Glyn Johns began sifting through the session tapes on 10 March 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London. The Beatles themselves had little involvement, having begun work on Abbey Road around the same time. Johns mixed the session tapes at Olympic from 10-13 March, and on 7, 9 and 28 May. At this stage, side one of the Get Back album was to have contained One After 909, Rocker, Save The Last Dance For Me, Don't Let Me Down, Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling and Get Back; side two featured For You Blue, Teddy Boy, Two Of Us, Maggie Mae, Dig It, Let It Be, The Long And Winding Road and Get Back (Reprise).
For the Get Back project, it was The Beatles' intention to recreate the cover of Please Please Me, showing how thy had changed visually since 1963. In May 1969 the group returned to EMI's headquarters in London's Manchester Square, and the same photographer, Angus McBean, photographed them as they resumed their poses.
The artwork was prepared for Glyn Johns' Get Back album, which was to bear the strapline "with Let It Be and 11 other songs". For reasons unknown, however, the session photographs remained unused until the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 (the so-called Red and Blue albums) were released in 1973.
The Beatles rejected Johns' first Get Back album, and new recording sessions for two Let It Be songs took place on 3 and 4 January 1970 - a year after the initial recordings were made.
The first of these was for George Harrison's I Me Mine, which had briefly being performed before the cameras during the 1969 sessions. In the film, Harrison first plays the song to Ringo Starr, followed by a version performed by Harrison, Paul McCartney and Starr, during which John Lennon dances with Yoko Ono.
I Me Mine, it's called. I don't care if you don't want it... It's a heavy waltz.
Let It Be
No proper studio recording of I Me Mine existed until 3 January 1970. It featured just Harrison, McCartney and Starr, as Lennon was on holiday in Denmark. The following day, 4 January, overdubs were recorded for Let It Be, in the band's final proper recording session together.
While Johns was still working on the tapes, it was decided that the album should include just songs featured in the forthcoming film. One of these, Across The Universe, had been recorded in February 1968 prior to The Beatles' trip to India.
On 5 January 1970 Glyn Johns began assembling a second Get Back album, with the instruction that it should tie in with the songs which appeared in the film. The tracklisting had One After 909, Rocker, Save The Last Dance For Me, Don't Let Me Down, Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling, Get Back and Let It Be on side one, and For You Blue, Two Of Us, Maggie Mae, Dig It, The Long And Winding Road, I Me Mine, Across The Universe and Get Back (Reprise) on side two.
Enter Phil Spector
Like Johns' earlier attempt at compiling a Get Back LP from the tapes, this second version was rejected by The Beatles. The project languished some more until 23 March 1970, when Phil Spector began work on what would become Let It Be. Spector listened only to the songs already selected by Johns, to avoid having to work through the many hours of session tapes from Apple and EMI studios.
When Spector came around, it was like, 'Well, all right, if you want to work with us, go and do your audition, man.' And he worked like a pig on it. He'd always wanted to work with The Beatles and he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit - and with a lousy feeling to it - ever. And he made something out of it. It wasn't fantastic, but I heard it, I didn't puke. I was so relieved after six months of this black cloud hanging over, this was going to go out. I thought it would be good to go out, the shitty version, because it would break The Beatles, it would break the myth. That's us with no trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hype. 'This is what we're like with our trousers off. So would you please end the game now?' But that didn't happen, and we ended up doing Abbey Road quickly and putting out something to preserve the myth.
Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner
Spector's involvement in Let It Be became one of the most contentious episodes of The Beatles' story. He was invited to work on the project by John Lennon and George Harrison, without the knowledge of Paul McCartney or George Martin.
I cannot bring myself to listen to the Phil Spector version of the album - I heard a few bars of it once, and was totally disgusted, and I think it's an absolute load of garbage. Obviously I'm biased, because they didn't use my version, which upset me, but I wouldn't have minded so much if things hadn't happened in the way they did. First of all, after The Beatles had broken up, John Lennon, as an individual, took the tapes and gave them to Phil Spector, without the others even being aware of it, which was extraordinary. I think Spector did the most atrocious job, just utter puke.
The Record Producers
Spector's editing, mixing and recording for the album lasted until 2 April 1970. The most controversial of these sessions took place on 1 April, when orchestral and choral parts were added to Across The Universe and The Long And Winding Road, and an orchestra to I Me Mine. The parts were arranged by Richard Hewson, who had worked on Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days, and later orchestrated Paul McCartney's Thrillington album.
