Song of the day

Today in music history………..

On this day in 1970, The Beatles last album, “Let It Be” is released in the US.

This album is perhaps the most interesting in terms of its recording and release. You can read all about that on wikipedia, but suffice it to say that when The Beatles were recording this album, they were all but broken up. They were not getting along and the fact that there were film cameras in the sessions made it even worse. I highly recommend the film “Let It Be” as well, and you can see the tension (although there are some times in the film where you can see how much they really love each other).

The album was shelved for about a year, during which time Abbey Road was released (which is a much better album).

Finally the recordings were given to Phil Spector and he put together what may be one of the worst Beatles albums ever produced (in my humble opinion). In 2002 Paul McCartney recruited Abbey Road studio personnel to recreate the album the way the group intended and with the permission of the remaining Beatles they produced “Let It Be… Naked” which I think is a much better treatment of the work. The most striking difference is that of the song “The Long and Winding Road“. Paul had conceived it as a piano ballad, but Phil Spector, using his “wall of sound” technique, overdubbed an orchestra and choir to this song to create what most people think of when they think of this song. The clip below, from the movie, shows the song the way Paul intended. You can also here it this way on the Naked album.

Plus if you are interested in the movie, someone on youtube has uploaded the whole thing (I will not comment on the legality of this). Click here to go to the page that contains the 9 parts.

Enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COMsKPeWAsw&hl=en]