Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

So the sixties were over and the Beatles were a long time dead with their perfect scrapbook of an endnote had been delivered in the form of Abbey Road, but in 1970 as a final act, under the expert production of Phil Spector the aborted Get Back sessions we're pulled together with other lost classics and a few originals to create the Beatles last album Let It Be. It's sad, it truly is something about this album always feels tragic, it's never quite settled or cohesive, this is the last Beatles album but it never feels like it, and for that reason it never receives the love it deserves. It seems bizarre thinking about it now but Let It Be was realized just seven years after Paul first saw us standing there and kicked of Beatlemania in 1963. Of course Please, Please Me and Let It Be are almost incomparable and it's testament to the mind bending journey that was the Beatles career. Yet while Abbey Road would have been the perfect high note to go out on, Let It Be is somehow more fitting, it sounds like the end of the era, it's full of conflicting emotions, there's great tension, some larking around and a great sense of tragedy and sorrow, but most of all, it's full of these epic concluding ballads. This is the end, we knew it and of course they knew it too.

There's such a tragic but beautiful feel to this record and the tone is set from the outset. Two Of Us starts with John goofing around in the studio before dropping into a chugging old western style acoustic hook, but at the heart of the song is a lust for lost memories. You can feel that Paul really doesn't want the Beatles to end, he's dreaming that everything can go back to the way it once was, but even as the track tries to conjure hope it can't help but feel like a great tragedy with it's pleading chorus "We're On Our Way Home, We Going Home". It feels more like a fleeting dream than anything reassembling reality. The track at first feels simplistic until it kicks into second gear with it's beautiful bridge "You And I Have Memories Longer Than The Road That Stretches Out A Head". Dig A Pony shares a similar fate, it's chronically underrated, it opens almost ploddingly but as the song grows and develops it becomes increasingly epic as Lennon pleads and crys "All I Want Is You, Everything Has To Be Just Like You Want It To", the guitar solo is haunting, beautiful and superbly understated. Both works side by side are intriguing as they both start as chugging country stompers but becomes something more, something deeper and more sorrowful.

While Across The Universe stands out noticeably as out of place, it's clearly from a different time and place than the Get Back session, it fits the mood of album so perfectly. It's beautiful but mournful, it's both lucid and fleetingly, you become absorbed with in its soft but gorgeous texture yet it feels ghostly and ethereal. So three songs in and Let It Be feels like the Beatles biggest tear jerker, it's not as scathing or dark as Rubber Soul but it isn't as fanciful either, this is an earnest and sorrowful goodbye. McCartney also hits his stride delivering two monster ballads. The Long And Winding Road has the soppy sentimentality cranked up to eleven and you almost dread listening to it, but when those gorgeous strings come it you can't help but fall for it all over again. Much better in every possible way is Let It Be it's the ultimate ballad, it bowls you over with it's power and it truly is the perfect coda for the Beatles career. It rises and swells at all the right moments and when the guitar solo kicks in it just divine, it's a song you want to hate, you want to be sick of but you can't it's irresistible, it's too damn good.

My undisputed favourite track on Let It Be and quite possibly my all time favourite Beatles track is delivered by George Harrison, and most bizzarely I dislike at least 25% of the track. I've never cared for the shouty rock and roll shout along chorus but I utterly adore George Harrison gorgeous arrangement and his soulful apocalyptic vocals on the wondrous I, Me, Mine. It's probably their best blend of eastern philosophy into a single Beatles track, the way the orchestra and Ringo's drums pound and swell to a crescendo actually feels like the world caving in under the weight of it's own consumerism. It's a scathing attack on ruthless self interest, yet like the best libertarians Harrison never sounds damning or preachy, instead there's a sense of mourning, people will be people, Harrison can only look on a shed a tear as they consume themselves, and somehow it's ten times more powerful than any racous punk rock stomper. The final verse is simply a work of art a perfect commentary on human nature;

"All I Can Hear,

Elsewhere we get one final Lennon and McCartney collaboration in the form of I've Got A Feeling the combination of two abandoned tracks, and it's not until Lennon's Everybody Had A Bad Year kicks in that the song gains real momentum, yet together as a single work they arise to more than just the some of their parts. Most of all it sounds like the Beatles having fun, and while pound for pound it's one of the albums weaker tracks it's really joyous to hear the two lead Beatles joking around together once more. Elsewhere One After 909 is equally fun but as a little rock a billy tribute but it's rather forgettable. For You Blue sees the Beatles joking around with Twelve bar blues the results are sweet but less than stellar.

Almost ironically Let It Be concludes with Get Back, one last joke, a hopeful upbeat plead for Ringo, George and John to get back to their Beatles roots. Of course we knew it wouldn't happen. The same week Let It Be hit the stores the Beatles would announced their split. So while there's a certain sad irony to Get Back it still feels right, after all the Beatles were a hopeful uplifting band, they put smiles on peoples faces, and through all the tragedy they will always be associated with joy first and foremost. They couldn't have possible left on a tear jerker. So while Let It Be may feel mournful it ends with one last classic sing song. All in all Let It Be may not be the Beatles finest album but it was the right note to go out on. While there are plenty of jokey throwaways and obvious B-sides at it's heart are some of the Beatles most powerful and brilliant tracks and somewhere between Across The Universe, Let It Be & I, Me, Mine you'll get your perfect teary eyed goodbye.