Recorded: January 1969-April 1970
Released: 17 November 2003
Tracklisting:
Get Back
Dig A Pony
For You Blue
The Long And Winding Road
Two Of Us
I've Got A Feeling
One After 909
Don't Let Me Down
I Me Mine
Across The Universe
Let It Be
Related articles:
- Anthology 3
- Glyn Johns compiles the second Get Back LP
- Yugoslavia discography
- Recording: Across The Universe, The Long And Winding Road, I Me Mine
- Phil Spector begins work on Let It Be
I think that Let It Be... Naked has the best ending combination of separate songs (Don't Let Me Down, I Me Mine, Across The Universe, and Let It Be). The only other Beatles' album with a comparable four-song span of perfection (well, all of their songs are perfect...) is on 1, with I Feel Fine, Eight Days A Week, Ticket To Ride, and Help!
As far as I'm concerned, this should be the standard version of the album. At the very least, these versions of the tracks should be the standard.
You can't listen to this and say Phil Spector didn't screw up royal.
I'd include Maggie May, the fragment Dig It and the full Can You Dig It? as bonus tracks.
Let It Be.. Naked is by far the best album, better than Phil Spector's Let It Be, he did it well, but the remaining beatles just made it better, plus its remixed, I would of added Dig It and Maggie Mae, I love those tracks
I think "Let It Be...Naked" is an excellent album, but I do prefer the original "Let It Be" - just as I believe John Lennon would have, were he still alive.
Actually, John has called Let it Be the "shitiest piece of shit" he's ever heard. Though he admits he felt Phil Spector did the best he could with what he was given. I don't know what John would have preferred, or for what reason, but I consider this the definitive version of Let it Be.
I deleted Spector's LIB after listening to LIBN. I think of LIBN as the official version.
Of course Lennon hated Let It Be (though I had not heard of the "shittiest piece of shit" comment). He checked out of The Beatles after The White Album. The Ballad of John and Yoko brought him back for a bit, back enough to at least go through the motions on Abbey Road ("Because" notwithstanding).
After The WHite Album, his solo stuff was better than what he contributed to The Beatles.
Songs like Don't Let Me Down, Across The Universe, Come Together, I Want You (She's So Heavy), Dig A Pony and Because
(and the other 3 songs from Abbey Road's B side),all from John indicate he hadn't quite left the Beatles.
Cold Turkey was rejected by Paul for inclusion on Abbey Road and Instant Karma came out months after Abbey Road was released.
John worked very hard on contributing to the Abbey Road album.
I don't believe Paul would have, could have rejected anything John wanted on an album. You must have George confused with John, lol!
No I don't have George confused with John.
According to Peter Brown's book, The Love You Make (2002), Cold Turkey was rejected by McCartney as the next Beatle single.
Anyway, do you think Paul would have allowed John's song about heroin withdrawal to be placed on a Beatle album?
In my opinion Cold Turkey should have been a Beatle song. The lyrics weren't so explicit or graphic unless the word hell counts as being too explicit when John sings, "get me out of this hell." This song could have been a classic rock ballad for The Beatles like Revolution, Yer Blues, and Helter Skelter.
Cold Turkey was banned by many radio stations in North America and only reached number 30 on Billboard.
Lyrics such as ("I'm in at the deep freeze") and the actual song title itself, would have been a public relations disaster for the Beatles in America (especially in the Bible Belt).
Many people blamed the Beatles for the ever increasing drug scene in 1969.
The fact that it was pretty harsh and fairly tuneless would've been a further factor in its commercial failure.
Interesting comments. But I remember Cold Turkey being played a lot. Then again knee-jerk owned radio stations would ban most anything, including Melanie's BRAND NEW KEY because they claimed it contained sexual overtones (a simple song about roller skating.) It nevertheless shot to No. 1.
"Many people blamed the Beatles for the ever increasing drug scene in 1969"
What I mainly remember was a political campaign by Nixon, with Spiro Agnew attacking the Beatles for "spreading drugs." It was nonsense, of course and likely meant to counter John's anti war influence. The Beatles never promoted drug use even though some of Lennon's song may have been so influenced. Agnew though cited unsubstantiated rumors encircling "intentional drug songs" like Lucy in the Sky, etc., which of course wasn't. Lying hypocrite that he was, Agnew was later charged with extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy, and was disbarred and resigned in disgrace. Far as I know it never affected Beatle record sales. If anything sales increased (Abbey road and Let It Be out sold earlier albums.)
