October 11, 2023 • 20 mins
Paul McCartney’s mother Mary passed away in 1956, when Paul was only 14 years old. Over a decade later, she appeared to him in a dream, lending a few immortal words of wisdom: “Let it be.” These words arrived in time to help see Paul through the difficult days after The Beatles’ gave up touring to enter the studio full time. And, of course, they went on to become the basis of the song that’s now a popular standard and the title of The Beatles’ final studio release, “Let It Be.”
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
And thank you to the Melbourne Soul & Gospel Choir for their rendition of “Let It Be,” arranged and conducted by Darren Wicks for the album “Stand Strong.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The conditions for our tours had deteriorated as the success
had come along. The crowds had got louder, the venues
had got bigger, and so now we were getting a
little bit fed up with him. The guys variously had said,
(01:03):
oh God, this is terrible, dis terrible. George had said that,
John had said that, I think even Ringo it's sort
of expressed displeasure of the whole thing. I generally just
sort of soldiered on, but after this candlestick Park, I
just finally said.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh, fucking he, this is like just so bad. I
agree with all you guys, we should just give up
to it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
These circumstances were at the time that I'd been doing
too much of everything. Fell asleep, had a dream where
my mom, who died ten years previously, came to me.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And she said, let it be.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Seeing her beautiful, kind face, I immediately felt at ease
and loved, and she said words, she said.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Being word, just y, I love, Yes, let it be,
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Oh, I could.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Tell you, but let it be.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I'm Paul, will do. And I've been fortunate to spend
time with one of the greatest songwriters of our era and.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Will you look at me?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I'm going on to I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That is sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh she's a songwriter, My god, Well.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Crypt homie, this is McCartney. A life lyrics, a masterclass,
a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the
most iconic figures in popular music. In this episode let
it Be. It was nineteen sixty eight and the Beatles
(03:25):
were recording the White Album in Tensions were high in
and out of the studio. The band's members were beginning
to pursue individual interests and songwriting styles. Lennon and McCartney's
(03:53):
friendship was becoming increasingly strained. The group was still mourning
the nineteen sixty seven death of their manager Brian Epstein.
The Beatles were barreling toward their eventual breakup.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
We were heading towards the breakup of the Beatles, and
it was a period of change because John and Yoko
had got together and that was bound to have an
effect on the dynamics of the group.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
As the love between John Lennon and the artist Yoko
Ono was intensifying, the two became utterly inseparable. John insisted
Yoko be present in the studio, So things.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Like Yoko being in the in the middle, literally in
the middle of the recording session was, you know, something
you had to deal with. And the idea was that
if John wanted this to happen, then it should happen.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And there's no reason why not.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Well except that there is a reason why not. You know,
you're there to do some work.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, and anything that disturbed us is disturbing. At a
deference to John, we will allow this and not make
a fuss.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And yet at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I don't think any of us particularly liked it.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It was.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
An interference in the workplace. We had a way we worked.
The four of us worked with George Martin and an
engineer and that was basically it, and we'd always done
it like that, So not being very confrontational, I think
we just bottled it up and just got on with it.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
And you had to make it work because the idea
of the Beatles, it was something that you wanted to
continue with. I suppose it's hun profile. I mean it
was such a great thing.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I mean it was the idea of the Beatles was
also just a straight practical thing of this was our job.
This is what we did in life. We were the Beatles.
That meant if we didn't tour, we recorded, and that
meant if we recorded, we wrote.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary
comes to me speaking words of wisdom, Let it be.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
And in my old redondness, she is standing right in
front of me speaking words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Let it be, Let it be.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Paul McCartney says this impulse to avoid confrontation, to be
accommodating may have been passed done from his parents, who
valued kindness and good manners and taught so values to
their children.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
We were encouraged to be good guys in our family,
so that you know, if we were at a bus
stop and there were women in the queue, my dad
would raise his trophy to them good morning, and he
encouraged us to raise our school caps good morning.
Speaker 8 (07:31):
He was.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That kind of polite, gentlemanly guy, even though they were
working class. All my family, I think were like that,
and when.
Speaker 6 (07:43):
They're broken hearted people living in the world agreed there
will be an answer.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Let it be.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I like that, it's nice to be nice.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I like courtesy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I value politeness, courtesy, and don't particularly like confrontation. If
it's absolutely necessary, then you do it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But I mean generally speaking, we.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Would try, all of us, I think, would try not
to do that.
