Paul McCartney is a badass. I never realized it before, but his remixing of the "Let It Be" album into "Let It Be... Naked" wasn't just some sort of ego trip on his part (as Ringo would have you believe) but instead - perhaps - a way of making peace with John Lennon's ghost. I happened to be listening to the "Naked" version of "Across the Universe" and I was reminded of something John said in his last interview before his death. Talking to Playboy in 1980 John said: "The Beatles didn't make a good record of it. ...The guitars are out of tune and I'm singing out of tune 'cos I'm psychologically destroyed and nobody's supporting me or helping me with it and the song was never done properly." If you listen to the "Wildlife" version of it, it's covered with out of tune wah-wah guitars and girl singers. The "Let It Be" version was "puked on" by Phil Spector and sounds like shit. But the "Naked" version is just John and his acoustic guitar, all the phasing and tremolo washed away, with only faint hints of tambura and the guitars and strings far off in the distance. It's as if Paul were trying to undo all the "sabotage" John said he did to it.
Of course, Paul was also trying to undo the sabotage Phil Spector did to the whole album as well. Since "Let It Be" was originally recorded with the notion of recording all the songs with no overdubs at all, it's pathetically ironic that Spector produced the album with his trademark "wall of sound," ladling strings and brass and special effects onto almost every track. A few years ago, Spector was receiving a lifetime achievement award and Paul walked out on the ceremony, mentioning to journalists: "He fucked up 'Let It Be' and I'm not a man who forgets." Also, a precedent was set by George Harrison rereleasing "All Things Must Pass" in a de-Spectorized version a year or two before. So Paul removed all the crap, all the effects (even reverb is used very sparingly) and changed the song lineup, removing "Maggie Mae" and "Dig It."
But the most revealing aspect of the entire album is his remixing of "The Long And Winding Road." Stripped of the gaudy orchestration, the track reveals John playing bass - very poorly. Ian MacDonald lists the mistakes in his footnote in Revolution In The Head: "Recurring wrote notes at 0:28, 2:10 and 3:07; mis-strikes at 2:39 and 2:52; drop-outs at 2:59 and 3:14; a fumble at 0:19; a vague glissando at 1:03; a missed final push at 3:26." If John truly felt that Paul "subconsciously tried to destroy songs," what was John doing here? Still, on "Naked," Paul lovingly removes all the gunk covering "Across The Universe," yet brings John's bass up in the mix on "The Long And Winding Road." Taken in this context, it sure seems to me that Paul still has a great amount of love and respect for his former partner. And for that, I think he's a badass.
