Let It Be

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In 2004, The Rolling Stones ranked the Beatles' "Let it be" # 20 on the Top 500 Songs of All Time list. Interestingly, this song is not only about acceptance, but about the relationship with mom.

Because of the words “Mother Mary comes to me Speaking words of wisdom let it be”, I always thought that the song “Let it be” is religious and it is about the Virgin Mary. But this is not at all the case.

“Mother Mary” is a real person, Paul McCartney's mom.

Mary McCartney died of breast cancer when Paul was only fourteen years old. In the same year, James McCartney, the father of the future star, gave his son an old trumpet for his birthday, which he exchanged for an acoustic guitar. From this began Paul's passion for music and songwriting. As his brother Michael later recalled, it was his father who helped Paul recover from the shock caused by the death of his mother with his gift.

And 12 years later, Paul McCartney, already a celebrity, saw his mother Mary in a dream and she told him: "Everything will be fine, just let it be."

McCartney later said: “I was deeply depressed, I think, largely due to drugs. It was a crazy part of my life, many things, as it seemed to me, lost their meaning … There was emptiness inside. I remember that night: going to bed, I felt especially bad. In a dream, my mother, who had died a long time ago, appeared to me and said: “Let everything be so; don't worry, everything will be fine. " I felt immensely relieved. And - wrote "Let it Be". This dream saved me when I was at the very edge of the abyss …"

The words of the song “Let It Be” fully reflect the importance of mother's love not only for Paul McCartney, but for each of us.

Mom loves her child just like that. Just because you are her son or daughter and you don't need to do anything for this. It is in a relationship with mom that we have a chance to learn self-acceptance and the world around.

Erich Fromm wrote in The Art of Love that it was mother who “… gives the attitude that inspires the child with love for life, which makes him feel that Good to be alive, Good be a boy or a girl, Good live on this earth!"

Interestingly, even the early death of Mary McCartney did not shake the foundation of love that she laid in her son. And the ability to say “Let it be so” to problems helped the adult Paul to overcome difficult times.

The song “Let it be” was co-written with John Lennon in 1970. John's relationship with his mother Julia was very different and that's another story.