"Let It Be" vs. "Let It Be... Naked"

[Brad]

Here are my thoughts, song-by-song.

Get Back
Why do both album versions chop off the coda? How very, very lame. At least with the "Let It Be" version, you get the ad-libbing from the rooftop thrown in, complete with John's famous "I hope we passed the audition" quip. For me, though, the single version from 1969 wins, hands down. Honorable mention: the rooftop version from "The Beatles Anthology 3."

Dig A Pony
They both cut John's "all I want is you" from the beginning, but I hear that's due to that portion of the multi-tracks being damaged. Whatever. Even though they used pro-tools on John's vocals (a practice I detest), the "Let It Be... Naked" version is the winner here.

For You Blue
Not much difference between the two, but I think the new mix is a bit too aggressive, especially with the piano. Because of this, my vote goes to "Let It Be" by default. Congratulations, Phil.

The Long And Winding Road
For "Let It Be," Phil decided to go with one of the first takes of the song, from the first day of recording, and add strings and a choir. This was also the version of the song that was released as a single. Paul absolutely hated with Mr. Spector did to his song. For "Let It Be... Naked," the producers went with a version from the last day of recording - thirty days later - which is much more developed. The original version makes me want to hit the "skip" button on my player, but the new version is very good. I especially like the fact that it features Billy on keys. Another point awarded to "Let It Be... Naked."

Two Of Us
There really isn't much difference between the "Let It Be" and "Let It Be... Naked" versions of this song, besides the mix. But I like the new remix much better.

I've Got A Feeling
The "Let It Be... Naked" version has much more punch.

One After 909
See "I've Got A Feeling.

Don't Let Me Down
They used the two rooftop versions for this, seamlessly edited together. This is due to the fact that John mucked up the lyrics in two different spots during both run-throughs. Great effort from the "Let It Be... Naked" folks, but I'm going to have to go with original Get Back b-side version. I'm glad it has been added to "Let It Be... Naked," though. It's a much better representation of John than Dig It or Maggie Mae (which are not heard on the new album).

I Me Mine
I never like artificial lengthening. Ever. If the song is 1:36, let it be 1:36, for god sakes. I feel the same way about the album version of Taxman. So, for I Me Mine, it's all about the version on "The Beatles Anthology 3."

Across The Universe
On the "Wildlife" version, it was sped up. On the original "Let It Be" album, it was slowed down. The recording is presented here at its original speed for the first time since its 1968 recording, but some weird reverbing has been added to the end, as has an electric processing on the tamboura that sounds awkward to me. For me, nothing beats the version on "The Beatles Anthology 2."

Let It Be
Ah, yes, the coveted title track. I hate the echo Phil added to cymbals on his version, but I love the guitar solo used there. At the same time, the guitar solo on the new version is suberb, as well, but there are key guitar spots missing toward the end. I NEED to hear a guitar riff between "Shine until tomorrow/Let it be" and "I wake up to the sound of music" For me, the original George Martin single version wins, hands down.

Discuss.

[Brad]

Update: I finally have a "Get Back" album I'm satisfied with!

This is what nerds like myself do when they have the day off.

1. Rocker (:35)
From Glyn Johns' Get Back
2. Two Of Us (3:21)
From Let It Be... Naked
3. Dig A Pony (3:38)
From Let It Be... Naked
4. Rip It Up/Shake, Rattle And Roll/Blue Suede Shoes (3:10)
From The Beatles Anthology 3
5. Across The Universe (3:28)
From The Beatles Anthology 2
6. I Me Mine (2:26)
From The Beatles Anthology 3; "Dave Dee" quip cut out and song artificially lengthened to sound like the version from Let It Be, sans Spector overdubs.
7. Can You Dig It? (:38)
Not to be confused with Dig It. From the Let It Be... Naked Fly On The Wall track. The performance leads into John's "That was 'Can Ya Dig It'... 'Hark The Angels Come'" quote, which segues into...
8. Let It Be (3:55)
From Let It Be... Naked
9. Don't Let Me Down (3:18)
From Let It Be... Naked
10. I've Got A Feeling (3:30)
From Let It Be... Naked
11. One After 909 (2:44)
From Let It Be... Naked
12. The Long And Winding Road (3:34)
From Let It Be... Naked
13. For You Blue (2:29)
From Let It Be; pot-smoking FBI members remark cut out
14. Get Back (3:14)
Rooftop performance from The Beatles Anthology 3; "I hope we passed the audition" quip edited back on

[Brian]

I sort of don't understand the difference between "Let It Be" and "Let It Be...Naked." What's "naked" about it? Could you explain in simple terms?

[Rickenbacker]

DAYum! You've been doing some serious listening!

