Let It Be - 2020 Anthem

How can you even put words to what 2020 has been like? It's almost impossible to describe the strangest, weirdest year ever.

Thank God for music because music gets so many of us through the hard and dark times, the strange and weird times, the difficult to describe times like the year that is 2020.

Way before 2020 came into being "Let It Be" has always been a favourite song of mine. Whenever I hear it, I know my Mum is around me trying to communicate with me. She died when I was eight years old in very traumatic circumstances. If I see a butterfly flying around me, usually following me or I hear that song I know she is close by.

I have felt that way about "Let It Be" for a very long time and I did not know the back story behind how the song came to be written.

One day in my office, a client of mine, who was going through a very hard time (I'm a Psychotherapist) told me how much he loved that song. "Me too" I replied and I mentioned to him the significance of that song to me and he told me how Paul McCartney came to write that song.

As he told me the story he started to cry and I cried along with him. I was really surprised as I had loved that song for so long and never knew the story behind the lyrics.

As soon as my client left my office I googled the story behind the song and found this and I cried again. It always makes me teary.

This was how the song came to be written.

"I was going through a really difficult time around the autumn of 1968. It was late in the Beatles’ career and we had begun making a new album, a follow-up to the “White Album.” As a group we were starting to have problems. I think I was sensing the Beatles were breaking up, so I was staying up late at night, drinking, doing drugs, clubbing, the way a lot of people were at the time. I was really living and playing hard.

The other guys were all living out in the country with their partners, but I was still a bachelor in London with my own house in St. John’s Wood. And that was kind of at the back of my mind also, that maybe it was about time I found someone, because it was before I got together with Linda.

So, I was exhausted! Some nights I’d go to bed and my head would just flop on the pillow; and when I’d wake up I’d have difficulty pulling it off, thinking, “Good job I woke up just then or I might have suffocated.”

Then one night, somewhere between deep sleep and insomnia, I had the most comforting dream about my mother, who died when I was only 14. She had been a nurse, my mum, and very hardworking, because she wanted the best for us. We weren’t a well-off family- we didn’t have a car, we just about had a television – so both of my parents went out to work, and Mum contributed a good half to the family income. At night when she came home, she would cook, so we didn’t have a lot of time with each other. But she was just a very comforting presence in my life. And when she died, one of the difficulties I had, as the years went by, was that I couldn’t recall her face so easily. That’s how it is for everyone, I think. As each day goes by, you just can’t bring their face into your mind, you have to use photographs and reminders like that.

So in this dream twelve years later, my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes, and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly: “Let it be.”

It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling. It was really like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message: Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out.

So, being a musician, I went right over to the piano and started writing a song: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me”… Mary was my mother’s name… “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.” There will be an answer, let it be.” It didn’t take long. I wrote the main body of it in one go, and then the subsequent verses developed from there: “When all the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.”

I thought it was special, so I played it to the guys and ’round a lot of people, and later it also became the title of the album, because it had so much value to me, and because it just seemed definitive, those three little syllables. Plus, when something happens like that, as if by magic, I think it has a resonance that other people notice too.

Not very long after the dream, I got together with Linda, which was the saving of me. And it was as if my mum had sent her, you could say.

The song is also one of the first things Linda and I ever did together musically. We went over to Abbey Road Studios one day, where the recording sessions were in place. I lived nearby and often used to just drop in when I knew an engineer would be there and do little bits on my own. And I just thought, “Oh it would be good to try harmony in mind, and although Linda wasn’t a professional singer, I’d heard her sing around the house, and knew she could hold a note and sing that high.

So she tried it, and it worked and it stayed on the record. You can hear it to this day.

These days, the song has become almost like a hymn. We sang it at Linda’s memorial service. And after September 11 the radio played it a lot, which made it the obvious choice for me to sing when I did the benefit concert in New York City. Even before September 11th, people used to lean out of cars and trucks and say, “Yo, Paul, let it be.”

So those words are really very special to me, because not only did my mum come to me in a dream and reassure me with them at a very difficult time in my life – and sure enough, things did get better after that – but also, in putting them into a song, and recording it with the Beatles, it became a comforting, healing statement for other people too."

