Today, I’d like to talk about the song by the Beatles, Let It Be, and a few things going on with it and in the lives of the Beatles at the time it was written. This is just part of what will be looked at in this article. I’m also going to talk about the Let It Be Guitar Lesson. The let it be beginner acoustic guitar lesson has a great deal to offer.
The majority of the Let It Be album was recorded in January, 1969. Leading up to making this album, there was a lot going on in the lives of the Beatles. First, the band spent the spring and summer of 1968 in India, sort of following the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and writing some songs. They spent a lot of time following, hanging out with, and thinking the Yogi had enlightenment that they were lacking.
While they were there though, they met some great other English musicians in particular Donovan Leech. We’ll talk more about Donovan and some of his songs-Sunshine, Superman, Herdy Gerty Man, Mellow Yellow, Lalania-some of those, we’ll get into that later, but Donovan introduced them to some finger picking stuff that later showed up on their album that got released with a lot of songs being written in India, in November of 1968, they released what’s commonly known as the white album, but it’s really called The Beatles.
Now, when this album came out, The Beatles, it came out with-the name just embossed right on there and if I held that copy up right now, it just looks like I was holding a white sheet of paper.
I’m talking about the one that came out in a later reissued album. It has some great tunes on it, opened with that rockin’ tune, Back in the USSR, and went right into some awesome finger picking songs. Some of these songs seem to blend right into one another. Dear Prudence, a song written by John, is a neat finger picking tune about Mia Farrow. It seems that Prudence, Mia Farrow’s sister, was a rather shy member of the group of people that were hanging out in India while the Beatles were hanging out too.
Another of John’s songs, the Glass Onion, uses references to some of the other Beatle’s songs. It talks about Strawberry Fields, the Walrus, as well as a few others. Next it goes into that goofy song of Paul’s, Obladi-Oblada. Next, we have one of George Harrison’s greatest songs. This is the song that put George on the map as a songwriter. The song, While my Guitar Gently Weeps as well as the incredible guitar solo by Eric Clapton, George’s friend, helped make the album what it is.
The Let it Be Guitar Lesson will help you learn to play a few of Paul’s finger picking tunes like Blackbird, a truly beautiful song. While that fun song, Rocky Raccoon, can’t be put in the beautiful category, it’s one of those off the cuff songs, done on a whim. You may have already figured out where I’m going with this. All of the songs that were on The Beatles, or white album, were a collection of individual songs rather than band songs that the other band members played along with. There wasn’t nearly the amount of collaboration on this album as there was for albums in the past. This collaboration had been waning for several years by now, Paul and John were working together, but some of the material that showed up on the last couple of albums like the Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles, and Sergeant Pepper were basically high production albums. It was becoming apparent that the band wasn’t getting along well at all. Even though they weren’t collaborating very well, the material was still great, and much of its included in the let it be beginner acoustic guitar lesson.
Ringo Starr has talked about how he had the time to learn to play chess while the white album was being made because they didn’t seem to need him. On a few of the songs on the album, Paul played the drums. While they were working on the music, tempers as well as tensions were rising. It seems that Paul was the glue that was holding the band together. Finally, by the end of 1968, the band realized it was time to put the studio trickery behind them and get back to their roots. They decided it was time to get back to being a real rock and roll band, return to the studio, write songs and record them. The band started writing some of those rocking tunes and recording them live in the studio. There were no dub overs, or at least very few dub overs, much the way they did their first album Please Please Me in 1963. It had been awhile, six years to be exact, since dong anything similar. Their first couple of albums were recorded in much the same way, more like a live show, before they discovered more capabilities and started recording multi-tracks and adding orchestras and such.
So, the plan was born, but with many incarnations. Paul really wanted to do a film of the entire process. The Beatles had made other movies, and Paul wanted them to make a film about them getting back to their roots and playing real rock and roll. They decided a live concert was in order. This concert was held on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean. Paul had one grandiose plan after another, let’s have a big show, make a movie, and get back to writing and recording great songs. Many of these songs are part of the Let It Be Guitar Lesson.
It really seemed like a pretty good plan at the time and even now, it seems like a good plan. What actually happened was far different than what Paul dreamed of, but that’s all history now. The main thing they were worried about though was finding a location for a show, making some time to get into the studio, an find the people to film their story.
The band didn’t get the this project as quickly as they intended to, but at least they had a plan in place to start on January 2, 19696. This was the day that Get Back, later known as Let It Be began. They hired the filmmaker Michael Lindsay Hogg. He had done some other film work with them and shot the movie The Magic Christian with Ringo and Peter Sellers in February of 1969.
So, they really only had the month of January to get this done because again, everybody else had commitments in February and they came together. The idea with making a movie now was that they were going to come together in a movie studio, Twickenham Film Studios in London where they had shot A Hard Days’ Night-a lot of A Hard Days’ Night and a lot of Help, although a lot of Help was out on location too. So they were familiar with the studio, but Twickenham was going to be the spot where they would shoot all of this.
I am a huge Beatles fan and love writing about them. For a guitar lesson or to learn Beatles Let It Be guitar lesson. Visit TotallyGuitars.com