Speaker 7 (08:18):
There is still a chest and they will see there
will be an answer.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Let it be.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Let it be as a refrain is a moral message,
echoing other hits that were popular when Paul McCartney was
growing up, Like k Sarah Sarah, when.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
I was just a little hugerl I asked my mother
what will I be?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?
Speaker 7 (08:54):
Here's what she said to me, Kay, s.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I've always known that people in listening to your song
may take a message away, So that if your song
is a good message love is all you need, then
that's a good message to put out rather than sympathy
for the devil.
Speaker 8 (09:20):
Plead to meet you will get day. But what you
with the nature of Magame.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
You know, mis not a bad boy at all, It's
exactly opposite. But his image is to show is of that.
Whereas we just didn't really have a bothered with that.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Whereas the Rolling Stones wrote songs about sex, drugs, and
rock and roll, the Beatles wrote lyrics that were more
likely to be parent approved, or that would at least
sound familiar to parents who are listening to other classics.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
The time kaya, whatever will be, will be?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
The future is not ours.
Speaker 7 (10:19):
To see, okayeta seta.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
What will be will be?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Whatever will be will be?
Speaker 5 (10:30):
Yeah, Well do you think in any way it might
be feeding into this a little bit? No?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I mean there were loads of songs that were about stuff,
that were encouraging you to be good, and I think
Cassah is one of them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
When I was a little girl, I asked my mother,
what would I be? Will be this? The mother said,
who knows? You know?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Case Rah, what will be will be? But that's not
let it be.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Paul McCartney's mother had passed away when he was only fourteen,
and both heard death and her absence strongly influenced the
young songwriter, so it's not a surprise that in such
a time of stress, it would be his mother who
would come to comfort him in a dream. His mother,
(11:24):
whose name was in fact Mary, and I.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Sort of fell into the dream feeling great, and woke
up feeling still feeling great, and thinking, oh, I'm remembering
the dream and remembering how she looked and how it felt,
and what she said. And I remembered particularly that she
said the words let it be. Because of this dream,
(11:49):
I woke up and thought, that is that's a great
subject for a song, and I will start it with
my present circumstances. When I find myself in time to
trouble Mother Mary comes to me, it's just exactly what
has just happened, speaking words of will let it be.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Let it be, let it be, let it be, Let it.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Be for all. Paul McCartney knew the words let it
be had come from his subconscious or as a message
from beyond the grave, but after the song was released,
he realized that he may have encountered these words long
before he wrote the lyrics, back when he was a
schoolboy at the Liverpool Institute for Boys. There, in the
(12:43):
English class of Paul's favored and most formative teacher, Alan Durband,
the students read Shakespeare's Hamlet for the first time.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So in those days it had to learn speeches off
by heart. So I could still do a bit of
a bill, not to be all over this two two
solid flash. And it had been pointed out to me
recently that Hamlet isn't He actually says, let it be.
I don't recall back five scene two. It just happened
(13:17):
to so we can give you the exact quote. He
says let be the first time, but then the second
time he says, had I got time as this fell?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Sergeant death is strict in his arrest.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Oh, I could tell you, but let it be, Horatio.
Speaker 7 (13:42):
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
With these words, the Prince of Denmark clutching his fatal wound,
except that his death is eminent, that he will not
live to tell his tragic story.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
But I was interested that I was exposed to those
words during a time when I was.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Studying Shakespeare. It so did.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Years later, the phrase appears to me in a dream,
with my mother saying, now, of course, I must realize
that it's it's me saying it through her. It's kind of,
I think, very interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
The phrase let it be seems simple enough when we
first hear it, but we might each take it to
mean something different.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Please God, let it let it be. I want a
rand new car. Let it be, you know, knock it off,
pack it in, let it be, just don't don't bother,
you know, just let it be.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
And there's let's leave things as they are.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's okay, which is pointed out to me, is the
answer to to be or not to be?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
M let it be?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
With to be or not to be Hamlet's famous question.
It was also, in a sense the question that was
beginning to haunt the Beatles as a group. Their future
existence as a band was entirely uncertain. In that way,
(15:27):
both meanings of the phrase let it be are fitting.
Let it be as hopeful plea, let it be as
stoic resignation, let it be Eddy.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
The bed.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
In this song with a title that has multiple meanings,
there's another lyric Paul McCartney left open to interpretation to.
