顺其自然 (1970)

"Let It Be" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 6 March 1970 as a single, and (in an alternative mix) as the title track of their album Let It Be. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney, and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The single version of the song, produced by George Martin, features a softer guitar solo and the orchestral section mixed low, compared with the album version, produced by Phil Spector, featuring a more aggressive guitar solo and the orchestral sections mixed higher.

At the time, it had the highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning its chart run at No. 6, peaking at No. 1 for two weeks in April 1970. It was the Beatles' final single before McCartney announced his departure from the band. Both the Let It Be album and the US single "The Long and Winding Road" were released after McCartney's announced departure from and the subsequent break-up of the group.

Origin and background

Two conflicting explanations exist concerning the origin of the song. McCartney stated that he had the idea of "Let It Be" after he had a dream about his mother Mary Patricia McCartney, who had died of cancer in 1956 when Paul was 14. "It was great to visit with her again. I felt very blessed to have that dream. So that got me writing 'Let It Be'." In a later interview, he said about the dream that his mother had told him, "It will be all right, just let it be." The song is widely interpreted as an allusion to the Virgin Mary, in particular the Annunciation, although McCartney has typically replied that listeners can interpret the song however they like.

Another explanation of the origin of the song was given by the Beatles' road manager Mal Evans, who claimed that McCartney had conceived the song after having a vision of Evans during the group's meditation sessions in India in March 1968. He stated in a 1975 interview with David Frost:

Paul was meditating one day and I came to him in a vision. And I was just standing there saying let it be, let it be, and that's where the song came from. And it's funny, because I drove him home from a session one night, and it was three o'clock in the morning, raining, dark in London, and Paul was telling this, you know, saying I've wrote this song, he told me the instant, the song is gonna be "Brother Malcolm", but uh, I want to change "Brother Malcolm" in case we give the wrong idea!

McCartney first began to play around with "Let It Be" in the recording studio in between takes of "Piggies" on 19 September 1968, during the sessions for The Beatles ("The White Album"). During this rehearsal, he sang "Brother Malcolm" (referring to Evans) instead of "Mother Mary", corroborating Evans' explanation.

In the podcast McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, McCartney reflected that William Shakespeare's Hamlet may have subconsciously inspired "Let It Be". McCartney recalled memorizing Shakespeare passages during his school years, and later having it pointed out to him that in Act 5, Scene 2, as he dies, Hamlet comforts his friend with the words, "But let it be. Horatio, I am dead." McCartney interpreted the line as the playwright's answer to the eternal question posed in the protagonist's earlier soliloquy, "to be or not to be?" He considered whether the phrase may have bubbled up from his subconscious so many years later, as his late mother in a dream, offering him the same comforting advice during a stressful period in his own life.