Actually, there undoubtedly WERE people who began doing drugs mostly because of the Beatles, just as surely as there were people who took up the guitar because they loved George Harrison's playing. The stupidity involved is the assumption that people don't have free will or the ability to make such decisions on their own, and that the Beatles are therefore somehow to "blame".
(But yeah, Agnew was a world-class all-around crook - he & Nixon really deserved each other)
OK, here are my preferred versions for each Let It Be track.
Get Back - Original A-Side "Hi-heel shoes & Low Neck Sweater" version
Dig A Pony - Naked
For You Blue - Naked (I'll never understand why Spector cut the acoustic guitar completely out after the intro on the original Let It Be version - bizzarre).
The Long And Winding Road - Anthology 3 (same take as LIB & single but without all the added syruppy crap - The Naked version is very nice, too, though).
Two Of Us - Naked (same as the original but way better sounding - crisper)
I've Got A Feeling - LIB (the original is simply more spirited and energetic than the Naked version. I don't get why they felt they needed a different take here.)
One After 909 - Naked (very nice remix)
Don't Let Me Down - original B-side (the vocal interplay at the end is better here between J&P)
I Me Mine - LIB (I like it better with the horns - definitely the best of the "Spectorized" tracks)
Across The Universe - Naked (though I really love the Athology 2 version as well)
Let It Be - Naked (George's solo is best here - plus the mix is very nice)
Yeah, I'll agree with those choices.
Agree with Elsewhere on everything, except One After 909. I prefer the energy and sloppiness of the Anthology version from 1963.
Why didn't "Naked" retain "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" and John's ad-libs about pygmies and pot-smoking FBI agents? I liked that stuff!
(Nice to be living in the CD-R age when anybody can assemble their own ideal version of LIB/GB)
Because they were trying to make Let It Be... Naked sound like a real album so they cut out the talking and didn't include Dig It and Maggie Mae which were just jams and were considered "too weak" for inclusion.
OK, I can see your point. But if that's Paul McCartney's reasoning (which I assume it is), it's still not necessarily logical. I mean, The White Album included bits of studio chatter and unfinished song-scraps, and that's certainly a "real album"! And LIB was INTENDED to have a documentary aspect.
I liked LIBN. We needed to hear that original-untouched songs. But I always wondered why McCartney didn't think in reissuing the original "Get Back" album, which was the first idea and contained simmilar tracklist. The LIB concept was to show The Beatles creating music, and that´s why Spector's version is so frustrating. Instead of NAKED, i would have loved to, finally, get the Get Back album...
I bought a bootleg of Get Back entitled Kum Back in 1970 or 1971 which features Teddy Boy.
Individual tracks were played on the radio around Xmas 1969 and some of the tracks received an unfavourable response.
As for myself, I prefer LIBN.
I remember Teddy Boy being played on radio as a Beatle song, then being confused when it later showed up on McCartney's solo album.
Get Back though was Beatle project, and as it was never completed it would seem (to me anyway) inappropriate for Paul to rewrite history and release such an album minus collaboration from the now deceased John and George. Let it be is what it is: the raw and unfinished Get Back recordings.
I wish the album would have been released as originaly intended! Produced by Glyn Johns and titled Get Back with an album cover that mimiced their first release Please Please me it featured the songs "Teddy Boy", a jam called "Rocker", "Save the Last Dance" (by the Drifters), a 5 min. version of "Dig It" and "Don't Let Me Down". The best part about LITN is that it includes "Don't Let Me Down" which was Lennon's best composition for the sessions!
I also wish that The Beatles themselves would have included more of George’s songs on ever album possible. I mean for this one we missed out on hearing “Hear Me Lord” and “All Things Must Pass” as done by The Beatles…
(two tracks off of another fine album over-produced by Spector!)
Again, I say: How lucky are we to be living in the MP3/CD-R age, where we can all easily assemble our own ideal version of "Get Back"/"Let It Be" as we wish it existed all along!
I think it's clear the Let It Be Naked is far superior to LIB. Forgetting the Spector junk, the LIBN mix is way better.
And although I've complained about it on other pages, In LIBN the mix does not separate the singer from his instrument - for instance on many of the LIB trax Lennon's voice is on one side and his guitar is panned onto the other - which kills the sense of a live performance.
Paul's mix puts the vocals in the middle - which is closer to how a live performance actually sounds - guitars coming out of the amps - voices centered from a main PA.
Some disagree that this matters - but apparently it meant enough to Paul to change it.
LIBN actually sounds like the Beatles just playing their songs. Which I think was part of the intent overall.
I want to hear the original Get Back Glen Johns mix period!!!