Speaker 7 (16:02):
The sound of music, Mother Mary, God to me singing wisdom.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
By calling his mother by her first name, Mary, McCartney
opens the door to a more sacred aspect of the song.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
As I called her mother Mary rather than my mom Mary.
I think no I knew enough to know that. Okay,
we've got a sort of double meaning going here. I
think you're aware of that when you write these things.
But it was kind of good because it opens the
song to a religious crowd who want to take it
(16:44):
like that, so it gets performed my gospel. Yes.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Paul McCartney's father was Protestant and his mother Catholic, though
when it came to their children's schooling, the priority was
a good education.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
The fact that she was a nurse had meant that
she'd been called to a lot of schools, and she
thought the Prodestant school's education was better.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So she wanted the best education for her kids, and
no doubt my dad, being Protestant, would say, yeah, the
better and agree with them. The Catholic aspect, it was
really only one thing was that we'd been christened to
(17:53):
save our immortal souls, which I was always rather pleased with.
I'm glad my immortal soul is safe, and you know,
so I thank her.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
For doing that.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Why let it be wasn't written with a particular religious angle,
It certainly can in a spiritual dimension. The words of
wisdom delivered by Mother Mary are repeated throughout the song
as the music swells, and they take on the quality
of a chant, a prayer, or another type of holy incantation.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Mother Mother Mary constantly.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
You know someone said, what's your religion? I wouldn't just
sort of say Christian, but I take Christian, Buddhist, Jewish.
There are many great teachings in all.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
The religion, in its spiritual ambiguity. Let it Be offers
a sort of common grant and to break from the
conflicts of different belief systems. And at a time when
the divisions within the Beatles were becoming only more pronounced,
the song called for and made possible a few moments
(19:24):
off togetherness because it is a.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Song of hope.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Sure you know about all people are going to sort
of come together. You do think is there ever going
to be a time when people agree? And you know,
realistically you have to think, well, probably not, No, probably not.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
But it's a great dream.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's a beautiful dream, and the more you push towards it,
the more it may happen.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Let It Be released in nineteen seventy as the title
song from the Beatles' last album. In the next episode,
we go to the rolling hills of Scotland, where Paul's wife,
Lynda McCartney helped him to discover his love of nature
(20:41):
and the joys of fixing up their farm. McCartney a
life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia NPL
and Pushkin Industries.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The conditions for our tours had deteriorated as the success
had come along. The crowds had got louder, the venues
had got bigger, and so now we were getting a
little bit fed up with him. The guys variously had said,
(01:03):
oh God, this is terrible, dis terrible. George had said that,
John had said that, I think even Ringo it's sort
of expressed displeasure of the whole thing. I generally just
sort of soldiered on, but after this candlestick Park, I
just finally said.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh, fucking he, this is like just so bad. I
agree with all you guys, we should just give up
to it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
These circumstances were at the time that I'd been doing
too much of everything. Fell asleep, had a dream where
my mom, who died ten years previously, came to me.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
And she said, let it be.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Seeing her beautiful, kind face, I immediately felt at ease
and loved, and she said words, she said.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Being word, just y, I love, Yes, let it be,
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Oh, I could.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Tell you, but let it be.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I'm Paul, will do. And I've been fortunate to spend
time with one of the greatest songwriters of our era and.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Will you look at me?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I'm going on to I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That is sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh she's a songwriter, My god, Well.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Crypt homie, this is McCartney. A life lyrics, a masterclass,
a memoir, and an improvised journey with one of the
most iconic figures in popular music. In this episode let
it Be. It was nineteen sixty eight and the Beatles
(03:25):
were recording the White Album in Tensions were high in
and out of the studio. The band's members were beginning
to pursue individual interests and songwriting styles. Lennon and McCartney's
(03:53):
friendship was becoming increasingly strained. The group was still mourning
the nineteen sixty seven death of their manager Brian Epstein.
The Beatles were barreling toward their eventual breakup.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
We were heading towards the breakup of the Beatles, and
it was a period of change because John and Yoko
had got together and that was bound to have an
effect on the dynamics of the group.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
As the love between John Lennon and the artist Yoko
Ono was intensifying, the two became utterly inseparable. John insisted
Yoko be present in the studio, So things.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Like Yoko being in the in the middle, literally in
the middle of the recording session was, you know, something
you had to deal with. And the idea was that
if John wanted this to happen, then it should happen.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And there's no reason why not.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Well except that there is a reason why not. You know,
you're there to do some work.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, and anything that disturbed us is disturbing. At a
deference to John, we will allow this and not make
a fuss.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
And yet at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I don't think any of us particularly liked it.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It was.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
An interference in the workplace. We had a way we worked.