– Paul McCartney (taken from MattAndJojang's Blog - God. Life. Spirituality. https://mattandjojang.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/the-story-behind-paul-mccartneys-song-let-it-be/)

As a Coach, Counsellor & Psychotherapist I'm a strong believer in self agency (an all-encompassing term that describes the power an individual has over their own life.)

I've been through many hardships and difficulties in my life and experienced a very traumatic childhood but believe we have self agency around how we heal. Most people don't understand self agency and certainly don't live believing they have any power over their own lives.

Most people believe that life happens to them and they have no power and control over what happens to them. To me that's what Covid 19 is all about - the collective unconscious and how humanities fear, struggle, trauma and living in survival mode is manifesting as a global pandemic.

Our fear that there won't be enough so we hoard toilet paper and staple food items like the apocalypse is nigh. As a psychotherapist who specialises in working with trauma and Neuroscience, the struggle and survival comes from an Amygdala that is firing telling us we are not safe and there is not enough to get by.

I've done a lot of healing over a 27 year period to get past my own trauma so I don't feel this way. I know it's not the case for many people, but for me Covid 19 has been a blessing in disguise and has made life easier for me personally. It has allowed me to be able to slow down and make some needed changes.

I live in Australia and we are doing pretty well here with the Pandemic so my heart goes out to those living in the UK, Europe, America and third world countries where it is hitting everyone really hard. Some people here in Australia are also doing it tough. For some it has made life more simple and easier but for those who are sick, dying or out of work 2020 has been a huge emotional roller coaster for so many people.

It's been the arts that have kept us entertained particularly music with lots of great artists delivering concerts from their homes or in the case of Keith Urban, from his and Nicole Kidman's garage. We need music to get us through our highs and our lows.

As Sir Paul McCartney said "Let it Be" has become like a hymn to let us know that in the end everything will be ok. Much of humanity is really suffering right now so we need to have faith and we need to believe that there is hope and something to believe in. "There will be an answer, let it be"

We need to know in this great cosmos that someone is looking out for us, whether we can connect to it or not. When I hear this song I know my Mum is looking out for me and my beloved Grandmother too (my Grams) and I know no matter what is going on around me, I will be ok.

I wish that for the world that somehow or in someway humanity will be ok, that good will outweigh the bad and that sanctity triumphs over evil. Covid 19 is here to wake us up.

We live in a world where not enough of us care about the environment, climate change, what happens to refugees, our animals, our most vulnerable. We need to wake up and start caring. It's a pandemic about fear so we need to learn how to stop living with such fear all the time. We need to understand the Universe has our back or God if you believe in him or her and we have to allow the good things in.

The Lyrics to "Let it Be" are beautiful and telling. Paul McCartney was writing about his Mum in his hours of darkness and when he felt alone. We're all being called to physically distance and for many they are experiencing social isolation and loneliness.

America and other parts of this world are a mess right now so we need to know there will be an answer and a light that continues to shine on us and that sometimes we have to just surrender and let it be.

James Corben in Carpool Karaoke with Sir Paul McCartney says the song for him is about joy and positivity, a message of love and togetherness. Don't we need that now? James says the song is more relevant today than it's ever been.

"Let it Be" is incredibly soulful and enduring. The song has stood the test of time. It was written in 1968 and it's message can console all of us in challenging times like now. If people knew the power of the message of the song there would be no hoarding of toilet paper.

I love this song so much and it always comes on the radio or when I'm driving in my car when I need it the most.

Here are the beautiful lyrics:

Let It Be

The Beatles

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom

Let it be

And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree

There will be an answer, let it be

For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see

There will be an answer, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Yeah, there will be an answer

Let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom

Let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, yeah, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom

Let it be

And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me

Shine until tomorrow, let it be

I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, yeah, let it be

There will be an answer

Let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, yeah, let it be

There will be an answer

Let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, yeah, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom

Let it be

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney

Let It Be lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

This is my favourite version of "Let It Be" by John Legend and Alicia Keys sung at the Beatles 50th Anniversary concert. John Legend starts off by saying "everything is going to be ok. Its a song that has comforted generations with it's beauty and it's message".

It sure has John, it's comforted me many times. I hope you enjoy this version as much as I do.

Paul McCartney said when interviewed about what "Let it Be" was all about that his Mother's message to him was "Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out." I think that's a great message for all of us in 2020 to do what we can to make our lives better but also to surrender and just "Let It Be".