LET IT BE 1970
Paul McCartney says he sees ‘each new song as a puzzle’.
He explains: ‘It would illuminate something that was important in my life at that moment, though the meanings are not always obvious on the surface.’
nowhere is that more true than of the anthemic let It Be, which Paul initially thought he had written as a response to the disruptive arrival of yoko Ono in the Beatles’ universe.
today, 50 years and countless funeral services later, he realises the song is about grief and loss.
the clue is in the line ‘When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me’, which most listeners assumed was a nod to his nominally Catholic upbringing in a liverpool family with Irish roots during the 1940s.
But McCartney’s mother, who died from breast cancer aged 47 in 1956, when he was 14, was called Mary. In the late 1960s, as the Beatles were becoming increasingly disparate, ‘I fell asleep exhausted one day and had a dream in which my mum did, in fact, come to me.
‘When you dream about seeing someone you’ve lost, even though it’s sometimes just for a few seconds, it really does feel like they’re right there with you.
‘Seeing my mum’s beautiful, kind face and being with her in a peaceful place was very comforting.’
McCartney uses the new book, and a sprawling portrait in the new yorker magazine this month, to insist that he wasn’t the instigator of the Beatles’ breakup. that was John lennon, he says, who ‘quite gleefully told us it was over’.
George Harrison wasn’t present on that occasion, but Paul recalls that he and ringo Starr were aghast at John’s selfishness: ‘He really was a bit loony, in the nicest possible way. It was not quite so exciting for those left on the other side.’
as in the best families, recollections may vary. In april 1970, four weeks before the release of the album let It Be, Paul broke the news of the band’s break-up with a press conference in which he stated: ‘I have no future plans to record or appear with the Beatles again. Or to write any more music with John.’
eight months later, he filed a High Court writ against John, George and ringo, seeking ‘a court order winding up the affairs of the Beatles and Co’.
Many believed such a split was impossible. George certainly couldn’t accept it. In 1971, he told an american radio interviewer that he expected to work with the band again: ‘I think it’s the least we could do, to sacrifice three months of the year — you know, just do an album or two.’