The Beatles album John Lennon wanted to sound terrible: “This is where we’re at now”
Artists should always want to put their best foot forward when making a record. Even if someone is only going into the studio with a rough idea, it’s best to hone everything for a few hours before it sounds right so that they can be proud of what they’re delivering to the fans. Then again, rock and roll has never run short on the superficial sides of music, and John Lennon knew that it might have been best for The Beatles to make something that sounded deliberately unfinished.
Granted, there’s still a good chance that anyone who says that The Beatles made a bad album is liable to get their ass kicked in some circles. While the Fab Four did have a few clunker songs in their catalogue, they aren’t a band that struck out all that often, which can’t be said for almost any other band they came up with. That didn’t mean every album was easy to make from back to front.
Although the band hit their creative stride on Sgt Pepper, everyone remembered being slightly bored at the sessions compared to what Paul McCartney wanted them to do half the time. And once they made it to The White Album, most people were happy that they were still intact, especially considering how many arguments went down in the middle of recording regarding what should be on the album.
So when they eventually reconvened, anyone in that position would have still been licking their wounds. It was clear everyone was hurting at the Get Back sessions, but once they got their bearings, they seemed to put together a brilliant collection of material. It’s just a shame that it happened to be recorded abysmally compared to what they had previously done.
While anyone would keep those unfinished tracks on the shelf, the band’s real swan song Abbey Road was overshadowed the minute Apple Records wanted Let It Be put out. And even if they had a legend like Phil Spector behind the board, he did a good job and completely ruining the record, putting syrupy strings across some of their ballads and not even bothering to include some of the classics from that period like ‘Don’t Let Me Down‘.
“We were going to let it out with a really shitty condition, disgusted.”
john lennon
Even though this is not the note that most Beatles fans wanted their favourite group to go out on, Lennon felt that they should have made it sound even more ramshackle, saying, “We were going to let it out with a really shitty condition, disgusted. And I wanted [to]… I didn’t care, I thought it was good to go out to show people what had happened to us. Like this is where we’re at now, we couldn’t get – we can’t get it together and don’t play together anymore. Leave us alone.”
Ignoring the insane concept of releasing an objectively terrible album, it’s easy to see where Lennon’s head was here. He was about to undertake his most honest album in Plastic Ono Band, so when looking back on his time with his old mates, it might have been better for them to make something that reflected how far they had come rather than putting a happy face on a sad situation.
Still, Let It Be holds a special place in Beatles fans’ hearts because of how ramshackle it is. There are still pieces that didn’t need to be there and feel like Spector tinkering around with the tapes, but somewhere in between songs like ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ and ‘Dig A Pony’ is the honest rock and roll album they had in mind when recording.
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