dig a Pony" (recorded on the rooftop concert mentione dbelow), consists of him saying, "Me hand's getting too cold to play chords."
135	** The outro features cheering and clapping, Paul's "Thanks, Mo" (directed at Ringo's wife Maureen), and Lennon's famous "I hope we passed the audition" bit of snark. This studio chatter was actually recorded at the end of the RooftopConcert (the actual track on the album, "Get Back" was recorded in the studio three days earlier, on 27 January).
136	* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: The album was intended as a ''back to basics'' to their original, simpler sound.
137	* TitleTrack:
138	** "Let It Be"
139	--> ''Let it be... let it be... let it be... whisper words of wisdom, let it be''
140	** Not to mention that "Get Back" was originally planned as the album's title.
141	* TrainSong: "One After 909".
142	-->''I got my bag, run to the station\
143	Railman says you've got the the wrong location\
144	I got my bag, run right home\
145	Then I find I've got the number wrong''
146	* UncommonTime: "Dig a Pony" has verses of thirteen measures and a refrain that could be counted as any number of beats due to lengthy pauses.
147	* VocalTagTeam: A relatively rare example of John and Paul doing this in the same song, as a Lennon composition tentatively titled "Everybody Had a Hard Year" was mashed together with Paul's "I've Got a Feeling".
148	* WordSaladLyrics: "Dig a Pony" is Lennon in full wordplay mode ("I pick a moondog. Well, you can radiate everything you are"). Hilariously, the people who produced the bootleg album ''Kum Back'' at the end of 1969 (taken from a tape of an early mix of the album, before anyone knew what most of the songs were called) didn't even want to try to guess what the song's title was, listing it as "Who Knows?".
149	----

Context Music / LetItBe