Would he like one? He narrows his gaze, trying to decide then, with executive dispatch, he declines. Bloomberg nods gravely at whatever Shevell is saying, but he has his eyes fixed on a plate of exquisite little pizzas. A slender, regal woman in her early sixties, Shevell is talking in a confiding manner with Michael Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York City when she served on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. ![]() Their hosts are Nancy Shevell, the scion of a New Jersey trucking family, and her husband, Paul McCartney, a bass player and singer-songwriter from Liverpool. Through the gate, they mount a flight of stairs to the front door and walk across a vaulted living room to a fragrant back yard, where a crowd is circulating under a tent in the familiar high-life way, regarding the territory, pausing now and then to accept refreshments from a tray. They all wear expectant, delighted-to-be-invited expressions. And out they come, face after famous face, burnished, expensively moisturized: Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Buffett, Anjelica Huston, Julianne Moore, Stevie Van Zandt, Alec Baldwin, Jon Bon Jovi. At the last driveway on a road ending at the beach, a cortège of cars-S.U.V.s, jeeps, candy-colored roadsters-pull up to the gate, sand crunching pleasantly under the tires. The surf is rough and pounds its regular measure on the shore. Alas, it would also be the last single ‘The Fab Four’ would put out as a collective unit.Early evening in late summer, the golden hour in the village of East Hampton. On release, the single hit Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it The Beatles 19th song to reach the top spot. While Lennon may have loathed the song, the rest of the world clearly felt differently. When Phil Spector was bought in to complete Let It Be in 1970, he even included audio of Lennon teasing McCartney’s efforts, in which he can be heard saying “And now, we’d like to do ‘Hark the Angels Come'” at the end of ‘Dig It’. Considering Lennon was strongly against organised religion, it’s understandable why he felt nervous about being associated with a song that, from certain angles, reads like a hymn. In the song, Paul McCartney makes frequent references to ‘Mother Mary’. It’s much more likely that Lennon opposed the strident religiosity of ‘Let It Be’. I know he wanted to write a ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters.'” However, Lennon’s memory was clearly playing tricks on him by this point because ‘Let It Be’ was recorded a whole ten months before ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ was taken into the studio. On hearing McCartney’s song, Lennon was convinced he was trying to recreate the folkish poignancy of Simon & Garfunkel: “I think it was inspired by ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ - that’s my feeling, although I have nothing to go on. ![]() Perhaps Lennon found ‘Let It Be’ regressive, the kind of song that would have been perfect in the mid-’60s but which felt archaic, dull, and conservative by 1969. I don’t know what he’s thinking when he writes ‘Let It Be.'” ![]() What can you say? Nothing to do with the Beatles,” Lennon would later explain to David Sheff. ![]() Lennon’s biggest problem with ‘Let It Be’ was that it felt more like a song Paul had written for one of his side-projects and then decided to pass on to The Beatles.
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