Other changes made by Spector included editing out the "All I want is..." vocals which opened and closed Dig A Pony, and extended I Me Mine from 1'34" to 2'25" by repeating a section. He also left out Don't Let Me Down, despite its inclusion in the Let It Be film. An edit of the two rooftop performances of the song was eventually released on 2003's Let It Be... Naked, in place of Dig It and Maggie Mae.
I like what Phil did, actually. He put the music somewhere else and he was king of the 'wall of sound'. There's no point bringing him in if you're not going to like the way he does it – because that's what he does. His credentials are solid.
Anthology
Related articles:
- Mixing, editing: Get Back LP
- Mixing, master compilation: Let It Be, Get Back LP
- Mixing: The Long And Winding Road, Let It Be
- Mixing: Get Back, Teddy Boy, Two Of Us, Dig A Pony, I've Got A Feeling, The Long And Winding Road, Let It Be, Rocker, Save The Last Dance For Me, Don't Let Me Down, For You Blue, The Walk
- Glyn Johns compiles the second Get Back LP
Let It Be, Naked or Not has two of Paul's most long winded and nail scrapes aganst the blacboard. After seeing Anthology this past week, i forgot how he was the most annoying of the Beatles. Let It Be and Long and Winding Road could have ended a lot soone, but no, the camera's were rolling. Let It Be was a recording of the breakup of a band and these two songs were the blueprint.
If you don't like Paul McCartney then you don't like the Beatles. Let it Be and Long and Winding Road are too of Paul's masterpieces -as well as being two of the best songs on the Album. Really silly post..
Being brand spanking new to this particular Beatles site, I was just fixing a whole wear the rain gets in, when I suddenly found meself wonderin', In 2003 there was mention that the Let It Be film was about to be released. This film was last screened on British BBC2, Television in about 1982. A Saturday, If I recall... But is it any closer to being released. Any ideas???
Engineers started remastering the film a while back but decided the film was too "controversial". Paul and Ringo do not want it released either. I doubt it will be released any time soon, especially during Paul, Ringo, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison's lifetimes.
The whole album and sessions and film and all is so polemic!
Here's why LIB doesn't work for me - and this may be picky but here goes: because it is supposed to be the soundtrack to a movie and was intended to replicate the feel of live performances, the problem I have is this - listen through head phones and notice how many times John's voice is on one side and his guitar is on the other side.
This completely wrecks the feel of a live performance. At least for me.
Sorry I can't help but notice it.
Does anyone know if Paul fixed this on LIBN - I don't have that CD.
It shouldn't really make a difference. With multitrack recording, a live performance can be taped with simultaneously-played instruments routed to different tracks, which can then be mixed to different parts of the stereo spectrum. Of course, that's not to say that all of the LIB performances were live - there were a number of overdubs added once they'd thrown the 'live' concept out of the window.
"marked a move away from The Beatles' elaborate studio experimentation of 1966 and 1967, with a return to more straightforward rock and roll, and the White Album and much of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack had followed in a similar vein."
I wouldn't say much of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack was back to basics. There were 13 songs: 2 were repeats from previous albums/singles, 7 were George Martin's orchestra songs, 2 were George Harrison's songs neither of which sound back to basics, so that leaves 2 new Lennon-McCartney songs which could be called back to basics.
And certainly not all the White Albums was back to basics – Revolution 9, Wild Honey Pie.
I was referring to the 'new' songs on the YS soundtrack, though it probably needs clarifying. Certainly Hey Bulldog and All Together Now were a step away from their sound of 1967, though the George Harrison songs clearly aren't.
As for the White Album, you're right that there were some complex recordings on there, but nothing like to the same degree of Sgt Pepper or Strawberry Fields Forever. Much of it is fairly straightforward, thought with liberal doses of Beatles magic.
"And, let us not forget, even if the collection wasn't The Beatles' best, for many lesser bands these songs would have constituted a career peak."
Couldn't agree more. When fans always talk about this isn't good or whatever, what we really mean is compared to The Beatles' other stuff it isn't as good, but it is still amazing.
Sorry Joe, but it does matter whether lennon's voalcs and guitar are on the same stereo pan.
of course multitracking makes it possible to put an instrument and/or vocal anywhere in the spectrum, but that doesn't make it "work".
