The Let It Be album from 1970 was the final studio release by The Beatles, but the Let It Be Naked album offers a very different listening experience. This version aims to restore the rawer, more authentic sound of the original Get Back project.
In early 1969, before they worked on the Abbey Road album, The Beatles began revisiting their musical roots for a back-to-basics project designed to reunite the increasingly strained group. This became known as the Get Back project.
By this time, The Beatles were predominantly a studio band. The idea behind Get Back was to perform live in the studio with minimal overdubs, capturing the band as they really sounded. Sessions produced enough material for an album, initially also called Get Back, but the project was shelved while the group focused on Abbey Road.
From Phil Spector’s Let It Be To Let It Be… Naked
When the Beatles’ January 1969 recordings remained unresolved, the project was set aside while the band completed Abbey Road. In 1970, Phil Spector reshaped the tapes into the released Let It Be album, adding orchestration and other production touches that Paul McCartney later objected to strongly.
More than three decades later, Apple revisited the same material for Let It Be… Naked, a stripped-back reconstruction intended to move closer to the original “Get Back” idea of a live-sounding Beatles album with minimal studio decoration.
There was also a documentary film released alongside the original Let It Be album, showing the band shortly before their split.
Key Facts
- Release Date: 17 November 2003
- Recorded: 4 February 1968; 2–31 January 1969; 3 January 1970
- Studio: Apple Studios, EMI Studios and Twickenham Film Studios, London
- Album Duration: 35:04
- Genre: Rock, hard rock, R&B
- 2003 Producers And Mixers: Paul Hicks, Guy Massey and Allan Rouse
- Original Get Back sessions: supervised by George Martin (1969)
- Engineers: Paul Hicks, Guy Massey, Glyn Johns, Peter Bown, Ken Scott, Allan Rouse, Martin Benge, and Phil McDonald
Performers And Personnel
The core performers are John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Because Let It Be… Naked revisits material from several sessions, the exact instrumentation varies from track to track.
Additional musicians heard on the album include Billy Preston, while the original sessions were supervised by George Martin before Phil Spector’s 1970 reworking and the later 2003 reconstruction by Paul Hicks, Guy Massey and Allan Rouse.
Let It Be… Naked Tracks and Vocals
- Get Back (McCartney)
- Dig A Pony (Lennon)
- For You Blue (Harrison)
- The Long And Winding Road (McCartney)
- Two Of Us (McCartney and Lennon)
- I’ve Got A Feeling (McCartney with Lennon)
- One After 909 (Lennon with McCartney)
- Don’t Let Me Down (Lennon)
- I Me Mine (Harrison)
- Across The Universe (Lennon)
- Let It Be (McCartney)
Fly On The Wall Bonus Disc (With Timing)
This bonus disc gives an informal look at The Beatles in rehearsal, featuring musical fragments, conversations and spontaneous performances. Its total length is 21:55.
Let It Be… Naked Album Cover
The album sleeve uses the original Let It Be portraits but presents them as monochrome negatives for Lennon, McCartney and Starr.
George Harrison’s image differs from the original sleeve; his original smiling portrait did not translate well into negative form, so a performance shot was chosen instead.
The result is a cleaner, more unified design, supporting the album’s theme of stripping things back to essentials, and visually reinforcing the idea of returning to the raw Get Back concept.
Design credited to Wherefore Art?
The Differences
Let It Be Naked differs from the 1970 album in several important ways. The running order is changed, beginning with Get Back rather than Two Of Us. The drums and lead vocals are centred for a more modern, direct feel. The engineers also removed the studio chatter, giving the tracks a cleaner ending.
Dig It and Maggie Mae are removed entirely, replaced by Don’t Let Me Down, created from a composite of two Rooftop Session performances. The team removed all orchestral overdubs that Phil Spector had added.
Let It Be… Naked Recording Sessions
Most material for this project was recorded before Abbey Road. Although the original idea was to perform live for a television special, the plan dissolved and the band eventually disbanded. John Lennon and George Harrison brought in Phil Spector to complete the album using his trademark Wall of Sound, a production approach Paul McCartney later rejected.
One detail often missed is that the Twickenham footage fixed the project in many minds as a joyless collapse. The surviving Apple sound rolls suggest the mood improved once the band moved back to Apple, which helps explain why the original “Get Back” idea remained attractive enough to revisit decades later.
Using the original tapes, a team led by Neil Aspinall, Paul Hicks and Guy Massey revisited the recordings to create the cleaner mixes found on Let It Be Naked.
Chart Success
Let It Be… Naked reached the top ten in both the UK and the US. Official Charts records a No. 7 peak on the UK albums chart, while Billboard reported a No. 5 peak on the Billboard 200 in America. That performance showed there was still a large audience for an alternative version of one of the Beatles’ most disputed albums.
To Sum Up, Let It Be… Naked
This project allows listeners to hear something much closer to what McCartney originally envisioned. Rather than replacing the original album, it stands alongside it for comparison, revealing just how different the mixes truly are.
Many Beatlemaniacs prefer Let It Be Naked over Spector’s version, but opinions vary.
Take A Listen
Click the play button to hear the songs and let us know your thoughts in the Beatles Forum.
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Sources and References
- The Beatles – official album page and original concept.
- Official Charts Company – UK chart history.
- Billboard – US chart peak.
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