Paul McCartney reveals emotional origin of “Let It Be”

By mbrooks on November 16, 2019
LOS ANGELES, CA – FEBRUARY 08: (L-R) Recording artists Paul McCartney, Rihanna and Kanye West perform “FourFiveSeconds” onstage during The 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards at the at the STAPLES Center on February 8, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

By Matthew Brooks

Paul McCartney tells Billboard about a visit with Kanye which led him to share the origins of “Let It Be.”

It began with a meeting with Kanye.

“I didn’t want it to be at his house or my house, because it could be awkward if one of us wanted to leave. So we met on neutral ground — a cottage at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” McCartney says.

McCartney says he started out the meeting the same way he normally begins writing a song.

He began by strumming his guitar, and it goes from there.

Kanye, however, was distracted.

He was looking at pictures of his wife, Kim Kardashian, on his iPad.

Then McCartney and Kanye began telling stories.

McCartney says, “at one point I told him how “Let It Be” came from a dream about my mother, who had died years before, where she said, “Don’t worry, just let it be.”

This story inspired Kanye to write a story about his own mother.

The collaboration became “Only One.”

See the results of Paul McCartney and Kanye.

 

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