(top) Paul on the left, his mother Mary and brother Michael.  (row 2 l) Paul and his dog Martha;  (row 2 r) Paul taking a selfie…in the mirror.  (row 3) Paul in leather (row 4) Paul in bathrobe on the fence with the kids in Wales. Photo by Linda McCartney. (row 5) Cool stage photo. (row 6 l) Another cool stage photo. (row 6 r) Teenage Paul.  (bottom) Sir Paul with his fashion designer daughter Stella. 

Ever find yourself singing out loud in the car?  I’ve done it more times than I can remember, especially when I’m by myself. (Jackie and the girls let me know when it’s time to stop) USUALLY AFTER THE FIRST NOTE!!!.  The other day I was singing one of my favorite Beatles songs – Let It Be.  It’s one of those songs you just never get tired of.  I did some trivia digging and found some fun stuff about the original, the recording session and the interpretations of the song by other artists. Here’s a link to this great classic celebrating 50 years of entertaining us.  Enjoy!

Push the sound up and listen to Let It Be remastered in 2009 HERE.
Did you know that Aretha Franklin recorded and released Let It Be before the Beatles?? I didn’t either. Listen to the 2019 remastered recording HERE. It’s really amazing!

1. Paul McCartney wrote this song, inspired by his mother, Mary, who died when he was 14. Many people thought “Mother Mary” was a biblical reference when they heard it.
2. According to McCartney, this is a very positive song, owing to its inspiration. One night when he was paranoid and anxious, he had a dream where he saw his mother, who had been dead for ten years or so – she came to him in his time of trouble, speaking words of wisdom that brought him much peace when he needed it. It was this sweet dream that got him to begin writing the song.
3. He told the story to James Corden when he appeared on his Carpool Karaoke segment. “She was reassuring me, saying, ‘It’s going to be OK, just let it be.’ I felt so great. She gave me the positive words. I woke up and thought, ‘What was that? She said ‘Let It Be.’ That’s good.’ So I wrote the song ‘Let It Be’ out of positivity.
4. Since Let It Be was The Beatles last album, it made an appropriate statement about leaving problems behind and moving on in life. The album was supposed to convey an entirely different message. It was going to be called “Get Back,” and they were going to record it in front of an audience on live TV, with another TV special showing them practicing the songs in the studio. It was going to be The Beatles getting back to their roots and playing unadorned live music instead of struggling in the studio like they did for The White Album.
5. When they started putting the album together, it became clear the project wouldn’t work and George Harrison left the sessions. When he returned, they abandoned the live idea and decided to use the TV footage as their last movie. While the movie was being edited, The Beatles recorded and released Abbey Road, then broke up. Eventually, Phil Spector was given the tapes and asked to produce the album, which was released months after The Beatles broke up. By then, it was clear “Let It Be” would be a better name than “Get Back.”
6. Many have been moved by the song on a deeply personal level, including Corden, who broke down when they sang it together. “I remember my granddad, who was a musician, sitting me down and telling me, ‘I’m going to play you the best song you’ve ever heard,’ and he played me that,” he said. “If my granddad was here right now he’d get an absolute kick out of this.” McCartney replied, “He is.”
7. John Lennon hated this song because of it’s apparent Christian overtones. He made the comment before recording it, “And now we’d like to do Hark The Angels Come.” Lennon saw to it that “Maggie Mae,” a song about a Liverpool prostitute, followed it on the album.
8. You’ll hear different guitar parts on different versions on this song, as there were several overdubs of the solo. On April 30, 1969, George Harrison overdubbed a new guitar solo over the best take from the January 31, 1969 session. Harrison overdubbed another one on January 4, 1970, but there’s a possibility that it was actually McCartney on that overdub. The first overdub solo was used for the original single release, and the second overdub solo was used for the original album release. The Let It Be… Naked version is the one from the movie.
9. The Beatles weren’t the first to release this song – Aretha Franklin was. The Queen of Soul recorded it in December 1969, and it was released on her album This Girl’s In Love With You in January 1970, two months before The Beatles released their version (she also covered The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby” on that album).
10. Aretha recorded it with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who were a group of musicians that owned their own studio in Alabama, but would travel to New York to record with Aretha. David Hood, who was their bass player, told us that Paul McCartney sent demos of the song to Atlantic Records (Franklin’s label) and to the Muscle Shoals musicians. Said Hood, “I kick myself for not grabbing that demo. Because I think they probably dropped it in the garbage. Our version was different. We changed it a little bit from his demo, where their version is different from that demo and from Aretha’s version, as well. Just slightly, but little things.”
11. In April 1987, this was released as a charity single in aid of the The Sun newspaper’s Zeebrugge ferry disaster fund. Featuring Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler, Kate Bush, Boy George and many others, it was called “Ferry Aid” and spent 3 weeks at #1 in the UK.
12. Sesame Street used this with the title changed to “Letter B.” The lyrics were changed to list words that begin with B.
13. This was the first Beatles song released in The Soviet Union. The single made it there in 1972.
14. The album had the largest initial sales in US record history up to that time: 3.7 million advance orders.
15. This song was played at Linda McCartney’s funeral.
16. On July 18, 2008, Paul McCartney joined Billy Joel onstage at Shea Stadium in New York and played this as the final song of the final concert at Shea. As a member of The Beatles, McCartney played the first stadium rock concert when they performed at Shea on August 15, 1965.
17. According to Ian Macdonald’s book Revolution in the Head, McCartney wrote “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” on the same day.
18. John Legend and Alicia keys performed this song on the tribute special The Beatles: The Night That Changed America, which aired in 2014 exactly 50 years after the group made their famous appearance on Ed Sullivan Show. Legend introduced it as “a song that has comforted generations with its beauty and its message.”

For more trivia, visit:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065976/trivia