A new reissue of The Beatles‘ Let It Be is coming in October and features previously unreleased session recordings and a 1969 mix by producer Glyn Johns. The reissue also includes unreleased rehearsal recordings, studio jams, and new mixes by Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell. The special edition will be released in tandem with The Beatles: Get Back, the coming documentary series directed Peter Jackson, and a new hardcover book also titled The Beatles: Get Back.
“I had always thought the original film Let It Be was pretty sad as it dealt with the break-up of our band,” Paul McCartney wrote in his foreword for a special-edition Let It Be book. “But the new film shows the camaraderie and love the four of us had between us. It also shows the wonderful times we had together, and combined with the newly remastered Let It Be album, stands as a powerful reminder of this time. It’s how I want to remember The Beatles.”
“It’s an album of conflict,” producer Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin, told Rolling Stone about The Beatles’ twelfth and final LP, which came out in 1970. “Not, funnily enough, conflict within the band, despite what people think, but creative conflict. It’s the most creatively conflicted album the Beatles made, because they aren’t quite sure what they’re making.”
“I see Let It Be as a married couple whose relationship has become stale,” Martin added. “They say, what we need to do is go back to the old place and go on those dates we used to go on. But doing that, they realize that the place was just old, and they didn’t have anything to talk about anyway. ‘We need to get our sex life back, let’s go to that club again,’ but then realizing the music’s too loud. And what they need to do is move on to something like Abbey Road.”
Get the Let It Be reissue on 10/15 via Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe. Pre-order it here.
