Like most ardent Beatles fans I was chomping at the bit to watch the Get Back documentary on Disney+. Having watched the original film documentary of Let It Be I can understand the desire to revisit the material and attempt to tell a more complete overview of the events of January 1969.
I don’t want to go into all of the revelations (such as how many family members kept showing up and hanging about, or how their roadie made suggestions on lyrics) there were in the newer version documentary. Nor do I want to go into just how phenomenal it was to watch the songs take shape from concept to final form.
The point of this post is much more personal.
My music collection is rather large, and organizing it is a bit of a task. I have chosen to first have it sorted alphabetically by artist. I’ve broken the collection into three categories, classical, compilations/soundtracks, and everything else. This means the genres are mixed together. My rap and jazz are mixed in among rock and country albums. Solo artists and bands are all sorted alphabetically, so you’ll find Fishbone on the shelf ahead of Foo Fighters.
Then, within each artists, I have the releases sorted chronologically. For some, this isn’t a big deal, as Spinal Tap has but a couple of releases. David Bowie, on the other hand, has a very extensive catalog. Sure, this may require some pre-knowledge about the artist if looking for a specific album, but this rarely ever causes any sort of problem.
What does this have to do with Let It Be?
Released in May of 1970, it was the soundtrack to the documentary film of the same name, and counts as the final album by The Beatles. Abbey Road was released September of 1969, a few months after the soundtrack/album Yellow Submarine, which in turn came out a bit after the self-titled “white” album. Let’s not get into the validity of Yellow Submarine as an album at this point.) This puts the major recording sessions of mid-1968, January of 1969, then spring and summer of 1969. That would put, as recorded, Let it Be before Abbey Road.
The Beatles weren’t in control of when Let It Be would be released, but watching Get Back it is clear they recorded an album, it wasn’t a random collection of songs. The original 1970 Let It Be documentary makes it seem that these were jams and outtakes from sessions that were part of or leading directly up to the Abbey Road sessions, but this was very much not the case. Now, I may be a little off the mark here as I have only watched Let It Be twice, and the last time was in 1986, so I could be misremembering the presentation of the material, but that’s my recollection.
Anyway, the way The Beatles recorded their albums for intended release as evidenced by this new documentary has me shifting how I will sort my albums. Now I will place Let It Be… Naked after The Yellow Submarine Songbook and before Abbey Road. This will leave the original soundtrack version of Let It Be after Abbey Road or possibly placed with my soundtracks. I have not yet decided on that. I have Hard Day’s Night and Help! in among the regular albums but that is probably going to be another blog post.