The Long and Winding Road

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The Long and Winding Road
The Beatles
publication May 11, 1970
length 3 min 38 s
Genre (s) pop
Author (s) Lennon / McCartney
album let it be

The Long and Winding Road ( english The long and rocky road [accordingly]) is a song by British band The Beatles in 1969. It appeared on her last studio album Let It Be . The song was written by Paul McCartney and published under the copyright Lennon / McCartney .

background

Paul McCartney wrote The Long and Winding Road in Scotland in 1968 . A first demo version was recorded during the session for the White Album ; however, the version remained unpublished.

admission

In early January 1969, the Beatles rehearsed The Long and Winding Road while recording the film Let It Be . On January 26, 1969, they recorded the song in their studio in the basement of the Apple office on London's Savile Row . The producer was George Martin , assisted by Glyn Johns . John Lennon , who played bass on the recording, constantly lost himself on the January 26, 1969 recordings. When trying to get a better recording of the piece, seven takes were made on January 31, 1969 . McCartney played the song on a Blüthner - wing one.

Glyn Johns was commissioned twice to put together a music album from the recordings from January 1969. For this purpose he used the version of The Long and Winding Road from January 26, 1969. Its versions remained unpublished until 1996.

Ultimately, Phil Spector was given the task of revising the recordings. This was by Richard Anthony Hewson strings , brass , harp and choir for The Long and Winding Road arrange that in the April 1, 1970 Abbey Road Studios were added. On this day Ringo Starr also played his drums again. The song's author, Paul McCartney, hadn't been asked for permission for these recordings and responded very negatively. He requested from Beatles manager Allen Klein in a letter that these new recordings should be removed from the song. He ended the letter with the sentence "Don't ever do it again." ("Never do that again.") George Martin also expressed his dissatisfaction with the recording.

publication

Despite protests from Paul McCartney, The Long and Winding Road appeared on the album Let It Be on May 8, 1970 . Released as a single , the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States on June 13, 1970 . It was the last number one hit in the United States . In Germany , the song came to number 26. In the UK , however, it was not released as a single.

The version of January 26, 1969 was published in 1996 - without choir and orchestra - as part of the Anthology series on Anthology 3 . Also without a choir and orchestra, the song appeared in 2003 on the album Let It Be… Naked . Here, however, the new recording from January 31, 1969 was used, which can also be seen in the film Let It Be .

In 2002 a cover version of Will Young and Gareth Gates reached number one on the UK charts.

The song plays a key role in the 2019 movie Yesterday. In a parallel world in which almost everyone does not know the Beatles' songs, the main character Jack Malik's presentation of the song makes the singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran believe that he could write better songs than Sheeran himself.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mark Lewisohn : The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions . London, Hamlyn, 2004, ISBN 0-681-03189-1 . P. 167.
  2. ^ Richie Unterberger: The Unreleased Beatles Music & Film . San Francisco, Backbeat Books, 2006. p. 256.
  3. ^ John C. Winn: That Magic Feeling: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, Volume Two, 1966-1970 . New York, Three Rivers Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-307-45239-9 . P. 262.
  4. ^ Mark Lewisohn: The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions . London, Hamlyn, 2004, ISBN 0-681-03189-1 . P. 198 f.
  5. ↑ www.beatlesbible.com
  6. ^ Billboard : This Week in Billboard Chart History: 45 Years Ago, The Beatles Hit No. 1 for the Last Time , June 8, 2015
  7. ↑ [1]