Let It Be...Naked...On iTunes

The mono set isn't on iTunes. Would Apple (Beatles) consider revisiting the Singles and EP boxsets or maybe the Capitol albums for iTunes? And count me in for a scrub up of the BBC stuff.

 

If anyone's got the album from iTunes, does it come with liner notes? And if yes, do the notes list credits for the 2013 digital remastering?

 

"A Collection..." and Hey Jude will NEVER be released on CD or as digital downloads. Past Masters have made them unnecessary and redundant. One would hope/think that some or all of Hollywood Bowl will be released as part of that Live Collection or whatever it will be called. Though we still don't know if that will have a tie-in CD release or not. Ron​

 

They'd only been patching different takes together since when.....She Loves You? I don't consider that a deal breaker. I don't really want to listen to gleeby gloopy dopply doony in Don't Let Me Down. Where's all the guys now who were putting down "musical purists" in that thread?

 

Even earlier, Please please Me. It's a Beatles tradition. Help!, Strawberry fields, Yer Blues, Get Back...

 

The difference in the case of the Let It Be album was that it was marketed as an album free from the artifice of studio tinkering; it was the Beatles, live "as nature intended". Clearly, the original album strayed from this premise and the hype behind ...Naked was that it was how that album should have been in the first place: that is, free from studio tinkering.

 

Exactly, but where does one draw the line?
In the case of dodgy guitar solos etc, I think the rules could be bent to fix things like this and still stay within the confines of the original plan. It's when the orchestras start getting added etc that the plan gets severely stamped on.
Naked is a mixed bag for me. For all the bother they went into doing it, most tracks are so similar to the originals that it's hardly worth the effort. I remember listening to the Naked version of Let It Be premiering on BBC Radio 2's Terry Wogan show and even he commented on how it was being pushed as a new version but to him it sounded much the same as the old version.
On getting the album what annoyed me most was not just the removal of the chatter, which was ingrained into listening to the old Let It Be album, but the way the songs had to be brutally faded out in order to achieve this.
Basically the only essentials on Naked are the alternate takes of Long and Winding Road and Don't Let Me Down. As Naked was never going to be a replacement for the original Let It Be album, the differences should have been a bit more radical than just these two tracks. What Apple/EMI should've done was given us more alternate takes of the other songs, or given us the Glyn John mix of the album.

Chris

 

I see your point, but the editing on Let It Be (the song) on Naked would have been impossible in 1969. Block editing between takes is one thing, but here some of the elements switch to a different take while others don't. It's VERY complicated, and really only possible with Pro Tools.

As I say, some of the tinkering there is on Naked is more complicated than anything Spector did, even though it may not sound like it.

 

I think so. That makes me wonder what the LP used, since it's apparently free from all these things. There's no way it was pressed from analog tape, was it? I wouldn't be surprised if it was pressed from the CD.

 

Let it be is great. Both versions. Look, it almost never came out as it was shelved. It's is now raw way more than the original was even though it said a new phase at the time. it was not really as recorded, otherwise it would be more like an Unplugged record, which it isn't

 

Here's how Let It Be on LIBN was edited, for anyone who's interested. Even Phil spector couldn't do this!!!

*27A = Take 27A with the overdub added on January 1970. Released
version.
*27B = Take 27B. Film version

<intro>
27B

<1st verse>
When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be/ 27B
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be/ 27A

<chorus>
27A

<2nd verse>
27A

<chorus>
27A

<chorus: repeat>
Oh, let it b(e)/ 27B
(b)e, let it be, let it be, let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let
it be/ 27A

<instrumental break / riff>
27A (note: only George's guitar is switched to 27B at the last beat
where the solo starts)

<guitar solo>
27B

<chorus>
Let it be/ 27B
let it be, let it be, yeah let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it
be/ 27A

<3rd verse>
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines
on me. Shine on until tomorrow, let it be/ 27B
I wake up to the sound of music Mother Mary comes to me/ 27B
Speaking words of wisdom/ 27A with the bass of 27B staying
let it be/ 27B with the bass switching to 27A (overdubbed bass)

<chorus>
Let it b(e)/ 27B with the bass (overdub) from 27A
(b)e, let it be, let it be, yeah let it be. Oh, there will be an
answer, let it be/ 27A

<chorus: repeat>
Let it b(e)/ 27A
(b)e, let it be, yeah let it be, yeah let it be/ 27B with the backing
vocals and bass (both overdub) from 27A
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be/ 27A (vocals and bass) and 27B
(other instruments) (note: the last piano fill is from 27A)

<coda>
27A, except the guitar and organ on the 1st half of the 1st bar

 

....but does any of this tinkering actually make the Naked version of Let It Be noticeably better than the standard single or original album version?

Chris

 

Not really. They could have just used Take 27B (the film version) if they wanted a 'live' version. Take 27A doesn't exist with the original Lennon bass part (overdubbed by Paul in 1970), and probably the original backing vocals were wiped too. The Naked edit is stupid because the bass part keeps switching between Paul and John, to no great advantage.

