Let It Be Review

The plan was a live album with no overdubs, filmed, to prove the group could still play in a room. The sessions were poisonous, the tapes were shelved, and what finally came out had been handed to Phil Spector, who added choirs and strings to material that had been written to resist exactly that. The Long and Winding Road is the casualty and McCartney has never stopped saying so. Underneath the varnish the songs are strong.

Two of Us is two men harmonising about their own past and hearing it now is unbearable in a good way. Across the Universe is a beautiful melody trapped in three different mixes across three releases. Get Back and Don't Let Me Down are the rooftop band playing properly and reminding you what the whole exercise was for. Dig It and Maggie Mae are studio chatter kept for texture. As a farewell it is an anticlimax, released after the group had already ended, but the writing holds up better than the story around it suggests.