My feeling is that later in the Beatles’ career, McCartney was trying too hard to make anthems out of material better suited to quiet, poignant little songs like Blackbird. To me, Let It Be is overblown and repetitive, much like Hey Jude.
For me, it’s the fact it’s been so overplayed over the decades. I like the song, but I couldn’t vote for it as my favorite on the album.
I can agree with that. I have a similar distaste for “Hey Jude,” but “Blackbird” is among my favorites.
“Let It Be.” The repetition of that phrase makes it a sort of mantra.
The simple elegance of Blackbird is what makes it beautiful for me. Give it the full-blown anthemic treatment of Hey Jude and Let It Be and I’d feel like I was getting hit over the head with it.
(One of the most memorable moments with my son was when he came into the room I was in and, unannounced and totally unexpectedly, played the guitar track of Blackbird perfectly like it was a recording. He had learned it the night before from a band that was travelling through town.)
This for me, too. Precisely. Followed by Across the Universe, then Let It Be.
“Let It Be”
This is the only Beatles record on which my favorite song is a McCartney tune. Probably because Lennon had lost interest in the band by this point.
I’ve Got A Feeling.
In spite of the weariness, burnout, and cabin fever The Fabs could still be a terrific band performing a terrific song.
Phil Spector soaked Across The Universe in molasses and rendered it into a wall-of-sound dirge. Had he left it as it appears on the “Anthology” disc, or even Paul’s “Let It Be Naked” album (despite the gratuitous effects at the end), I would have been stuck with a tie between the two songs.
Two of Us. The only song on the album I really like. I might have liked Let It Be before hearing it 6 quadrillion times.
Let It Be is a great song and IMHO far from being overplayed.
I’m also a big fan of The Long and Winding Road, all Spectred up and all. I guess I don’t mind being hit over the head. (I admit I’m also a big fan of Blackbird, and Here Comes The Sun especially when done simply, so I’m not addicted to the head hitting thing.)
“Get Back,” with its bouncy raunch and smooth groove, by a mile. It sounds as though it belongs on a quite different (and much better) Beatles album. It could have been a standout track on the White Album, or maybe even Abbey Road (instead of the execrable “Oh! Darling”, perhaps).
I hardly think I am sticking my neck out in saying that that this album is almost universally considered to be far from their best work. Apart from “Get Back” even the better songs on it (the title track, “Across the Universe”, maybe “The Long and Winding Road” when despectorized, maybe “For You Blue,” and, I think, “One After 909”) are not The Beatles at anything close to their best. I remember reading a review of it, just after it came out, in which the reviewer found it necessary to argue that no, this is not the worst Beatles album ever. (He was right, of course. Beatles for Sale is the worst.)
Get Back got my vote.
As for…
“When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it Be”
Wha? Dur… NO! Those aren’t words of wisdom. Those are words of accepting your fate! If times are bad and you’re troubled…work to change them! Be an active participant in your life! Stop being passive! AGH!!!
McCartney is justifiably known as a genius songwriter but my GOD can he be a wimp as a lyricist sometimes. People who take ‘Let it Be’ as some sort of wisdom are cutting themselve off from their own potential.
“If You Do Not Like Where You Are, Then Change It. You Are Not A Tree.”
One After 909, just to be iconoclastic.
I’ve Got a Feeling:
I like the harmonies and it’s just a cool groove.
My vote makes it Two After 909.
Recently listened to this album for the first time in several years, and realized I can’t warm up to much on it. “I’ve Got a Feeling”'s not bad, and “Get Back”, but that’s about it as far as I’m concerned.
I voted for Across the Universe because even with some unnecessary production trappings it is such a beautiful piece of poetry. Runners-up: Let It Be, I’ve Got a Feeling, Get Back.
Two of Us, followed by I’ve Got A Feeling.
Using the process of elimination again I come up with:
Across the Universe.
I’d go with “Yellow Submarine” as their worst album, if only because it had a mere four new Beatles songs. (And it ain’t like those four were all at the quality level of, say, “Strawberry Fields Forever.”)
PS: My vote on this album was “Two of Us”
I love Beatles for Sale. Some of John and Paul’s best harmonies are on that record.