 

I have no idea WHY they did the editing on Let It Be like they did...other than they were able to using Pro Tools. Here's a song-by-song synopsis by EMI personnel from 2003/4. They make no mention of switching back and forth between takes on let It be... just floating in George's solo from the film take.

Paul McCartney: "Whereas Winston Churchill's papers get older and browner and crinklier, with modern technology the Beatles' music gets less hissier, gets shinier, gets more audible. And you've got these four guys - five with Billy Preston, at times - in this room with you know, sort of 5.1 [Dolby Surround Sound] and it's quite uncanny, quite the opposite of how history normally goes. It's getting better all the time. I Love it, because it shows you what The Beatles were like underneath it all. We were a great little band. I remember sitting in a rather bare white room in the Sixties listening to [the original master] and being almost scared by it because it was so naked and thinking, this is certainly unadorned and to put this out would be quite a break."​

Paul Hicks: "When we sifted through the tracks we basically took anything that was an overdub. It's what they were playing. I Me Mine is an exception."​

Allan Rouse: "I think it's important to recognize that it is the take with overdubs because some people might start saying `I thought this was meant to be without overdubs, but it's got loads of overdubs on it'. But you have to understand that we couldn't pare down what was there; it didn't have a vocal anyway, the backing track if you like. Because even the vocal was really a guide vocal and he overdubbed that on I Me Mine.​

Guy Massey: "I think there was only two of them playing on the original take, I think it was just drums and guitar."​

Paul Hicks: "Let It Be; we used the original guitar solo that George did because he overdubbed the solo.It's the same one that's in the film and he just looks like he's enjoying it."​

Paul Hicks: "Get Back, that's basically as it's been heard before. But it's a studio take and what they did on the original album was they added the audience and an ending to make it sound live. But Get Back's essentially always been a studio performance. And, again to just keep the album feel of it and because it is what was on the original, we haven't got the ending, the reprise, that you'd heard before. It turns out that the coda had been recorded as an edit piece four or five reels later. Since it wasn't on the original session recording for the song, it wouldn't have represented what actually took place in the studio during that take, so it was decided to leave it off. Now it's compact. It's two and a half minutes and just punchy and sounding exciting. And that was done by remixing and just cleaning it up, removing noise and hiss and the limitations of the speakers in those days. In cleaning up the tracks it meant cleaning up wind noise and some hum and also you have to remember that there were film crews around, they didn't know if that would be the take so there were people making noises. In stripping it back we have had to do a few little edits, to avoid actually changing things. Dig A Pony; that's from the rooftop, as was the original."​

Guy Massey: "Basically we just cleaned it up; there was lots of popping on the vocals. Phil Spector did some edits that we re-did, they made sense."​

Paul Hicks: "Two Of Us, we've used the same take and not a lot of editing done on that, just a straightforward remix.​

Starr's drums were typically recorded onto a single track, precluding mixing them into stereo. Small amounts of de-essing and rumble filtering were also performed on Two Of Us.

Paul Hicks: I've Got A Feeling is an interesting track; I've Got A Feeling is the rooftop performance - the rooftop tracks, by the way, are I've Got A Feeling, Dig A Pony, The One After 909 and Don't Let Me Down. I've Got A Feeling is actually quite different than has been heard before; that's the one on which we did a lot of work to get the most exciting bits out of the two takes that were on the rooftop. I've Got A Feeling is a mixture of the two rooftop performances; it's a completely new edit. We basically got the best out of both of the two takes that they did. That'll be a field day for people to try and work out what it is. It is embracing today's technology. It was just block multi-track edits, just `that verse is better than that one'. On one of the takes the guitar was really distorted and very exciting, I love the excitement of I've Got A Feeling; with Paul just screaming away on it it's a really good moment on the album."​

Paul Hicks: "Next, One After 909 - again, taken from the rooftop which was also used on the original album but now one of the main improvements is the drum clarity. No edits there, it's pretty naked. We did research to see if there was another version, but it was just much slower, and it had a completely different feel. There was no contest, really. It's one of the more up-tempo numbers, so we went with the live one. We found so many details we wanted to bring out, which we tried our best to do. Everything is a lot more focused.”​

Paul Hicks: "For Your Blue; that's just a matter of getting more clarity, really. It was a really good recording on that one, actually; really clear and crisp and we took advantage of that and, like Get Back, just tried to make it as punchy as possible. PH: There's really not much that can be said about that track; it's hopefully a bit clearer. We noticed that Paul's doing like a weird piano sound that he got by putting paper in it. You know that weird little percussive sound in it, that's basically Paul playing the piano that's been muted, so it's got that percussive sound. Again, all we've tried to do is to get it so that you can hear all those elements You can hear on the session tape Paul's fiddling around, trying to get the right sound. We took out his (George's) live vocal, which was basically a guide vocal. It wasn't a complete take, really, and I don't think it was ever intended to be used.”​

 

...and a bit more.

