Let It Be

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Let It Be
Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1968

Some songs are carefully built, and some seem to arrive as a gift. “Let It Be” was one of the gifts. In 1968 the Beatles were worn out and quarreling, and their long friendship was fraying. During those difficult months, Paul McCartney had a dream in which his mother, Mary, came to him. She had been a nurse and midwife in Liverpool, and she died of cancer when Paul was just fourteen. In the dream she was calm and reassuring, and she told him not to worry, that things would turn out all right. He woke up comforted, and the song followed.

Over the years, many listeners have heard the “Mary” in the song as the Virgin Mary, and they have sung it as a prayer. McCartney has explained that he was thinking of his own mother. He has also said he’s glad for people to take whatever comfort the song offers them, and that generous spirit may be why it has meant so much to so many people.

The Beatles recorded the song in January 1969 in the basement studio at their Apple headquarters in London. Film cameras were rolling for what would become the documentary Let It Be. The song ended up with two different finished versions. George Martin produced the single, and Phil Spector later reworked the album version with a bolder guitar solo and extra instruments. Fans still debate which one they prefer. Before either came out, Aretha Franklin released her own soulful recording in January 1970, so the Queen of Soul got there first.

The Beatles’ single appeared in March 1970. A few weeks later, McCartney announced he was leaving the group, and the band that had defined the decade was finished. The song went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in America. In Britain it reached number two, held back by another hymn-like ballad, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The film Let It Be went on to win the Beatles an Academy Award for its original song score.

The song kept finding new ways to serve. McCartney chose it for his solo spot at Live Aid in 1985, though his microphone failed for the first couple of minutes and much of the crowd couldn’t hear him. In 1987 a group of British stars recorded it as “Ferry Aid” to raise money for the families of those lost in the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, and that version went to number one in the UK. More than half a century on, it remains a song people reach for in hard times.