Let it all be...

Sir Paul McCartney, with daughters; Mary [left] and Stella [right]. [Photo credit: Daily Mail]

The story behind the song "Let It Be" as told by Paul McCartney to Marlo Thomas.

Excerpt from the book The Right Words At The Right Time -- by Marlo Thomas [as emailed to me by Arjan].

"Let It Be is a product of a lovely dream.

"I was going through a really difficult time around autumn of 1968. It was late in the Beatles' career and we had begun making a new album, a follow-up to the White Album. As a group we were starting to have problems. I was sensing that the Beatles were breaking up, so I was staying late at night, drinking, doing drugs, clubbing, the way a lot of people were at the time. I was really living and playing hard.

The other guys were all living out in the country with their partners, but I was still a bachelor in London with my own house in St. John's Wood. And that was kind of at the back of my mind also, that maybe it was about time I found someone, because it was before I got together with Linda.

So I was exhausted! Some nights I'd go to bed and my head would just flop on the pillow; and when I'd wake up I'd have difficulty pulling it off, thinking, "Good job. I woke up just then or I might have suffocated".

Then one night, somewhere between deep sleep and insomnia, I had the most comforting dream about my mother, who died when I was only 14. She had been a nurse, my mom, and very hardworking, because she wanted the best for us.

We weren't a well-off family - we didn't have a car, we only had a television - so both of my parents went out to work, and mom contributed a good half of the family income. At night when she came home, she would cook, so we didn't have a lot of time with each other. But she was just a very comforting presence in my life. And when she died, one of the difficulties I had, as the years went by, was that I couldn't recall her face so easily.

So in this dream 12 years later, my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes; and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly, "Let it be."

[Courtesy of Apple Records]

It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling. I was like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message:

Be gentle, don't fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will work out.

So, being a musician, I went right over to the piano and started writing a song:"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me" ... Mary was my mother's name...

"Speaking words of wisdom, let it be, There will be an answer, let it be"

It didn't take long. I wrote the main body of it in one go, and then the subsequent verses developed from there: "When all the broken- hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be."

So those words were really very special to me, because not only did my mom come to me and reassure me at a very difficult time in my life - and sure enough, things did get better after that - but also, in putting them into a song and recording it with the Beatles, it became a reassuring, healing statement for other people too."

------------------------

Similar post here, but longer.