I’ve always known that there are two versions of “Let It Be”, differing in the guitar solo. But they sound otherwise the same. I never thought about it much until I saw the “Let It Be” documentary. The album was recorded as single-take live cuts, all in the same room with no sound isolation for the different instruments. The only way I can imagine they could have done this was to do the recording with no guitar solo at all, then dub over two different solos later. I don’t recall seeing this in the documentary.
Is that in fact what they did? If not, how did they do it?
Harrison recorded two guitar solo overdubs for the song, one in April of '69 (three months after the original recording session), and the other in January of '70. George Martin used the first of those overdubs for the single version; Phil Spector used the second one for the album version.
Neither overdub was featured in the documentary film, as Harrison recorded them much later.
To expand on this, both takes used the same backing track which was recorded during the sessions on Jan 30, 1969, the day after the rooftop concert.
As Kenobi mentions, the lead on the single version was overdubbed on 4/30 with George playing through a Leslie speaker. Nearly a year later, at the last Beatles recording session until 1994 on January 4, George played the ripping lead that Spector used on the LP version.
Correct. This is well into their studio only days, where they’d record a backing track, work on something else for a while, then return to the track weeks or months later.
In fact, the other song they worked on during that April 30, 1969 session where George recorded the solo overdub that ended up on the single version of Let it Be was You Know My Name, Look Up The Number, which they had originally recorded in between the release of the Sgt. Pepper LP and the All You Need Is Love single in June 1967. They had spent a number of sessions over the next two years tinkering with the track and would continue to tinker with it further before it was eventually released as the B side to the Let it Be single in March 1970.
Every time that song comes on the radio, I sit there, tense with anticipation, waiting to hear which version it is. If it’s the good version - the album version, of course - I feel a wonderful sense of cathartic release; it’s such a great sensation that it’s almost worth occasionally sitting through the disappointment of having to listen to the other version.
I feel the same way! As a guitar player, I’ll let you guess which version I learned first.
One way to tell which version you’re listening to before you get to the solo: the Spector version (or the good one, according to you and I), has immense echo on Ringo’s high hats during the second verse.
So in the single version with the Leslie solo, you hear “And in my hour of darkness (tick) she is standing right in front of me (tick)”, not much reverb.
The album version got Spectorized, and sounds like “And in my hour of darkness (tick tick tick tick) she is standing right in front of me (tick tick tick tick)” after the echo, like Ringo is playing inside an empty cathedral.
If all I heard were the solos for an A/B comparison I would agree but that Spector solo is just at odds with everything else about the feel of that song. The whole thing is almost hymn-like, then all of a sudden comes this jarring solo. Great solo. But jarring in context.
I was listening to the track just now, and of course while talking about the second verse and Ringo’s hi hats, I accidentally quoted the first verse. Some ‘expert’ I am haha.
It should have said “And when the broken hearted people (tick) living in the world agree (tick)”.
Otherwise, even in the remastered version, it’s right there clear as day still. If you have a streaming service that the Beatles are friendly to, you can find the single version sans reverb on the Past Masters vol 2 collection if you want to A/B the two.
