Close

McCartney Times

McCartney Times
  • About Us
  • The Family 
    • Sir Paul McCartney 
      • Paul McCartney Music
      • Paul McCartney Artwork
    • Linda McCartney 
      • Linda McCartney’s Work
      • The Linda McCartney Centre
    • Jim McCartney
    • Mary McCartney
    • Stella McCartney, OBE
    • James McCartney
    • Heather Eastman McCartney
    • Dr. Angie McCartney 
      • Mrs. McCartney’s Wines
      • Mrs. McCartney’s Teas
      • Angie’s Book – My Long & Winding Road
    • Ruth McCartney
    • Mike McGear McCartney
    • Benna McCartney
  • Beatles Universe 
    • The Beatles 
      • John Lennon
      • Paul McCartney
      • George Harrison
      • Ringo Starr
    • Beatle People
    • The Beatles’ Albums
  • Book Store
  • McCartney Companies 
    • McCartney Multimedia, Inc
    • McCartney Studios
    • Mrs. McCartney’s Teas
    • Mrs. McCartney’s Wines
    • McCartney Group GmbH 
      • McCartney Sports
  • Contributors
  • Join

“Let It Be” shows the dark side of the Beatles. It doesn’t need an upbeat revision | Salon.com

Back To Homepage Subscribe To RSS Feed

“Let It Be” shows the dark side of the Beatles. It doesn’t need an upbeat revision | Salon.com

“Let It Be” shows the dark side of the Beatles. It doesn’t need an upbeat revision | Salon.com
March 02
10:31 2019
Print This Article
by Martin Nethercutt 0 Comments
We live in a cultural moment in which a large swathe of mass-market consumers, largely comprised of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, regularly flock to purchase new releases of reconfigured, remixed music from days gone by. I should know: I’m one of them.

When it comes to the 21st century, the Beatles are leading the way. The twentieth century’s most lucrative act has never really ebbed — which is saying something, given that two of the bandmates are deceased. From Ron Howard’s recent touring documentary through remixes of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967) and “The Beatles” (The White Album, 1968) the Fab Four have successfully repackaged yesteryear’s gems to net fresh sales and satisfy what seems to be a nearly unquenchable appetite for “new” content

While the Beatles once carried the banner for 1960s-era counterculture, they have emerged in our new and very different century as the commercial embodiment of remix culture. The express result of rampant and converging digital technologies, remix culture approaches its full potency when what’s old is made new again. And again. And again. And again.

In “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy” (2008), Lawrence Lessig observes that remix culture’s power reaches its zenith when new artists function in collaboration with their precursors. As for the resulting hybrid artworks, the artifacts’ vitality exists in direct proportion to the quality of the original texts. As Lessig writes, “Their meaning comes not from the content of what they say; it comes from the reference, which is expressible only if it is the original that gets used.”

When it comes to referencing originals, the Beatles simply can’t go wrong. Their pioneering music continues to resonate, unimpeded, into the present day. And when it comes to sales, they’re the toppermost of the poppermost — then and now. The band has proven themselves to be masters of both the physical and digital domains. According to data provided by ChartMasters, the Beatles have sold more than one billion discs worldwide, while easily notching more than one billion plays among the world’s streaming music services.

It could be argued that the Beatles had been remixing themselves even prior to their disbandment. Thanks to Capitol Records’ Dave E. Dexter, Jr., their pre-“Sgt. Pepper” album releases were repackaged and, in many cases, heavily treated with reverb in order to afford them with a more “American” sound. And then there were pre-breakup compilations such as the UK’s “A Collection of Beatles Oldies (But Goldies!)” (1966) and the Stateside release of “Hey Jude” (1970). Since the early 1970s, the Beatles have enjoyed regular incursions into the music marketplace with one compilation after another, climaxing with the bravura release of the Beatles on compact disc in 1987 and the Anthology project in the mid-1990s.

When it comes to remixing practices, the Beatles’ 21st century releases mark a very different chapter in their vaunted history. Early highlights include the mega-bestselling compilation “1” (2000) and “Let It Be . . . Naked” (2003). With Giles Martin’s deft mashups for “Love” (2006), the band achieved new sonic heights and textures — transforming their original sounds with glorious and innovative feats of the musical imagination.

But in recent years, the group’s releases have been accompanied by a troublesome and recurring element, a growing effort to engage in historical reconstruction of sorts. Take Howards’ “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” documentary (2016), for example. Seeing the Beatles performing live during their heyday was a joyful experience. Things began to run afoul when Paul McCartney errantly recalled the band deciding to quit touring, right then and there, during their clamorous armored-car ride into Candlestick Park. Not surprisingly, the bandmates remembered things very differently back in the day — more than five decades earlier, when their memories were still fresh.

With the release of last year’s expansive remixes for The White Album, the Beatles’ camp seemed to suggest, at times, that things weren’t all bad during what Harrison once described as the Beatles’ “winter of discontent” — a period in which drummer Ringo Starr briefly quit the band, producer George Martin went on a lengthy hiatus of his own, and engineer Geoff Emerick threw up his hands and walked away from working the band’s sessions.

In January of this year, we learned that famed director Peter Jackson will be at the helm for a thoroughgoing remix and rerelease of the “Let It Be” documentary (1970). Easily the most contested text among the Beatles’ canon, “Let It Be” emerged from the ashes of the January 1969 “Get Back” project. By nearly every eyewitness account — including the band members’ memories — the group was on the verge of breaking up. And the facts bear this out: John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono were struggling with a raging heroin addiction, producer George Martin was working largely from the sidelines, and, to make matters even worse, George Harrison quit the band, only to be coaxed back into the fold to bring the project to completion in the nick of time.

