If any sounds in the Beatles catalog possess the right to be revamped – Let It Be is the obvious choice. Never truly complete to start with, the sessions for Get Back (as originally titled) began in 1969, but were scrapped, and the Beatles eventually went on to make the masterpiece – Abbey Road. When it was clear the band wouldn't record again, John Lennon hired Phil Spector to assemble a soundtrack for the forthcoming Let It Be movie. Reverting to the Get Back tapes, Spector moved forward with the work by adding a plush layer of strings to the then stripped tracks. Of course, Lennon did this without Paul McCartney’s permission, but now we have Let It Be...Naked, and the dissections can begin all over again.
Using the original tapes, but selecting some alternate takes to those chosen the first time and adding a touch of modern technology,
Let It Be.. .. Naked, features an additional song – “Don’t Let Me Down,” (originally the B-side of “
Get Back”) along with two apparently spared from the original – “Dig It” and “Maggie Mae." And, as the new title would imply, the strings have disappeared, for better or worse.
The bare version of “The Long and Winding Road” reckons with a melancholy innocence that reveals the true raw tenderness of McCartney’s vocals and rather amateur piano skills. The raw grittiness of “I’ve Got A Feeling” is a bit garage rock, though truly blossoms with McCartney’s vocal outbursts mid-song. “Don’t Let Me Down,” one of Lennon’s greatest songs to have never seen the limelight, burgeons with Billy Preston’s soothing keyboard counterparts. And a reworked ending enlivens “Across the Universe,” giving it a worldly feel, further adding to Lennon’s legend as the psychedelic edge to the Fab Four.
Though the less discerning listener may not find the album to be drastically different from its predecessor, those who live for Beatles debates will undoubtedly have a few more hours of heated bar stool banter ahead of them.
Let It Be...Naked certainly proves less is more, but with these songs, that may depend on your definition.