Paul Hicks: "Really the thing is that most of the tracks are the same takes as what people have known before; the absolute obvious change is The Long And Winding Road - it was a very different version that Phil Spector over-dubbed on and when going through it all we discovered that the version that's on the film, the one that they did on the last day, that we felt had a really good sort of sentiment and the emotion was just fantastic. Just the playing of the drums and Paul's vocal on that are great and it really suits it. That's the stand-out different one."​

Allan Rouse: "One of the biggest problems we had was that the lyrics changed. It was only a small, subtle change. Once we realized that the lyric had changed we then had this quandary as to whether or not this was acceptable now, because this was something really, really obvious. It's one thing having a different take, but you expect the lyrics to be the same because otherwise God knows what people might assume. The conclusion we came to in this instance was that, because it was the very last take that he probably ever did, therefore it was probably more correct. So that's how we resolved our problem, we figured that Paul had tuned his lyrics and that was probably what he really wanted. But then Phil or Glyn use the take that was done beforehand and, of course, that's how those lyrics became set.
The instrumentation which starts all at the beginning doesn't necessarily start at the beginning in our version. In other words we've done little subtle things to build a song. Guy did the same thing in Across The Universe. If we felt it needed a build we wouldn't necessarily have everything in from the beginning. Across The Universe is probably the best example. Guy did Across The Universe and he had a bit of a problem there, because he had two tracks. And that was all. On track one was guitar and vocal, John singing, and the only other thing that was played live was tambora. And that was it. Yoko's heard it and thinks it's beautiful, so that's fine, but the point was that all that was running from beginning to end was John playing guitar, singing, and tambora. Guy has done various things to the tambora and changed the overall sound of the tambora throughout the structure of the song, to build it, to change the concept of it - because otherwise you're missing so much from that song with just those two things going on. There were loads of overdubs on top of that. And that was it, all the way through. I was just thinking about the irony of that, we spend a year and a half getting rid of the sound of Phil Spector and then we go and put a tape delay and then a reverb right on the end of it. It's just a little present to Phil Spector, so he doesn't feel completely left out."​

 

I bet that Paul and Ringo didn't know or care what edits were done, or how they were done. 'I've Got A Feeling' is another unnecessary Pro Tools effort, complicated but at least there they were block edits, AFAIK.

 

It's the inconsistency of approach that irritates me. Unnecessarily so, I might add, but even so... why ignore the code "because it was an edit piece recorded several reels later" but edit different takes of I've Got A Feeling, Don't Let Me Down and Let It be to create new masters?? Aarrghhh!!!

 

I agree, but in their defence of this one, it can be argued that since the coda to Get Back was recorded the day after the main take, it didn't belong. All the other edited takes of songs were at least done within minutes of each other (apart from the 1970 overdubs on Take 27A of Let It Be, of course). If you saw that Get Back was listed as having been recorded on 27th & 28th January, it doesn't really go with the 'Naked' concept. I just wish they had stuck to a 'no edits' rule throughout.

 

Let It Be is the Beatles SMiLE, except it got released.

Like SMiLE, the project fell apart, nobody really knew how to finish it, and it was unpresentable as originally intended. They made a Johns' version, released a Spector version, and then a Naked version, and bits even came out on other projects, just like SMiLE.

I loved what they did on the SMiLE sessions, and I loved what they did on Naked (mastering aside).

In other words, there is no "correct" version to mess with. I have my own 12 track SMiLE from everything they released, and I have my own Let It Be. I just wish they would remaster Naked, but I liked a LOT of what they did with edits and presentation.

 

Now this post I totally agree with. I put on the record and enjoy it and I don't ever think where parts and pieces came from. It's a good listen for me.

 

In the Don't Let Me Down clip, who is the guy who walks IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA at :31? In fact, he looks right into the lens as he passes, and Lennon is singing.
And it could be the same guy crossing back at :58.
I know space was cramped up there, but really.
What could be so important to walk in front of the cameras, while the Beatles are performing?
Only guess would be that he's telling someone the cops are on the way, but isn't that what Mal and Derek are for?
Fun clip, nonetheless.

 

I thought the hype was that it would be De-Spectorised, without overdubs. I don't remember anybody promising that only complete, unedited takes would comprise it. Even choosing between complete, multiple takes of the same song is a form of studio tinkering.

 

I have a feeling they will eventually reissue Live at the BBC on iTunes, simply because it's now the only title listed in the official discography that still isn't available as a download.

I also have a feeling that an iTunes edition of BBC won't be significantly different from the CD, if the previous iTunes releases of Beatles albums are anything to judge by. I hope I'm wrong about this.

 

But it does have overdubs on 3 songs. One of the blurbs was 'the way it was meant to be heard' or something similar. When in fact it was just another way it wasn't meant to be heard. Like I say, the song LIB would have been impossible to have been heard this way before Pro Tools. I have no problem with edited takes, as long as the edits would have at least been possible back in the day, especially for a project that began life as a live-in-the-studio affair.