It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate documentarian for revisiting “Let It Be” than Jackson. His recent World War I documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old” (2018) is a masterpiece of restoration and reconstruction. In the Beatles’ case, similar attention to the mass of existing film footage (some 55 hours) and audio (a whopping 140 hours) offers the opportunity for a variety of new revelations, indeed.

But in spite of everything, a Pollyannaish remix of “Let It Be” already seems to be in the offing. As Jackson recently remarked, “I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth. After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it’s simply an amazing historical treasure-trove. Sure, there’s moments of drama — but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating — it’s funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate. I’m thrilled and honored to have been entrusted with this remarkable footage — making the movie will be a sheer joy.”

There’s an uplifting story to be told about the Beatles’ “Get Back”/”Let It Be” period all right, but it has nothing to do with whitewashing the dark days of January 1969. No, the amazing aspect of that story is the Beatles’ Herculean capacity for rising to the occasion — no matter how fearsome the odds. In the handful of days after Harrison’s return to the ranks, the band recorded three future number-one singles in “Get Back,” “Let It Be,” and “The Long and Winding Road,” and performed the legendary Rooftop Concert to cap off Lindsay-Hogg’s documentary. Talk about snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat.

If the Beatles had a superpower, being able to strike gold amidst their own interpersonal chaos was surely it. They would surpass “Let It Be” only a few months later, when they reassembled one last time to will Abbey Road (1969) into existence. And as history shows, even that project was fraught with derision. The surviving evidence demonstrates that the bandmates were simply more polite with each other as they recorded their swan song and took their bows.

Beatles insider Neil Aspinall once observed that, in spite of everything, “the Beatles never debauched their art in the studio.” Jackson and the band’s management would be wise to remember Aspinall’s words as they contemplate a new “Let It Be” for the ages. After all, the Beatles’ story, warts and all, is far more powerful and interesting in its own right. Whether it was borne out of their moments of sheer joy or their darkest days of interpersonal conflict, their music is, for good reason, still popular music’s most valuable corpus.

Unchecked revisionism has no place in the Beatles’ story. When it comes to upending historical truth as established by eyewitness testimony during the moment of creation, I’m simply not buying it. But as for the music itself and whatever new remixes come my way, I’ll be buying every last one of them. You can take that to the bank.

Kenneth Womack

Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography of the life and work of Beatles producer George Martin. He is Dean of the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monmouth University.

MORE FROM Kenneth Womack

All Salon Culture Documentary Editor’s Picks Film Let It Be Music Peter Jackson Remix Culture Rock The Beatles
Copyright © 2018 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. SALON ® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc. Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: “Let It Be” shows the dark side of the Beatles. It doesn’t need an upbeat revision | Salon.com

Tags
Dark side of the BeatlesLet It BeThe Beatles

About Author

Scroll Back To Top More Articles From Author
Martin Nethercutt

Martin Nethercutt

Martin A Nethercutt is a writer, singer, producer and loves music. Creative Director at McCartney Studios Editor-in-Chief at McCartney Times Creator-in-Chief at Geist Musik President (title) at McCartney Multimedia, Inc. Went to Albert-Schweitzer-Schule Kassel Lives in Playa del Rey From Kassel, Germany Married to Ruth McCartney

Related Articles

Scroll Back To Top
  • Paul McCartney’s Vegas weekend: ‘Love’ and a hug from Adele | Kats | Entertainment | Entertainment Columns 0
  • He was always known as the shy one. But as this landmark biography reveals, George Harrison lost his virginity in a room at the back of a blue movie cinema… as the other Beatles cheered him on | Daily Mail Online 0
  • George Martin: 5 Non-Beatles Songs He Produced 0

0 Comments

Scroll Back To Top Write Comment
No Comments Yet!

There are no comments at the moment, do you want to add one?

Write a comment

Only registered users can comment.

Recent Posts

  • The Beatle Who Vanished: 60th Beatles Anniversary Tour Version
  • Happy Birthday, Sir Paul McCartney!
  • TeaFlix Tuesday with David Bedford
  • The most neglected George Harrison song
  • The bizarre time Bob Dylan played tennis with The Beatles

Archives

  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015

Categories

  • Beatle People
  • Beatles Books
  • Beatles Fans
  • Beatles Locations
  • Beatles Tribute Bands
  • Brian Epstein
  • Contributors
  • Dr. Angie McCartney
  • GEIST Book of Shadows
  • George Harrison
  • GourmetNFT
  • James McCartney
  • John Lennon
  • Julian Lennon
  • Linda McCartney
  • Martin Nethercutt
  • Mary McCartney
  • McCartney Family News
  • McCartney Multimedia
  • McCartney Sports
  • Mrs. McCartney's Teas
  • Mrs. McCartney's Wines
  • Other Related Articles
  • Paul McCartney
  • Ringo Starr
  • Ruth McCartney
  • Stella McCartney
  • TeaFlix
  • The Beatles
  • The Beatles Artifacts
  • Wings
  • Yoko Ono
  • About Us
  • The Family
  • Beatle People
  • McCartney Companies
  • Join
© 2015-2025 Copyright McCartney Times. All Rights reserved.
Designed by Orange Themes

Loading..

Close Window

Loading, Please Wait!

This may take a second or two.