The four of us worked with George Martin and an
engineer and that was basically it, and we'd always done
it like that, So not being very confrontational, I think
we just bottled it up and just got on with it.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
And you had to make it work because the idea
of the Beatles, it was something that you wanted to
continue with. I suppose it's hun profile. I mean it
was such a great thing.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
I mean it was the idea of the Beatles was
also just a straight practical thing of this was our job.
This is what we did in life. We were the Beatles.
That meant if we didn't tour, we recorded, and that
meant if we recorded, we wrote.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary
comes to me speaking words of wisdom, Let it be.
Speaker 7 (06:43):
And in my old redondness, she is standing right in
front of me speaking words of wisdom.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Let it be, Let it be.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Paul McCartney says this impulse to avoid confrontation, to be
accommodating may have been passed done from his parents, who
valued kindness and good manners and taught so values to
their children.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
We were encouraged to be good guys in our family,
so that you know, if we were at a bus
stop and there were women in the queue, my dad
would raise his trophy to them good morning, and he
encouraged us to raise our school caps good morning.
Speaker 8 (07:31):
He was.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
That kind of polite, gentlemanly guy, even though they were
working class. All my family, I think were like that,
and when.
Speaker 6 (07:43):
They're broken hearted people living in the world agreed there
will be an answer.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Let it be.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I like that, it's nice to be nice.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I like courtesy.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I value politeness, courtesy, and don't particularly like confrontation. If
it's absolutely necessary, then you do it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But I mean generally speaking, we.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Would try, all of us, I think, would try not
to do that.
Speaker 7 (08:18):
There is still a chest and they will see there
will be an answer.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Let it be.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Let it be as a refrain is a moral message,
echoing other hits that were popular when Paul McCartney was
growing up, Like k Sarah Sarah, when.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
I was just a little hugerl I asked my mother
what will I be?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?
Speaker 7 (08:54):
Here's what she said to me, Kay, s.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
I've always known that people in listening to your song
may take a message away, So that if your song
is a good message love is all you need, then
that's a good message to put out rather than sympathy
for the devil.
Speaker 8 (09:20):
Plead to meet you will get day. But what you
with the nature of Magame.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
You know, mis not a bad boy at all, It's
exactly opposite. But his image is to show is of that.
Whereas we just didn't really have a bothered with that.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Whereas the Rolling Stones wrote songs about sex, drugs, and
rock and roll, the Beatles wrote lyrics that were more
likely to be parent approved, or that would at least
sound familiar to parents who are listening to other classics.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
The time kaya, whatever will be, will be?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
The future is not ours.
Speaker 7 (10:19):
To see, okayeta seta.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
What will be will be?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Whatever will be will be?
Speaker 5 (10:30):
Yeah, Well do you think in any way it might
be feeding into this a little bit? No?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I mean there were loads of songs that were about stuff,
that were encouraging you to be good, and I think
Cassah is one of them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
When I was a little girl, I asked my mother,
what would I be? Will be this? The mother said,
who knows? You know?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Case Rah, what will be will be? But that's not
let it be.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Paul McCartney's mother had passed away when he was only fourteen,
and both heard death and her absence strongly influenced the
young songwriter, so it's not a surprise that in such
a time of stress, it would be his mother who
would come to comfort him in a dream. His mother,
(11:24):
whose name was in fact Mary, and I.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Sort of fell into the dream feeling great, and woke
up feeling still feeling great, and thinking, oh, I'm remembering
the dream and remembering how she looked and how it felt,
and what she said. And I remembered particularly that she
said the words let it be. Because of this dream,
(11:49):
I woke up and thought, that is that's a great
subject for a song, and I will start it with
my present circumstances. When I find myself in time to
trouble Mother Mary comes to me, it's just exactly what
has just happened, speaking words of will let it be.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Let it be, let it be, let it be, Let it.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Be for all. Paul McCartney knew the words let it
be had come from his subconscious or as a message
from beyond the grave, but after the song was released,
he realized that he may have encountered these words long
before he wrote the lyrics, back when he was a
schoolboy at the Liverpool Institute for Boys. There, in the
(12:43):
English class of Paul's favored and most formative teacher, Alan Durband,
the students read Shakespeare's Hamlet for the first time.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
So in those days it had to learn speeches off
by heart. So I could still do a bit of
a bill, not to be all over this two two
solid flash. And it had been pointed out to me
recently that Hamlet isn't He actually says, let it be.
