Let It Be: Naked --- Better, Worse, or Meh?

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Utoo

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So, I never picked up Let It Be: Naked when it came out. I was curious about it, but not enough to buy it, and at the time I didn't know anyone who had it that I could burn it from. It's got me curious again, but I'd love to hear what people who have it and the original think about it. Is it worth it? Is the original better? Or are there some tracks that are better on one, but other tracks better on the other?

0824-let-it-be-naked.jpg
 
I don't think it was a good as I was expecting. The only track I really wanted to hear was the non-Phil Spectorized Long and Winding Road.
 
I own Let It Be Naked but don't have Let It Be, so I haven't actually listened to the originals in awhile (though I have some from Beatles 1). but I loooove Let It Be Naked...i think Let It Be is really underrated
 
I really love Don't Let Me Down and the re-worked Long and Winding Road. The rest aren't huge improvements over the original.

The essential Across the Universe is the one off the Past Masters disc. Children's choir ftw.
 
It's still their weakest album since Beatles for Sale (if you don't include Yellow Submarine as an actual album). The main reason is that there's really only 2 new Lennon compositions here. Across the Universe is a classic and Dig a Pony is an underrated gem, but One After 909 was written when John was like 16. Including Don't Let Me Down helps, as it's better than almost every song on there.

As much as I dislike Paul, it's easy to see why he was pissed off at the embellishments to his songs. Having said that, I think Paul's vocal on The Long and Winding Road is a little overdone anyway, and without all the extra garbage supporting him, it sticks out even more on Naked.

I'm also not sure what the point was in moving Get Back to the front of the album. Because it was originally the title song? So Paul can have the lead track all to himself? Either way, I think Two of Us at least got the thing off to a friendly start, as if to dispel the bad feelings behind the band's breakup. I've never been a huge fan of Get Back either. I do like Let it Be at the end better, though you'd think The Long and Winding Road would be a more obvious closer.

And why get rid of the Maggie Mae and Dig It interludes? They're better than the awful For You Blue, which was probably moved to track #3 to make George feel like his contributions were more important. One last thing, if you're going to add non-album track Don't Let Me Down, why not throw The Ballad of John & Yoko on here too? Wasn't it recorded between the White Album sessions and this album? Again, it's better than most of what IS on Let It Be. We'll leave Old Brown Shoe in the b-sides dustbin where it belongs, thank you.

A good experiment would be to try and compile a definitive collection from all these options, which could actually approach a great album, even if it could never reach the heights of the other classics it's surrounded by. You might be able to come up with something at least as good as Help!

Without giving it a test drive listen, here's a rough idea off the top of my head:

1. Two of Us
2. One After 909
3. I Me Mine
4. Dig It
5. Let it Be
6. Don't Let Me Down
7. I've Got a Feeling
8. Maggie Mae
9. The Ballad of John & Yoko
10. For You Blue
11. Get Back
12. Across the Universe
13. The Long and Winding Road

I preserved the Dig It-->Let It Be transition, though it always seemed strange to go from a humorous little John bit to a fairly serious and moving track. Feel free to tamper with that one, another option being to stick Dig a Pony right after Dig It and make a little "Dig" suite. I moved 909 to the top because disposable rockers are good near the top of an album. I added in John & Yoko, and think Maggie Mae has a similar style that makes a nice lead-in.

Personally I'd like to get rid of For You Blue, but for completion's sake I buried it near the end of the album. Across the Universe is a nice epic song that may be better followed by the stripped down Winding Road, but I still have my reservations about that version.

This album now has 4 VERY strong John tracks, and the more I look at it the more I think I'd prefer it to Rubber Soul in this form.

Let me know what you think. More thoughts after I try it out.
 
A couple other points--John & Paul tended to alternate songs on their albums, and I tried to keep with this tradition. Also, I flirted with including You Know My Name, which is a total good off, but considering how loose this album was SUPPOSED to be, it could work. Feel free to try putting that one in there somewhere.
 
Were the White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be all from the same sessions, or just the latter two?
 
LemonMacPhisto said:
Were the White Album, Abbey Road, and Let It Be all from the same sessions, or just the latter two?

The White Album sessions were mid-1968. Let It Be (the "Get Back" sessions) was late-1968 (not sure if it coincided with the White Album work) and ended January 31st, 1969, the day after the rooftop performance. Abbey Road was summer 1969, with the completion of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August 1969 being the last time that all four Beatles were together in the same studio.


