“Let It Be” The Beatles

Perhaps you’ve heard of it.  Why do artists not write anthems of the size of “Let It Be” anymore?  Let’s think about it for a second – how pretentious, how sermonizing, and how irritating would the idea of “Let it Be” sound today?  Probably like an awful joke gone rottenly sentimental or rottenly ironic.  What makes “Let It Be” a beacon of power, comfort, and genuine hope approaching 40 years after its release, though, is that sense that music can change lives, that words and instrumentation can signify a hope so grandly simple (speaking words of wisdom, let it be) that it becomes a resonant representation of all we’re far too self-conscious to say.  It’s the ultimate Taoist revolt in a song of such towering Spector production, it becomes Paul McCartney’s best song – a final rejoinder on finding peace at last; I can only imagine what someone who’d never heard sounds so genuine must have thought – people such as myself will never know.