“Only regret”: When a secret tape captured John Lennon’s biggest Beatles lament
By the end of The Beatles, tensions were high. Each new album seemed to bring about a new iteration of the band’s collapse, with The White Album feeling like the beginning of the end, but Let It Be seemingly served as the moment those cracks became irreparable. That was the moment when the band themselves realised there was no coming back, and it was caught on tape as the band’s mission to make a movie turned into a historical document.
The making of Let It Be was strange. Really, the band weren’t trying to make an album as much as they were trying to make a movie and working towards the end point, which would be one big comeback performance after years of not playing live. However, the group decided that, for that, there should be new songs.
Things were weird by then, though. Lennon and McCartney’s collaborative relationship was splintered. George Harrison was growing increasingly tired of feeling like a background player. Ringo Starr was just still being Ringo Starr, but even he was starting to feel the weight of the situation. To try and fix it, a decision was made; they’d come into the studio day after day and work together like they used to, all in the same room, chatting as they went.
The thing is that that didn’t really work out. Being put in the high-pressure situation of trying to write an album quickly only led to more bickering and fighting, and even led to the first walkouts as George Harrison quit. To make matters worse for the band but undeniably better for fans, the room was bugged, capturing all these moments.
In his efforts to make the album’s promotional film, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg bugged the entire place. I’m not only talking about mics hanging above them in the studio. I’m talking secret mics put into vases on dinner tables in an attempt to capture the band’s lunchtime chat. They wanted to capture everything, and as the process got more dramatic, they captured some essential gossip like the reasons for the collapse of the group or, in this instance, John Lennon’s one big regret about it all.
Lennon’s field-recorded confessional came a few days after Harrison stormed out, telling the band simply “see you ’round the clubs”. Waiting to see if he would come back or if they needed to call in a replacement, Lennon and McCartney debriefed the situation when the songwriters both started pouring out their own issues and resentments after the guitarist opened the floodgates.
“Now, the only regret about the past numbers is when, because I’ve been so frightened, I’ve allowed you to take it somewhere where I didn’t want,” Lennon was captured saying, picked up on the hidden mics, admitting to McCartney that he hated to lose control of his songs. It speaks to a change in their connection. Whereas before, that control would have been passed between them, working together on everything, which is why everything was always registered as ‘Lennon-McCartney’ to honour that.
But by now, they were isolated. Lennon began to regret the songs that McCartney’s fingerprints were left on, as what was definitely a loud death knell for a group built on that collaboration.
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