I don't recall back five scene two. It just happened
(13:17):
to so we can give you the exact quote. He
says let be the first time, but then the second
time he says, had I got time as this fell?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Sergeant death is strict in his arrest.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Oh, I could tell you, but let it be, Horatio.
Speaker 7 (13:42):
Let it be, Let it be, Let it be.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
With these words, the Prince of Denmark clutching his fatal wound,
except that his death is eminent, that he will not
live to tell his tragic story.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
But I was interested that I was exposed to those
words during a time when I was.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Studying Shakespeare. It so did.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Years later, the phrase appears to me in a dream,
with my mother saying, now, of course, I must realize
that it's it's me saying it through her. It's kind of,
I think, very interesting.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
The phrase let it be seems simple enough when we
first hear it, but we might each take it to
mean something different.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Please God, let it let it be. I want a
rand new car. Let it be, you know, knock it off,
pack it in, let it be, just don't don't bother,
you know, just let it be.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
And there's let's leave things as they are.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It's okay, which is pointed out to me, is the
answer to to be or not to be?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
M let it be?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
With to be or not to be Hamlet's famous question.
It was also, in a sense the question that was
beginning to haunt the Beatles as a group. Their future
existence as a band was entirely uncertain. In that way,
(15:27):
both meanings of the phrase let it be are fitting.
Let it be as hopeful plea, let it be as
stoic resignation, let it be Eddy.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
The bed.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
In this song with a title that has multiple meanings,
there's another lyric Paul McCartney left open to interpretation to.
Speaker 7 (16:02):
The sound of music, Mother Mary, God to me singing wisdom.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
By calling his mother by her first name, Mary, McCartney
opens the door to a more sacred aspect of the song.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
As I called her mother Mary rather than my mom Mary.
I think no I knew enough to know that. Okay,
we've got a sort of double meaning going here. I
think you're aware of that when you write these things.
But it was kind of good because it opens the
song to a religious crowd who want to take it
(16:44):
like that, so it gets performed my gospel. Yes.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Paul McCartney's father was Protestant and his mother Catholic, though
when it came to their children's schooling, the priority was
a good education.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
The fact that she was a nurse had meant that
she'd been called to a lot of schools, and she
thought the Prodestant school's education was better.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So she wanted the best education for her kids, and
no doubt my dad, being Protestant, would say, yeah, the
better and agree with them. The Catholic aspect, it was
really only one thing was that we'd been christened to
(17:53):
save our immortal souls, which I was always rather pleased with.
I'm glad my immortal soul is safe, and you know,
so I thank her.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
For doing that.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Why let it be wasn't written with a particular religious angle,
It certainly can in a spiritual dimension. The words of
wisdom delivered by Mother Mary are repeated throughout the song
as the music swells, and they take on the quality
of a chant, a prayer, or another type of holy incantation.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Mother Mother Mary constantly.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
You know someone said, what's your religion? I wouldn't just
sort of say Christian, but I take Christian, Buddhist, Jewish.
There are many great teachings in all.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
The religion, in its spiritual ambiguity. Let it Be offers
a sort of common grant and to break from the
conflicts of different belief systems. And at a time when
the divisions within the Beatles were becoming only more pronounced,
the song called for and made possible a few moments
(19:24):
off togetherness because it is a.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Song of hope.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Sure you know about all people are going to sort
of come together. You do think is there ever going
to be a time when people agree? And you know,
realistically you have to think, well, probably not, No, probably not.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
But it's a great dream.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's a beautiful dream, and the more you push towards it,
the more it may happen.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Let It Be released in nineteen seventy as the title
song from the Beatles' last album. In the next episode,
we go to the rolling hills of Scotland, where Paul's wife,
Lynda McCartney helped him to discover his love of nature
(20:41):
and the joys of fixing up their farm. McCartney a
life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia NPL
and Pushkin Industries.
Host
Paul McCartney
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!