For years, decades actually, it was more like “Don’t Let It Be.”
But for the first time, The Beatles’ 1970 documentary “Let It Be” — which had never been available on DVD, Blu-ray or, basically anything other than VHS — is finally available to stream on Disney+ this week.
Was it worth the 54-year wait?
Well, yes — and no.
Some context is needed here first: If you watched “The Beatles: Get Back” — the three-part, eight-hour docuseries directed by none other than Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson that also premiered on Disney+ in 2021 — you’ve already seen a lot of this.
And seen it in the kind of exhaustive detail — from the same footage that Jackson used from “Let It Be” director Michael Lindsay-Hogg — that you can probably break down the level of scruffiness in Paul McCartney’s faux-badass beard.
But thankfully — whether or not you’ve already watched the tedious-at-times “Get Back” — this is only 80 minutes versus eight hours of your time.
For anyone but the biggest of Beatlemaniacs, that math is math-ing.
But here’s the real difference: Whereas “Get Back” captured every bit of Liverpudlian shade, side eye and Yoko Ono rock-blocking, this “Let It Be” is all about the music that was made in the slow fade of the Fab Four.
For most of this film — which documents The Beatles working out songs for what would turn out to be their final album, 1970’s “Let It Be,” in January 1969 — it’s just like being a little four-winged insect on the wall of those sessions at their Apple Corps headquarters in London.
Rehearsing, working out songs and just jamming — even with all the mounting tension which is actually more between McCartney and George Harrison than Sir Paul and John Lennon (for all those who still blame Ono for the Beatles’ breakup) — it’s a magical mystery tour behind the scenes of what many consider to be the greatest band of all time.
When McCartney and Lennon are in such easy harmony and camaraderie on “Two Of Us” — with the latter whimsically whistling on the outro — it’s as if it was the dynamic duo was meant to be forever.
And when McCartney sits at the piano, in unfiltered close-up, to deliver “Let It Be” — which he wrote, although it’s credited to his penning partnership with Lennon — the raw emotion and earnestness is real, as they all give in to the majesty of the music.
Although there would ultimately be no “answer” for The Beatles — who would officially split up by the time their final album was released in May 1970 — in that moment, they just let the music be.
And it’s a beautiful thing to see.
But the real beauty of “Let It Be” happens in its final stanza. That’s when the broken-down Beatles hit the Apple Corps rooftop for what was their first live performance since 1966.
“Get back to where you once belonged,” sings McCartney, those words sinking in deep as the London crowd gathers, many looking above from the street — while impeccably chic.
I mean, even the bobbies are styling.
In retrospect, “Don’t Let Me Down” turns into a desperate last plea to save their band of brothers.
But “Let It Be” fittingly ends with a bit of Lennon levity: “I hope we’ve passed the audition.”
