LET IT BE

My brothers say that I have a very good memory. Well, I still have a very good memory of several things which happened a very long time ago, and one of them was the first time that I listened to this single, in 1970. My father bought us for several years the singles which were very popular in the Radio in our city at that time. In fact, I think that the International Rock / Pop music in the sixties / early seventies had a lot of quality in many cases, with very good arrangements, and I think that the focus was more in selling music of very good quality.

The version of Let It Be released in this single is different to the one included in the Let It Be album, but in fact is the same take of the song, but several things are different: the master has two lead guitar parts recorded by George Harrison, one in 1969 (included in this single) and another recorded in 1970 (released in the album, with more distortion, and generally a better lead guitar part for the song). The single version was mixed by George Martin, and he mixed lower the horns parts that himself arranged. In the album version, mixed by Phil Spector, the horns are mixed higher and the song also has some echo added, a thing which can be listened very clearly in Ringo`s hi-hats at the start of the song. I like both versions of the song but I prefer Sector`s version a bit.

The B-side, called You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) is a funny Lennon`s song on which the only lyrics are the song title words repeated several times using different and funny voices. I can remember that when my brothers and me listened to this song for the very first time we were lauging a lot (very good childhood memories, I was a five years old boy then!). This song was in fact started in recordings in mid 1967. It had several parts, and in one of them the late Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones added a sax solo hich can be heard in this single version. The vocals were added by Lennon and McCartney until mid 1969, and then the song remained without use, until in late 1969 Lennon decided that he wanted it released in a Plastic Ono Band`s single, and he edited the song in Mono to less minutes in duration. This Plastic Ono Band`s single never was released (due to objections from the other members, being really a Beatles`recording), and finally it appeared in the B-side of this single. In The Beatles Anthology Vol. 3 there is another edit of this song, in Stereo. McCartney said in one interview included in the The Beatles Recording Sesions book (written by Mark Lewisohn) that this song is his favourite Beatles`song due to the craziness of it.