Long way round
The Beatles ★★★★ Let It Be
APPLE. CD/DL/LP
FOR WHAT was intended as a back to the roots exercise, Get Back became the most tortuous project in The Beatles’ history.
In the 16 months between the first day at Twickenham and the May 1970 release of Let
It Be, they racked up well over 100 hours of recorded music and ran through four separate assemblies of the material: three by Glyn Johns that adhered to the documentary concept and the final controversially-finessed album.
As it happened, an idea with potential was overtaken by events. Between its inception and its completion, The Beatles squabbled over business, pulled Abbey Road out of the bag, began their solo careers, and publicly split up in April 1970. Started as an intended regeneration, it became a valediction: instead of Get Back, there was Let It Be – a dolorous plea for the cessation of conflict that appeared to comment on The Beatles’ own demise.
This turbulence has retrospectively coloured the view of the whole 1970 music/ book/film project, which is read as the document of a break-up rather than an incomplete – and at times, fractious – attempt to do something new. For something begun in terms of simplicity, Get Back/Let It Be has become a complex maze: one that has already been through six iterations – if you count 2011’s
Let It Be…Naked and the 12 outtakes on
Anthology 3 – and now receives its seventh. This special edition comes in the usual variety of formats. The super deluxe version contains four CDs and an extra four tracks on a fifth. Beginning with the album as originally released, it passes through two discs of outtakes: one roughly follows the course of the original album, the other introduces songs that point forward to Abbey Road and the solo years. The fourth full disc is Glyn Johns’ second, May 1969 assembly of Get Back.
Let It Be might be the runt of the Beatles litter but it’s half of a very good album. The best tracks – Two Of Us, I’ve Got A Feeling, Get Back, Let It Be – convey a warm, intimate feel that, combined with a relaxed, soulful backing, exemplify what could have been. There are a couple of generic exercises (One After 909, For You Blue), one great psychedelic anomaly (Across The Universe) and one outright chore – The Long And Winding Road, definitely not improved by Phil Spector’s additions.
The outtakes discs are very much works in progress, as The Beatles chat and work their way through new songs: an eavesdrop into their process. At times they use old, familiar numbers as a way of getting into the feel, as McCartney launches into a lounge piano version of Please Please Me to kickstart a runthrough of Let It Be. On the third disc, they launch into rudimentary takes of new material: Gimme Some Truth, All Things Must Pass, and Abbey Road songs like Octopus’ Garden and Something.
What comes through is how true The Beatles were to the idea of going back to their youthful inspirations. It might have been suggested by The Band and Americana, but the roots on display here are thoroughly British: their early skiffle days in The Quarrymen and Johnny And The Moondogs, the impact of obscure, UK-released American R&B singles like Jimmy McCracklin’s The Walk, and 1950s mass culture figures like the Carry On actor Charles Hawtrey and the music hall entertainer Wee Georgie Wood.
Nevertheless, Let It Be came off half cocked. The group were correct in not releasing the Glyn Johns assembly, with its interminable four-minute Dig It, but the Spector sweetenings sat ill with the initial concept. While there are no great revelations on these highly enjoyable discs – and no full rooftop concert – they lead to the conclusion that a great album could have been assembled out of the constituent parts. But, as its many versions attest, Let It Be is an album that will never be finished – a puzzle that will never be completely solved.
Super Deluxe Edition has five CDs including outtakes and the May 1969 Glyn Johns assembly of Get Back. By Jon Savage.