The Beatles, Let It Be... Naked (Capitol, 2003)

It's been twenty-three years since John Lennon was shot down in the streets of New York City. George Harrison died from cancer two years ago. Phil Spector is facing life in prison in a murder trial in California. Billy Preston is making a comeback (the fourth or fifth of his long career) playing with Eric Clapton. George Martin retired from producing last year after his hearing declined so badly that he no longer had the "ears" required to shape the beautiful music he was responsible for, for so long. Ringo Starr is still the greatest rock drummer in the world, and Sir Paul McCartney continues to record and tour as the wealthiest rock musician of all time. But what does this have to do with folk music?

Well, you migh' call it @#$% music, Dave! These %$&*ers have pulled the wool over the collective consciousness of the world for almost half a @#$%in' century! What does it have to do wif ROCK music? The Beatles, an' especially Sir Paully, owe a greater debt to Cole bleedin' Porter and George Formby than to Woody Guthrie an' his boys!

Yes, Spike, you have a point, McCartney does owe a debt to those classic songsmiths of the first half of the 20th century, but as the years move on, and as generations learn songs like "Yesterday" as part of their childhood experience, then the Beatles' songs are moving into the folk tradition. They're being handed down from parent to child already.

They're a bleedin' POP group Dave! They're DINOSAURS! They're not relevant!

Relevant!?!? What does relevance have to do with it? What is relevant about...

About what? About the Pistols? About Billy Bragg? About the Jap Zeros? About the #$%^in' Clash?

I was going to say, what is relevant about music in general? We make it relevant by allowing it to enhance our life, and by bringing it into our circle.

What 'ave you been smokin'?

Well, bear with me. The original Get Back [as it was originally called] album was supposed to be a collection of songs recorded raw and live, by the Beatles, in front of film cameras. The plan was to show the four "moptops" as mature craftsmen, working at their trade. We would be able to follow the creation, shaping, recording and production of an album from start to finish. The problem was that there were other things at work. The individual members of the group were changing. They were growing apart. They had their own lives to live, and no longer had the cohesiveness brought on by being a working, touring band.

I know what that's like.

The film studio [Twickenham] was a vast cold space, fine for serving as a soundstage for movies but hardly conducive to musical interaction. And the songs each member brought in were suspect. They were all stockpiling their best stuff for solo records. The introduction of girlfriends, and drugs, and the vast number of film crew made things even harder. Internal squabbles that might have been nothing seemed that much bigger when highlighted by filmed documentation.

Do you 'ave a point 'ere? Or do you just like to 'ear y'rself talk?

They tried warming up by playing old rock songs from their days in Hamburg. But most of them, as heard on bootlegs, were poorly played, poorly recorded, loosey-goosey...not the kind of power pop the Beatles would ever have considered releasing previously. I owned a bootleg, double vinyl album that cost me quite a bit of change. I rushed home to listen... and was insulted that anyone would imagine that people should pay good money for that piffle. Fortunately I was able to unload it... I told the sucker -- I mean Beatles' aficionado -- that it was "curious, fascinating really."

'At'saway Dave, show the folks at 'ome you're yuman!

A comparison of the tracks on each of the two versions is instructive.

Let It Be... Naked: 1) "Get Back," 2) "Dig a Pony," 3) "For You Blue," 4) "The Long and Winding Road," 5) "Two of Us," 6) "I've Got a Feeling," 7) "One after 909," 8) "Don't Let Me Down," 9) "I Me Mine," 10) "Across the Universe" and 11) "Let It Be"; Disc Two: 1) "Fly on the Wall."

Let It Be (fully dressed): 1) "Two of Us," 2) "Dig a Pony," 3) "Across the Universe," 4) "I Me Mine," 5) "Dig It," 6) "Let It Be," 7) "Maggie Mae," 8) "I've Got a Feeling," 9) "One after 909," 10) "Long and Winding Road," 11) "For You Blue" and 12) "Get Back."

Let It Be... Naked is packaged with a bonus CD, which has a track list but is really only one long collage of the same kind of out-takes which spaced out the songs on the original album. Those out-takes have been stripped from the ...Naked album and dropped onto Fly on the Wall, which has a few moments of entertainment value, and then you'll never listen to it again. But the real question is... will you listen to the ... Naked disc?

Well, I, for one, won't. 'Course, I never listened much to the other one, neither. To tell you de truth, I only really noticed any orchestral additions and female voices on one song! And 'at's the schmaltzy waltzy boring Macca tune, "Long an' Windin' Road." Otherwise... I can't see that Phil Spector added that much to the tapes.

Spike, I have to agree with you. This is a cash grab, for the Christmas season; a way for Sir Paul to reclaim his two big ballads. And while it seemed like a good idea when I first heard about it... in the final assessment it adds very little if anything to the reputation of The Beatles. They've taken out the stinging guitar solos that George Harrison added to "Let It Be" and replaced them with the heavily-muffled-through-a-Leslie bits that Paul preferred. Remember the film?

Yeah! Where George says, "I'll play whatever you like...I won't play anyfin' if you don't want me to." Sir Paul got 'is wish I guess!

It seems like it, Spike. If you are a Beatles' completist, Let It Be... Naked is a must-have. But to be honest, I've already filed it on the shelf after Anthology Volume 3, and I've been playing the old album regularly.

An' I'm lookin' forward to Never Mind the Bollocks... Stark Naked! Oughta be 'ere any day now!

[David Kidney and Spike Winch]