(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Apple Studios, London, England
Dates: January 24, 1969;
January 25, 1969;
January 31, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul McCartney - acoustic guitar, bass(?), vocal
John Lennon - acoustic guitar, vocal
George Harrison - lead guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
Other Information
- The working title for this was "On Our Way Home."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Apple Studios, London, England
Dates: January 22, 1969;
January 24, 1969;
January 28, 1969;
January 30, 1969;
February 5, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
John Lennon - lead guitar, lead vocal
Paul McCartney - bass guitar, harmony vocal
George Harrison - lead guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
John: "I was just having fun with words. It was literally a nonsense song. You just take words and stick them together, and you see if they have any meaning. Some of them do, and some of them don't."
Other Information
- If you turn up the volume for the last few seconds of the song, you can hear John saying his hands are too cold to play the chords. The song was recorded during The Beatles' rooftop concert.
- The reason Ringo stopped the count-in was so that he could stop and blow his nose.
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: May 18, 1970, on the US Let It Be album
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London, England
February 4, 1968: Six takes were recorded.
February 8, 1968: A Mellotron bit and an organ bit were recorded, ended up not being used on the song. John wasn't sure about the song or what it needed, so he placed it on the shelf for a bit.
October 2, 1969: Sound effects were added onto the song from the EMI archives, and the song was speeded up some.
Musicians and Instruments Played
John Lennon - lead guitar, organ, vocal
Paul McCartney - piano
George Harrison - sitar
Ringo Starr - maracas
George Martin - organ
John: "I was lying next to [Cynthia] in bed, and I was irritated. She must have been going on and on about something, and she'd gone to sleep, and I kept on hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream. I went downstairs and it turned into a cosmic song rather than an irritated song. It drove me out of bed. I didn't want to write it, but I was slightly irritable and went downstairs and couldn't get to sleep until I put it down on paper."
John: "I was a bit more artsy-fartsy there."
Paul: "The track was a real piece of shit. I was singing out of tune, and, instead of getting a decent choir, we got fans from outside. Apple Scruffs, or whatever you call them. They came in and were singing all off-key."
Other Information
- The two fans Paul got off the street to sing some background vocals were Lizzie Bravo, a sixteen-year-old from Brazil who hoped be be an actress, and Gayleen Pease, a girl from London.
- It seemed sometimes as if John believed that Paul subconsciously tried to sabotage the recording of his music, especially "Across the Universe," when he went and got kids from off the street to sing in it. John said, "Usually we'd spend hours doing little detailed clean-ups of Paul's songs; when it came to mine, especially if it was a great song like 'Strawberry Fields Forever' or 'Across the Universe,' somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in. Subconscious sabotage. He'll deny it 'cause he's got a bland face and he'll say the sabotage doesn't exist."
(Harrison)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London, England
Dates: January 3, 1970;
April 1, 1970;
April 2, 1970
Musicians and Instruments Played
George Harrison - lead guitar, lead vocal
Paul McCartney - bass guitar, hammond organ, electric piano, harmony vocal
Ringo Starr - drums
George: "'I Me Mine' is the ego problem. I looked around, and everything I could see was relative to my ego. You know, like, 'That's my piece of paper' or 'Give it to me' or 'I am.' It drove me crackers. I hated everything about my ego. Anyway, that's what came out of it: 'I Me Mine'... it's about the ego, the eternal problem."
- When John complained about this song's "droning melody," George stormed out of the session and told the others, "See you 'round the clubs." What may have really made John annoyed by it, though, was probably that it seemed as if George was talking about him in the song.
(Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Apple Studios, London, England
Dates: January 24, 1969;
January 26, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
John Lennon - lead vocal
Paul McCartney - piano
George Harrison - lead guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
Billy Preston - hammond organ
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: March 6, 1970, on the "Let It Be" single
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios, London, England
January 25, 1969: Recording began.
January 26, 1969: More takes were recorded.
January 31, 1969: Nine takes were recorded.
April 30, 1969: A lead guitar solo was overdubbed onto the best take.
January 4, 1970: Overdubs added in.
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul McCartney - piano, lead vocal
John Lennon - bass, harmony vocal
George Harrison - lead guitar, harmony vocal
Ringo Starr - drums
Billy Preston - organ [single version only]
Paul: "I had a dream one night about my mother. She died when I was fourteen, so I hadn't heard from her in quite a while, and it was very good. It gave me some strength. In my darkest hour, mother Mary had come to me."
Paul: "I wrote [Let It Be] when all those business problems started to get me down. I really was passing through my 'hour of darkness' and writing the song was my way of exorcising the ghosts."