At least according to wikipedia. :wink:
 
wow lazarus, you really hate paul!
and apparently think that john shat golden turds.
you must be in college, right?
don't sweat it, you'll get over it...

he shat turds, alright. doubt if they were always made of gold...

personally, i like the stripped version of the album. tho i agree it's a pretty 'meh' starting point.

you already know the big songs on here. if the overdone arrangements are trying to you, then you might like the stripped down versions. personally, i've never liked 'the long and winding road' or 'across the universe'. both are too contrived in my ears, taking the orchestras and bullshit off them didn't change that for me.

there's a few gems on here. 'two of us' remains one of my favorite beatles' songs ever, no matter what form. 'dig a pony' is pretty hot, too. not their top form, but pretty good stuff resides here. probably the first instance of a band (or label) capitalizing on their legacy after their demise (i'm talking about the original release of 'let it be'). i'm not sure how invested the band was in releasing this for the public to hear. would be glad to be educated about this...

lastly, i'll say that the 'bonus' disc on the 'naked' version of the album is absolute shit. bands go into studios, make cool shit happen, share the results. i'm not sure i want to hear the whole process. check that, i don't want to hear it. i got about 2 minutes into the bonus shit and turned it off forever. 20 second snippets of conversations and musical farts that we can hear in more fleshed out forms on releases we already have? i'm surprised they didn't include a recording of john (or paul for that matter) laying one of those golden turds in the toilet.
or maybe they did...
 
Utoo said:


The White Album sessions were mid-1968. Let It Be (the "Get Back" sessions) was late-1968 (not sure if it coincided with the White Album work) and ended January 31st, 1969, the day after the rooftop performance. Abbey Road was summer 1969, with the completion of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August 1969 being the last time that all four Beatles were together in the same studio.


At least according to wikipedia. :wink:

That might still be confusing to the casual fan. After the more organic, stripped down Let it Be sessions were temporarily shelved, they decided to go back and make an album the way they used to, locked up with George Martin in the studio doing their usual experimentation. The result was Abbey Road. Released before Let It Be but technically their last recorded album. Lennon brought Phil Spector to take another look at the Let it Be tapes, he added all the choir and strings stuff, and Paul left the band as a result. The album was released after it had been made public that the band had officially broken up.
 
dudeman said:
wow lazarus, you really hate paul!
and apparently think that john shat golden turds.
you must be in college, right?
don't sweat it, you'll get over it...

he shat turds, alright. doubt if they were always made of gold...

personally, i like the stripped version of the album. tho i agree it's a pretty 'meh' starting point.

you already know the big songs on here. if the overdone arrangements are trying to you, then you might like the stripped down versions. personally, i've never liked 'the long and winding road' or 'across the universe'. both are too contrived in my ears, taking the orchestras and bullshit off them didn't change that for me.

there's a few gems on here. 'two of us' remains one of my favorite beatles' songs ever, no matter what form. 'dig a pony' is pretty hot, too. not their top form, but pretty good stuff resides here. probably the first instance of a band (or label) capitalizing on their legacy after their demise (i'm talking about the original release of 'let it be'). i'm not sure how invested the band was in releasing this for the public to hear. would be glad to be educated about this...

lastly, i'll say that the 'bonus' disc on the 'naked' version of the album is absolute shit. bands go into studios, make cool shit happen, share the results. i'm not sure i want to hear the whole process. check that, i don't want to hear it. i got about 2 minutes into the bonus shit and turned it off forever. 20 second snippets of conversations and musical farts that we can hear in more fleshed out forms on releases we already have? i'm surprised they didn't include a recording of john (or paul for that matter) laying one of those golden turds in the toilet.
or maybe they did...

dudeman, I haven't been in college since '94, but I still try to maintain the scholastic spirit. I don't want to get into a big John vs. Paul argument, but whereas John's "filler" consisted of some pretty great tunes like And Your Bird Can Sing or I'm So Tired, or Dig A Pony (which you yourself seem to admire), Paul's also-rans were either painful to listen to (Honey Pie, Lovely Rita) or just downright boring (For No One, Your Mother Should Know). At least John tried different things--Paul wrote that old timey grandma song 5 different times.

Anyway, I actually agree with much of your thoughts on Let It Be. Though I found the second disc a neat little window into their private world. I don't know that it was meant to be listened to more than once in a great while.

