Someone uploaded Let it Be to YouTube and so I watched it again for the first time in at least 25 years. It’s a kind of 50th anniversary: it was this last 10 days or so in 1969 that The Beatles convened, miserable, at Twickenham film studios and desultorily banged at a few instruments, took heroin*, argued, and fell apart. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of the film and album release, and maybe we’ll get a blu-ray? I mean, I expect we’ll get a 50th anniversary boxed set of Abbey Road this year, won’t we? Let it Be is problematic, and there has already been the …Naked version (which wasn’t very good, turns out), but however miserable it makes us, the film needs to be preserved, and a digital remaster and blu-ray/digital release would help that. 

But maybe it’s already too late. I’m still haunted by learning that The Who’s The Kids Are All Right documentary was in a very sad state of decay before the 2003 re-release, at which stage it was under 25 years old. The Kids… was restored from the master positive, as none of the release prints had survived. What state is Let it Be in, after 50 years? It was filmed on 16mm, too, which limits the options for a high definition version.

Then again, rumour has it that Scorsese is making a documentary of The Rolling Thunder Revue, and I bet will be using a lot of the footage Dylan filmed for Renaldo and Clara. So maybe Let it Be can be rescued by being repurposed.

I have to say, watching it this time around, it wasn’t as long and depressing as I remembered. The really awful bit at the beginning is over quite quickly, and then there’s a better atmosphere at Apple, bar one or two moments, and then the rooftop concert, which is a real joy to watch. A lot of people can’t watch this film because it’s so sad, but if you think of it as a Spinal Tap type mockumentary, it’s more bearable.

George was playing the part of Put Upon Guitarist, and eventually walked out, went to Liverpool, and refused to return until they agreed to knock Twickenham (and the Big Comeback Concert) on the head and do everything in the Apple offices. The awkward argument between him and Paul as Paul tries to get him to play something a particular way and George instead turns up his Passive Aggressive Hippy knob to 11 is still the worst moment in the film.

Ringo plays Bored Drummer to great effect, smoking and sitting at his kit, joining Paul on the piano, desperate for something, anything, to happen. Ringo must have spent so much of the late 60s sitting around waiting for the others to get their shit together. A candidate for the second worst moment in the film is the bit where John and George (and George Martin) are helping Ringo with “Octopus’ Garden”, and it all seems to be going lovely, and then Paul walks in and it all grinds to a halt. Awks. Maybe it was the editing made it look like it happened that way.

Paul Plays Musical Director, which was a role he’d been used to playing for a couple of years, since John Destroyed his Ego with LSD and generally took a back seat in terms of Hit Making. Without Paul’s contributions in 1968 and ’69, the last of the Beatles would have been a sorry thing indeed. Here is a list:

• Lady Madonna
• Hey Jude
• Back in the USSR
• Blackbird
• Helter Skelter
• The Long and Winding Road
• Let it Be
• Get Back
• Two of Us
• Side Two of Abbey Road

For sure, Lennon wrote some good ones too, often after realising that Paul was getting ahead of him, but he also phoned a lot in, riding the avant-garde repetitive lyrics train (Don’t Let Me Down, I Want You), glomming things together from fragments (Happiness is a Warm Gun) or ripping off Chuck Berry (Come Together).

*John plays Heroin Addict Rock Star with Heroin Addict Girlfriend and Extra Heroin, and a year ago yesterday gave an interview for Canadian TV which is notorious for the bit in the middle where he gets the Heroin Addict Rock Star Sweats and goes off to be sick. And he’s so, so boring. Up his own arse with self importance and Portentous Statements. A year later his “etchings” would be seized by police in a trumped up obscenity panic. There’s a bit in the film where Musical Director Paul is trying to be Persuasive about the Big Comeback Concert, and Lennon just sits and listens (or does he?) and says not a word.

After 10 days at Twickenham, they canned it and went back to Savile Row to finish up, abandoned the idea of a Big Comeback Concert, and went up onto the roof to finish up. The film finishes almost miraculously, with actual music which is Quite Good (almost all composed by Paul with Paul on lead vocal). There are a few songs performed in the studio (including “Let it Be” and “Two of Us”), and then they’re on the roof, in the cold, with people gathering down below to see what all the fuss. George huddles in his fur coat and green trousers and John plays the fucking lead guitar on “Get Back”. Which clearly confused the hell out of camera people and editor.

This is worth 21 minutes of anyone’s time, because it is brilliant, not just because of the music, but because of the vision of Britain you get on the streets below, as people stop and wonder. There are some nice cameos as people stop and give opinions (top tip: say something positive if you want to be in the film), and you see men in bowler hats mixing with the youngs. Dirty hippies are noticeably absent, but there are lots of young women who worked in offices, all out for an exciting lunchtime. They’re all in their late 60s and 70s now: think about that.

Of course, the narrative goes that the police were called, business was being disrupted and traffic was being stopped, but it’s not as if The Beatles had much more material. I half-suspect the phone call came from inside the Apple offices. Please stop us.

Anyway, it’s not that bad. And further proof that The Beatles falling apart were still better than most bands at their peak. There’s no album quite like Let it Be for giving me a certain feeling. “Two of Us” is such an evocative song, and my flashbulb memory of the first time I played the album will be with me forever.