Other Information
- When Paul wrote the song, he was imagining Aretha Franklin singing it. She later did cover it.
(Arranged by Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Apple Studios, London, England
Date: January 24, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul McCartney - acoustic guitar, vocal
John Lennon - acoustic guitar, vocal
George Harrison - lead guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Apple Studios, London, England
January 22, 1969;
January 23, 1969;
January 24, 1969;
January 27, 1969;
January 28, 1969;
January 30, 1969;
February 5, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul McCartney - bass, vocal
John Lennon - rhythm guitar, vocal
George Harrison - lead guitar, backing vocal
Ringo Starr - drums
Billy Preston - electric piano
Other Information
- This was a combination of two different songs: John's "Everybody Had a Hard Year" and Paul's "I've Got a Feeling."
- There's a skit in the Let It Be film where John changed "I've got a feeling" to "I've got a hard on," and Paul changed "Everybody had a hard year" to "Everybody had a hard on, except me and my monkey."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios; Apple Studios, London, England
Dates: March 5, 1963;
January 28, 1969;
January 29, 1969;
January 30, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
John Lennon - 1963 version: rhythm guitar, harmonica, lead vocal
1969 version: lead guitar, vocal
Paul McCartney - 1963 version: bass, harmony vocal
1969 version: bass, vocal
George Harrison - 1963 version: lead guitar
1969 version: rhythm guitar
Ringo Starr - 1963 and 1969: drums
Billy Preston - [1969 version only] electric piano
Paul: "It was a number that we didn't used to do much, but it was one that we always liked doing, and we rediscovered it. It's not a great song, but it's a great favorite of mine because it has memories for me of John and trying to write a bluesy freight train song."
Other Information
- You can hear the version of this that they did back in 1963 on the Anthology 1 CD.
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios; Olympic Studios, London, England
September 19, 1968: Paul recorded a quick demo of the song on the grand piano.
January 26, 1969: Some takes were recorded.
January 31, 1969: Seven takes of the song were recorded.
April 1, 1970: Phil Spector wanted to overdub an orchestra into the song, so he wiped one of Paul's two vocal tracks to put it in, and, well, let's just say Paul didn't like that very much.
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul McCartney - piano, lead vocal
John Lennon - bass
George Harrison - guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
Billy Preston - organ
Session musicians [original release only] - guitars, trombones, trumpets, harp, cellos, violas, violins
Paul: "It's a sad song because it's all about the unattainable."
Other Information
- After hearing what Phil Spector had done to his song, Paul sent the following note to Allen Klein:
Dear Sir,
In future no one will be allowed to add or subtract from a recording of one of my songs without my permission. I had considered orchestrating "The Long and Winding Road," but I decided against it. I therefore want it altered to these specifications:
1. Strings, horns, voices, and all added noises to be reduced in volume.
2. Vocal and Beatle instrumentation to be brought up in volume.
3. Harp to be removed completely at the end of the song and original piano notes to be substituted.
4. Don't ever do it again.
Signed
Paul McCartney
- Paul may have been thinking of Ray Charles singing the song when he wrote it.
(Harrison)
First released: May 8, 1970, on the UK album Let It Be
Recording Information
Location: Apple Studios, London, England
Date: January 25, 1969
Musicians and Instruments Played
George Harrison - acoustic guitar, lead vocal
John Lennon - lap steel guitar
Paul McCartney - piano
Ringo Starr - drums
Other Information
- This was originally going to be called "George's Blues" or "For You Blues."
(Lennon/McCartney)
First released: April 11, 1969, on a UK single
Recording Information
Location: Abbey Road Studios; Olympic Studios, London, England
January 23, 1969: Ten takes were recorded.
January 27, 1969: Fourteen more takes were recorded.
January 28, 1969: The Beatles recorded the version that was to be on the single.
January 30, 1969: This was the day of the rooftop concert. It started with two takes of "Get Back," which were very similar, and they were edited together for the film for Let It Be. The third take was recorded at the end of the concert, and on that take, you can hear Paul ad-libbing, "You've been playing on the roofs again, and your mommy doesn't like that. She's gonna have you arrested!"
Musicians and Instruments Played
Paul McCartney - bass, lead vocal
John Lennon - lead guitar, backing vocal
George Harrison - rhythm guitar
Ringo Starr - drums
Billy Preston - electric piano
John: "'Get Back' is Paul. I think there's some underlying thing about Yoko in there. You know, 'Get back to where you once belonged.' Every time he sang the line in the studio, he'd look at Yoko."
Other Information
- On the "Get Back" single, Billy Preston was the first guest artist to be credited on a Beatles single.
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