I really wanna respond to this, but I gotta get myself to sit & listen to both versions & possibly the Anthology versions as well 1st.

I'd like to know what George Martin thinks of 'Naked'.

[Brad]

Brian,

this article will do a good job explaining it.

Beatles get back to basics with 'Let It Be ... Naked'

By Allan Kozinn
The New York Times

Of all the Beatles recordings, none has a history as fraught as "Let It Be," and on Nov. 18, Capitol Records will add another wrinkle to the story, with the release of "Let It Be ... Naked."

One thing listening to the new album makes clear is that it won't end the debate -- a perennial among Beatles fans since the original "Let It Be" album was released in 1970 -- about how the album was meant to sound. There is, it turns out, both good news and bad.

In purely sonic terms, "Let It Be ... Naked" is a real treat. Remixed from the original multitrack session tapes, these performances have a warmth and fullness that makes the sound on the original album seem flat and squashed. The most notable difference, and the one that occasioned the remix in the first place, is that the lush choirs and orchestrations that Phil Spector larded onto the songs "Let It Be," "The Long and Winding Road" and "Across the Universe" have been shorn away, leaving the unadorned performances that the band originally meant to release.

There are other assets. The acoustic guitars on "For You Blue," "Two of Us" and "Across the Universe" have a lovely bloom. And when the band goes electric, in "Get Back," "Dig a Pony" and "I've Got a Feeling," the sound is clean and sharp.

Sense of perspective

The drawbacks have a good deal to do with the differences between this album and the versions of "Let It Be" to which listeners have become accustomed. But they go deeper than that. They raise a more purely historical question: What kind of album did the Beatles have in mind when they recorded this material? To these ears, it wasn't "Let It Be ... Naked."

A bit of history: During the "White Album" sessions in 1968, tensions within the group were beginning to run high, and much of that two-disc album is a compilation of individual projects. Each of the Beatles ran his own session for his own songs, and they called one another in only as needed. John Lennon, in particular, was beginning to pull away from the group, having become more interested in collaborating with his new love, Yoko Ono. George Harrison had other interests, from Indian music to collaborations with Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, both of whom, he observed, had a respect for his musicianship that he didn't feel in his own band. Ringo Starr had quit the Beatles briefly during the "White Album" sessions, at least partly because he discovered that Paul McCartney had redone some of his drum parts. Only McCartney -- now Sir Paul -- was thoroughly keen on immediately getting back to work after that album was released.

One thing the Beatles agreed on was that a new direction was needed -- or, really, an old one. Since "Rubber Soul," in 1965, their studio work had become increasingly complex, and involved building songs by recording the basic guitar and drum tracks first, then overdubbing the bass, solos, vocals and other instruments. What they proposed for "Let It Be" was going back to the process they had used in the sessions for their first album, "Please Please Me," in 1963: playing their music live in the studio, with the tapes running.

At that time, though, the Beatles were still playing concerts (they retired from the stage in 1966), and had a polished repertory to record. But beginning in late 1964, they tended to bring unfinished ideas into the studio, using the sessions to turn them into completed songs. "Let It Be" would incorporate this process in an unusual way. The sessions were filmed for a proposed television special, and as originally envisioned, the rehearsals would make up the first part of the show, with a one-off live performance of the new material as its conclusion.

It was to be, as trumpeted in the advertisements for "Get Back," the first single from the sessions, the Beatles "As Nature Intended." In a way, that's what it was, although the concert ended up taking place on the roof of Apple, the Beatles' offices and recording studio on Savile Row, and the television special was released as a feature film instead. What also happened was that the bickering started anew; this time, Harrison quit for a while.

When the sessions ended, neither the Beatles nor their producer, George Martin, could face wading through the tapes to assemble an album. That task fell to Glynn Johns, who assembled an album drawn from the sessions' finished recordings, and originally to be called "Get Back." Included in his version were pre- and postperformance quips, meant to convey the off-the-cuff nature of the sessions.

The Three 'Be's'

Johns ended up making three versions of the "Get Back" album, none of which received unanimous approval from the group members, who were busy fighting among themselves. Meanwhile, the film was finished, and with Lennon's and Harrison's approval -- although not, it seems, McCartney's -- Spector was brought in to make a finished soundtrack album. He added the choirs and orchestrations to a handful of tracks.

When it turned out that Lennon's "Across the Universe" and Harrison's "I Me Mine" were to be included in the film, an unreleased 1968 recording of "Across the Universe" was exhumed from the files and given the Spector treatment, which included slowing down the recording and burying it in sonic mush, and the group was brought in to record "I Me Mine" afresh.

