I think, like “Across the Universe,” “The Long and Winding Road” is a song the Beatles never got right. Maybe if they’d had more time to work on it, to work it out, they could have done something brilliant with it. I think it’s a lovely song, and it’s heartfelt, but I wonder how it would have been if it were just Paul on the piano and Ringo on the cymbals. I’m not really sure that it needs a big production.

However, you can argue that Paul clearly thought the Beatles got the song right at some put during the “Get Back” sessions, as it wasn’t resurrected a few months later (as compared to, say, John’s “Across the Universe” and “Child of Nature,” both originally from the “White Album” sessions that got runthroughs during “Get Back”). Paul may have thought that what the Beatles had was good enough, whereas he redid “Teddy Boy” later for McCartney, pulling that song from Let It Be. (That said, there was never any good reason for the Beatles’ “Teddy Boy” to be released.)

My personal favorite version of “Long and Winding” is a cover; George Benson covered it on I Ain’t Got No Kick Against Modern Jazz, a jazz take on the Beatles GRP put out in the mid-90s. It’s a pretty uneven collection overall, but I liked Benson’s “Long and Winding” a lot.

So where can you find the best version of The Long and Winding Road? Wings Over America, perhaps?

Oh, that version of “Lady Madonna” was terrible.

The “Long and Winding Road” takes recorded on the 31st always struck me as being slightly more polished than the takes from the 26th that Glyn Johns and Phil Spector used. The 31st takes still aren’t perfect, but the version on Let It Be… Naked is generally clean, whereas the 26th versions are not. One critic described the Let It Be version as little more than a demo, and I’m not inclined to disagree.

Didn’t John admit somewhere that he wasn’t much of a guitar player? Maybe in the Rolling Stone interview.

No, maybe Paul wouldn’t have wanted Spector. I can see that now that you point it out. The biggest difference between the Get Backs and Let It Be is that Glynn followed the “warts and all” dictum and presented scrappy tracks. Teddy Boy with feedback? No wonder the Beatles shelved it. Spector obviously tried to make something commercial and at least found the best versions of those songs. [I love the "I'm so ashmed" version of I've Got A Feeling, but it's necessary to hear the song played correctly 100 times before you should hear the version with such a serious mistake.]

If Glynn had tried a different approach and produced something in between Get Back and Let It Be, perhaps he could have satisfied The Beatles.

By that point, George and Paul had proven that they could produce (Jackie Lomax, Billy Preston, Mary Hopkins, “Come and Get It”). They might have preferred to focus on the music however. It’s something to think about.

As for John’s musicianship, jump ahead a few months and his guitar solo is my least favorite part of “The End; this was, of course, the period where John was convinced, thanks in no small part to Yoko, that every little sound he made was worthwhile. (Witness Two Virgins and Life with the Lyons as exhibits A and B.) Truth is, I never really think of John in terms of his guitar playing. As a vocalist, as a lyricist and composer, John’s attributes are obvious. Rhythm guitar, though? Not so much.

As for your question on my blog — who would have produced “Hot as Sun” — I’ve never really given it any thought. It’s not like the Beatles needed a producer by this point. I can’t really imagine McCartney wanting to work with Spector, though. And, it now occurs to me, to get to an album after Abbey Road, one of the Glyn Johns Get Back albums needs to go out, not Spector’s Let It Be.

It seems as though George’s comment should have come earlier in the sessions. Then again, they are somewhat reconciled this week, so I guess that talking about preserving the band is more appropriate than all the talk about the inevitability of breaking up from the past couple of weeks.

I don’t have the right books in front of me right now, but I think that For You Blue might be the only song that was recorded on the multitracks. That was the only song they had to work with. To further your point, don’t you think it is strange that they recorded Old Brown Shoe instead of the better songs that you mention?

Think of how badly they performed All Things Must Pass. Maybe George decided that he didn’t want John’s poor musicianship to ruin one of his songs. John could play the simple slide guitar parts on For You Blue, but he just could not figure out what to do on All Things Must Pass and I Me Mine. It’s not like John wanted to play well anyway, but he wasn’t flexible enough to do it. John might not have even known how to play the 9th chords in Isn’t It A Plty.

Obviously, I love John’s playing, but he couldn’t have been a session guy.

I love your Hot As Sun post and a non-John 1969 album would have been very interesting. On 1/13 or 1/14, John said that either he or Paul could front the Beatles alone.

You look at the catalog of songs George had by this time — he’s already brought forward “Isn’t It A Pity?” (which goes back to the Revolver sessions), he writes “Wah-Wah,” and now he trots out “Let It Down” (and Paul sounds happy and excitable on the backing vocals), and it’s “For You Blue” we end up getting for the album? (Remembering that “I Me Mine” was a late addition, necessitating the last sessions in January 1970.)

Now I find myself wondering — what if Paul, George, and Ringo decided to make an album together without John in late ‘69 or early ‘70. (Inspired by Stephen Baxter’s short story “The Twelfth Album,” I put together an “imaginary” post-Abbey Road album I called “Hot As Sun,” but this new idea is almost more entertaining.)

Bring on the rooftop concert.