Get Back to where Let It Be once belonged
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Kaio
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10 abril 2020
(Resenha em inglês de Let It Be... Naked que publiquei hoje no meu perfil do Album of the Year)
50 years ago, on April 10, 1970, Paul McCartney announced his departure from the Beatles. This date is considered the symbolic end of the band - although Lennon has already announced his departure for the other members shortly after the release of Abbey Road and McCartney's lawsuit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual partnership did not take place until December 31, 1970.
Among the many reasons that led to the breakup of The Beatles, an important one was the controversy over the production of Let It Be, an album that the band had recorded in January 1969. The recording sessions (as can be explicitly noted by the eponymous film) were tense, which partly explains why the band chose to record Abbey Road throughout '69 and left Let It Be (at the time still titled Get Back) aside.
It was only in March 1970 that the tapes were handed over to producer Phil Spector (with whom Lennon had recently worked on the single "Instant Karma") to finalize the record. Some questionable decisions made by Spector, in particular the addition of orchestral and choral overdubs to the piano ballad "The Long And Winding Road" (which transformed an originally delicate and melancholic song into overblown), were the last straw for Paul to announce his departure of the Beatles.
Three decades later, Paul McCartney and Neil Aspinall commissioned engineers Paul Hicks, Allen Rouse and Guy Massey to remix Let It Be, giving the album the careful treatment it has long deserved. As its title indicates, the aim is not an George Martin-like production, but simply to better capture the "back-to-roots" spirit intended for the record. Many fans and critics feared that the project was some kind of Paul's revisionism of the history of The Beatles, but the end result is quite satisfactory - and justifiable.
Here are the main changes: 1) the unnecessary comic vignettes "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" were removed; 2) the excellent "Don't Let Me Down", B-side of the single "Get Back", was included in an unpublished version recorded in the legendary Rooftop Concert, of January 30, 1969; 3) the version of "The Long and Winding Road" was based on the January 31st take (instead of January 26th, used by Spector), which had a better vocal performance and slightly modified lyrics (the verses "Anyway you'll never know / The many ways I've tried" get a little less bitter tone: "Anyway you've always known / The many ways I've tried"); 4) the version of "Across The Universe" is more faithful to the acoustic original recording of February 4, 1968, without the overdubs and speed changes added in the Wildlife and album versions; 5) "Let It Be" has a different guitar solo; 6) tracks like "I've Got A Feeling", "For Your Blue" and "One After 909" are cleaner.
Let it Be... Naked is worthy of being considered the definitive version of the 1970 album; so much so that I bought this CD instead of the original record. If the version produced by Phil Spector was irregular (I would give it an 85 rating), Naked manages to balance a neat production with stripped-down arrangements. I must agree with the Uncut review (nº 70, Nov/2003, p. 137): "the new Let It Be is punchy, full of presence and powerfully involving. What was previously an uneasy mix of medium-grade Beatles treated to glossy overstatement and irreverent editing is now a great little record".
I also liked the new track sequencing, with "Get Back" opening the disc and the title track closing it. Most of the new versions are superior... except for one: "Let It Be" is indeed better than the Spector version, but I slightly prefer the guitar solo of the single version, produced by George Martin.
The album's highlights are "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down", "Across The Universe", "Let It Be" and "The Long And Winding Road" - all of them classic Beatles songs. Among the less famous tracks the best ones are "Two Of Us" and "I've Got A Feeling".
It can be said, therefore, that with Let It Be... Naked, one of the most tumultuous chapters in The Beatles' history was finally closed in 2003.