I don't currently have Let It Be...Naked ripped to my computer and I'm away from home, but did they strip down Across the Universe as well, or only the Paul songs? Because I think I'd agree with your sentiment on that one too.
 
lazarus said:


dudeman, I haven't been in college since '94, but I still try to maintain the scholastic spirit. I don't want to get into a big John vs. Paul argument, but whereas John's "filler" consisted of some pretty great tunes like And Your Bird Can Sing or I'm So Tired, or Dig A Pony (which you yourself seem to admire), Paul's also-rans were either painful to listen to (Honey Pie, Lovely Rita) or just downright boring (For No One, Your Mother Should Know). At least John tried different things--Paul wrote that old timey grandma song 5 different times.

Anyway, I actually agree with much of your thoughts on Let It Be. Though I found the second disc a neat little window into their private world. I don't know that it was meant to be listened to more than once in a great while.

I don't currently have Let It Be...Naked ripped to my computer and I'm away from home, but did they strip down Across the Universe as well, or only the Paul songs? Because I think I'd agree with your sentiment on that one too.

They stripped Across the Universe. It's basically the same as the Past Master without the kid choir and it has an obnoxious "Within You, Without You"-esque whooshing sound and more lo-fi mix. Anything is an improvement over the overdone album version though.
 
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I just realized I forgot to include Dig A Pony in that tracklisting I posted above. Idiot! After listening to my tenative playlist, I've decided to move it in between Dig It and Let it Be as mentioned earlier. I think it works better this way. Does the Naked version of Get Back have all the talking at the beginning? If not there's the option to use this instead.

I also decided against including You Know My Name. First of all, the music was laid down back in 1967 and the vocals during the Abbey Road sessions so I don't really feel it belongs with the Let It Be material. It doesn't really fit anywhere either.

I don't even have For You Blue on my laptop because I find it pretty annoying, so I wasn't able to see how that fit. I can conjure it up mentally though and I still think it works between John & Yoko and Get Back.

So here's the final order I'm using:

1. Two of Us
2. One After 909
3. I Me Mine
4. Dig It
5. Dig a Pony
6. Let It Be
7. Don't Let Me Down
8. I've Got a Feeling
9. Maggie Mae
10. The Ballad of John & Yoko
11. For You Blue
12. Get Back (Naked?)
13. Across the Universe
14. The Long & Winding Road (Naked)

Enjoy, and please share your comments if you give it a try.
 
Wow. So Lovely Rita is painful to listen to and For No One is downright boring. You learn something new every day.

How Lovely Rita is an 'old timey grandma song' is beyond me.

And for the record, I, too, am a Lennon man. But you are being way too harsh on Paul.
 
I didn't say Lovely Rita was one of the old-timey grandma songs.

Those are:

Honey Pie
Your Mother Should Know
When I'm Sixty-Four (the original and only good one)
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Martha My Dear (save for the fast middle part, which I actually like)

Keep in mind this is all coming from someone who thinks Why Don't We Do It In The Road? is one of the Top 10 things Paul's put to tape.
 
Meh.
It's good Don't let me down on made the cut, and skipping Maggie May and Dig it on the tracklisting, but I went with the original version.

There were other issues too, but maybe involving Phill Spector and trying to prevent Paul from issuing "McCartney" ahead of the Beatles album was the last nail in the coffin for the band, . Paul, despite "officially" leaving first - other three all quit on a short term basis before, and John actually released a solo album in 1969 - actually tried the hardest to keep the band going.
 
LemonMacPhisto said:


They stripped Across the Universe. It's basically the same as the Past Master without the kid choir and it has an obnoxious "Within You, Without You"-esque whooshing sound and more lo-fi mix. Anything is an improvement over the overdone album version though.

I don't think it's obnoxious at all, it works very well. In fact, I'd say that the Naked version of Across The Universe is probably my favorite now.
 
Utoo said:


The White Album sessions were mid-1968. Let It Be (the "Get Back" sessions) was late-1968 (not sure if it coincided with the White Album work) and ended January 31st, 1969, the day after the rooftop performance. Abbey Road was summer 1969, with the completion of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August 1969 being the last time that all four Beatles were together in the same studio.



Abbey Road's side two medley, consists of White Album and Let it Be Lennon/McCartney leftovers.
 
lazarus said:

Honey Pie
Your Mother Should Know
When I'm Sixty-Four (the original and only good one)
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Martha My Dear (save for the fast middle part, which I actually like)

You forgot Rocky Raccoon. I think it qualifies, at least parts of it.

