The Beatles during the filming of 'Let It Be' on the Apple rooftop, Savile Row, 30th January 1969.
Coinciding with the recent re-release of the rarely-seen 1970 documentary film Let It Be via Disney+, the Beatles unveiled a new music video for the song of the same name Friday (watch it below).
According to a press release issued Thursday, the new video for the “Let It Be” song features footage from the newly restored version of the film along with previously unseen alternate camera angles.
Written and sung by Paul McCartney, “Let It Be” was the Fab Four’s 19th and penultimate number-one hit in the U.S. in 1970, the year of their breakup; it also provided the title of the band’s swansong studio album. It has since become a staple of McCartney’s solo concerts. According to the former Beatle via WIRED last year, the song came to him in a dream:
“My mother, who died probably 10 years previously, was in the dream. She came to me in the dream. It’s a magic moment because you’re actually there with your mother. So she seemed to know that I was a bit stressed out, and she said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine. Just let it be.’ I thought, ‘Wow,’ and just felt really great that my mother had given me that advice.”
The new video comes as the Let It Be documentary, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, made its debut Wednesday on Disney+, more than 50 years after its original theatrical release. At the time, the film was viewed as a document of the band’s eventual demise. But thanks to Peter Jackson’s epic 2021 docuseries Get Back based on Lindsey-Hogg’s film, and now this re-release of the original, Let It Be has been seen in a new light with the benefits of the latest visual and sonic technologies.
In addition to offering a fly-in-the-wall look into the Beatles’ creative processes as they wrote, rehearsed and recorded material that later ended up on the Abbey Road and Let It Be albums, the original documentary showed the working chemistry and personal camaraderie among McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr that made millions of fans fall in love with them in the first place. And of course, Lindsay-Hogg’s film featured the famous Apple Records rooftop concert from January 30, 1969 that became the last time the group would perform together in public.
“People thought it was the goodbye movie,” Lindsay-Hogg said in a recent Variety interview about his film’s re-release. “And it wasn’t technically as good as we want it to be. And then it was just taken and put in a closet for 50 years…I just felt, “Oh, they just don’t get it.” And that’s why I wanted to come out again and have a new set of eyes on it. That’s what really thrills me the most, is getting another chance.”
Poster for the 2024 re-release of the Beatles' 'Let It Be' (© Apple Films).