That recording lasted less than two minutes, but Spector extended it by repeating some of its verses. He also brought members of the group in for guitar and drum overdubs, effectively getting them to violate their own "no overdubs" and "no editing" rule for this project. He did retain the between-songs chatter and left other songs alone.

When Apple announced its plan earlier this year to bring out a restored, un-Spectorized version of the "Let It Be" album, collectors assumed the new version would be one of the "Get Back" albums prepared by Johns. But "Let It Be ... Naked" sweeps away all this history, the Johns versions as well as the Spector mixes.

Instead of suggesting an informal session in which the Beatles play their new songs, chat and run through oldies, "Let It Be ... Naked" treats the album as if it were "Rubber Soul," or "Please Please Me." Gone are the count-ins and comments, the oldies and jams. Instead, each song begins and ends cold, a finished, polished production.

That can be disconcerting. "Get Back," for example, lacks the coda that had been edited onto the version released as a single, and in losing the applause (it was a rooftop take) and the postperformance comments, the song fades abruptly. Nor has the "no editing" rule been restored. "I Me Mine" is extended here as well, and some songs -- most notably "Let It Be" -- involve editing between multiple takes.

Given all that, it's difficult to think of this new version as the belated, definitive version of "Let It Be." It isn't, in fact, "Let It Be ... Naked" at all, but "Let It Be" with a fig leaf.

[Brad]

Originally posted by Rickenbacker
DAYum! You've been doing some serious listening!

I really wanna respond to this, but I gotta get myself to sit & listen to both versions & possibly the Anthology versions as well 1st.

I'd like to know what George Martin thinks of 'Naked'.

Me, too. He didn't have very kind things to say about Phil Spector's "Let It Be."

[Rickenbacker]

Originally posted by Brian
I sort of don't understand the difference between "Let It Be" and "Let It Be...Naked." What's "naked" about it? Could you explain in simple terms?

In a nutshell, it's (basically) the Let It Be album minus all the orchestration & choir vocals on certain songs. Just the Beatles alone. Plain & simple. 'Naked' is the way McCartney had originally intended the album to sound until Phil Spector came along & added his multi-layered sounds on it.

[Brad]

Originally posted by Rickenbacker
In a nutshell, it's (basically) the Let It Be album minus all the orchestration & choir vocals on certain songs. Just the Beatles alone. Plain & simple. 'Naked' is the way McCartney had originally intended the album to sound until Phil Spector came along & added his multi-layered sounds on it.

In a way, I feel all four Beatles have equal time now.

John and, to a lesser extent, George commissioned Phil Spector to work his "magic" on the album and liked what they heard. Paul hated it (especially what Phil did to "The Long And Winding Road"), while Ringo seemed indifferent.

Even though George gave his thumbs up on the project before he passed away, "Let It Be... Naked" is Paul and Ringo's version of the album.

It's just too bad we couldn't have one album with input into the production from all four Beatles.

[musicradio77]

I have the original "Let It Be" album on tape along with the 45's of "Get Back" (Single Version) with "Don't Let Me Down" (Single Version) on the flip side, "The Long and Winding Road" (Phil Spector's Version) along with the flip "For You Blue" (Phil Spector's Version) and "Let It Be" (Single Version) along with the flip side called "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)". I have three 45's by the Beatles. Can you tell the difference between this and the new "Let It Be... Naked" CD?

[Steve M.]

Let It Be. . .Naked outclasses its 1970 predecessor, but I miss the stinging guitar solo on "Let It Be" from January 4, 1970. And will we ever hear a longer outtake of "Dig It?"

I've also thought that "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" should have been released as a single back in 1970 but not included on the album, since they weren't really Get Back / Let It Be recordings, just two songs they rehearsed at Twickenham but didn't properly record at Savile Row. The rock and roll medley later issued on Anthology 3 should have been on the 1970 album instead.

[Brad]

Originally posted by Steve M.
Let It Be. . .Naked outclasses its 1970 predecessor, but I miss the stinging guitar solo on "Let It Be" from January 4, 1970. And will we ever hear a longer outtake of "Dig it?"

I've also thought that "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" should have been released as a single back in 1970 but not included on the album, since they weren't really Get back / Let It Be recordings, just two songs they rehearsed at Twickenham but didn't properly record at Savile Row. The rock and roll medley later issued on Anthology 3 should have been on the 1970 album instead.

The 11-minute "Dig It" is fun, but a pain to listen to in its entirety more than once.

[Steve M.]

Originally posted by AKA
The 11-minute "Dig It" is fun, but a pain to listen to in its entirety more than once.

Glyn Johns kept it down to five minutes on the first Get Back. That doesn't sound so bad.