Honey Pie is one of my very least favorite Beatles songs.
 
inmyplace13 said:


You forgot Rocky Raccoon. I think it qualifies, at least parts of it.

Honey Pie is one of my very least favorite Beatles songs.

But Rocky Raccoon is probably my favorite Paul song!

I think of it as more of as frontier/saloon old-timey than grandma old-timey, if that makes any sense.

Plus the lyrics are better than any of those other song.
 
U2girl said:
Paul, despite "officially" leaving first - other three all quit on a short term basis before, and John actually released a solo album in 1969 - actually tried the hardest to keep the band going.


He was also the one who did the most to break them up. Sure, John brought Phil Spector in, whose production work caused Paul to finally leave, but have you ever watched the film Let It Be? It didn't look like George found him very easy to work with. Do you find it surprising that Harrison played on Lennon's McCartney-bashing How Do You Sleep? And when Ringo walked out on the band during the White Album sessions--guess who was the cause of that one too?
 
How do you figure that ? It was his idea to do Sgt Pepper, the "concert footage" movie that became Let it be and he talked to George Martin to do Abbey Road. He was also the one in favour of touring the most after 1966.

:nerd: Do tell, why did Ringo walk out ?

I only watched Let it be once, I know he - George - and Paul (and obviously he and John too) argued. I just think it wasn't "Paul against everyone else" (or the much hyped "Yoko broke up the Beatles" theory) as much as the band falling apart anyway - and it didn't start with that album. Band members recording solo for White album, financial fights, ego clashes, George probably feeling ripped off for not being recognized as a writer, John being tired of the band...I don't think you can single out any single incident or any particular person.
(If I had to pick, I'd lean in John's direction)
 
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Paul initiating pet projects doesn't really equal keeping the band going. It's not like they weren't writing and planning on recording anyway, he just had conceptual ideas. Also, I don't know that mentioning his idea for Let it Be makes a good case, because the tension during those sessions (between whoever) probably fractured the band and led to a much quicker breakup, even if you think it was inevitable anyway. I've seen it several times, and as objective as I can be about this, I really think Paul comes off like a jackass on much of it. Getting George Martin back was just cleaning up his own mess.

John may have seemed uninterested in the band but despite his difficult personality he was just more passive in terms of their direction, and didn't feel all the conceptual stuff was necessary--Magical Mystery Tour was Paul's idea too, funny that you didn't mention it as it wasn't received very well. Ultimately Paul's decision to make Let It Be, against faint protestations from the others, did much more damage than John's Phil Spector move, which was more of a final straw for Paul.

Ringo left after Paul kept badgering him over the drum part on Back in the U.S.S.R. The drums on the White Album version are actually played by Paul.

You also pointed to Paul's desire to play live, but he was the only one who wanted to tour.
 
Magical Mystery Tour is an EP, not an album. Yes, I know it was his idea.

But do you see what I mean ? You can't blame him exclusively if some of those ideas worked better than others, or rather, if others *mostly John* weren't as keen on going on with the band. Is it a surprise John contributes little to Sgt Pepper or Let it be, compared to Abbey Road or White Album ? You can't keep up a band if at least one party, especially one of the two leading songwriters, isn't interested. Same goes for touring.

My impression is they offered the album, with which none of them were obviously entirely happy, to be produced to different people (wikipedia mentions 3 "Let it be" albums in the process) and that finally John and Paul basically handed over the tapes to Spector, it's just that Paul didn't agree on the production choices he made, because they wanted a more stripped down sound. My understanding was the other three all contributed drums for Back in the USSR. :shrug:

Maybe it sped up things (even with them recording separately for White Album and George Martin qutting the production on that album in frustration?), but I'm not sure not doing it would somehow magically saved the band, considering how much was going on.
 
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On a side note, in an article on Beatle albums being available digitally, the movie gets mentioned too:

"But the film “Let It Be” remains in DVD purgatory, Aspinall says. The reason? “The film was so controversial when it first came out. When we got halfway through restoring it, we looked at the outtakes and realized: this stuff is still controversial. It raised a lot of old issues.”

:huh: After all the years, with two members dead ?
 
phanan said:


I don't think it's obnoxious at all, it works very well. In fact, I'd say that the Naked version of Across The Universe is probably my favorite now.

That's cool, it's a definite upgrade from the album version, but that bit holds it back from being as good as the Past Masters one.
 
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