Even though the beatles abandoned the actual "live" recording technique, they still marketed and presented the album as a live experience - to go with the movie.
The intended feel of the record is to experience a live beatles performance (even if it wasn't). So it's an anomaly to have a musician's voice separated from his instrument.
Of course perhaps I'm just too sensitive.
With electric instruments and microphones and amplifiers, modern live music often features "a musician's voice separated from his instrument"; it is not anomalous.
Even though this LP features my least favorite Beatles song, I still enjoy the heck out of it - Spectorized or not. In fact, I wish all of the songs on it were recorded "live" on the roof top. It would have been very refreshing to hear a live Beatles recording without the screaming.
As an aside, I get a kick out of the Spector quote on page 5 of this article. I'm by no means a fan of his, but it's the first time I've seen his defense in print. It's actually pretty funny.
Yes, I love that quote. I used it on the Phil Spector profile as well.
Dear all,
We would like to inform you about the following event :
LET IT BE live / The Beatles
by Yael Naim, Mathias Malzieu, Cocoon, Loney Dear, David Donatien, Camille O’Sullivan, Sense of Sound Singers,…
Paris (France), July 4th, Salle Pleyel
For the 40th anniversary of the release of the album Let It Be, David Coulter, who has collaborated with artists like Damon Albarn, Tom Waits and Marianne Faithfull, unites a young generation of European musicians to reinterpret the Beatles' last album.
http://www.citedelamusique.fr/minisites/1007_daysoff/concert/en_let_it_be_live.aspx
I believe Paul made a mistake. He did allow female voices in their records. Yoko sang in The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill, and Yoko again along with Patti Harrison in Birthday. His wife Linda provided background vocals for Let It Be.
Yeah, and there was also the female choir in "Walrus" - and howbout those two Apple scruffs that Paul himself invited to sing on "Across The Universe"! He was either being wilfully obtuse, or exaggerating, or he had a terrible memory. (And the amount of dope he smoked would suggest the latter.)
Pretty sure Paul meant a female singing lead
and wasn't there an entire choir on Good Night?
Ooh right, good catch!
LIB is both fantastic and disappointing. Eventhough substandard by usual Beatle standards, the songs are worthy and hold up against anything other artists put out at the same time (hell, for the next 40 years for that matter!). It was a disappointment in that it actually could have been far, far better. The Beatles are openly apathetic on LIB. Also, George's growth as a songwriter could have (had he been allowed to contribute more songs)partly made-up for John's growing indifference, dwindling song contributions and a seeming drop in the quality of his contributions. All Things Must Pass absolutely deserved to have been properly recorded and included on LIB (and NOT in place of, but in addition to, For You Blue and I Me Mine). It is no wonder why George walked out during these sessions and became hesitant to work as a Beatle ever again. What a pity (which reminds us that Harrison's brilliant song Isn't It A Pity was another in a list of George composed tunes rejected for Beatle records by John, Paul and/or George Martin). Thankfully, George recorded these on his own after the group's dissoluion.
It is funny that people think of John towards end as not writing much but he was actually very creative and writing a ton. He just did not want to write for the beatles. Look at his first two solo albums Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, they are full fledged releases. Paul's first solo albums while they are charming and having their bits (and the masterpiece 'Maybe Im Amazed) are bit rough and incomplete.
This is not a Beatle album, is just a Spector work... A Spector album, soloist, taking the tapes and the band's name...
Adding orchestra to a quarter of an album, while not doing anything else of his typical way isn't bad. It's called doing what you're asked.
I think Phil Spector is treated unfairly when it comes to LIB. He had the unenviable task of wading through hours of recordings and make something of it--all with virtually no input for the band. The only sin Spector committed was not being George Martin. Martin is tasteful and understated; Spector (on all his works) is melodramatic and over-the-top. Spector simply delivered a Spector production. Lennon was reportedly happy with it. I have little patience for McCartney's complaints. A bit like crying over spilt milk.
Actually I don't think Spector did wade through that many hours of tapes. Most of the selection and filtering was done by Glyn Johns prior to Spector arriving.
When Spector began work he hit the ground running, completing his work in a matter of days (he needed just seven recording and mixing sessions in March and April 1970), with George Harrison and Allen Klein apparently present for most of the sessions. Ringo Starr even played on one.