The Beatles‘ “Let It Be” has inspired a huge number of covers, including a rendition by Woody Harrelson at a party. Paul McCartney himself happened to be there and so was Taylor Swift. Paul told Swift what he thought when Harrelson played the track. Notably, “Let It Be” is not the only classic rock song the movie star covered.
Paul McCartney was unimpressed when Woody Harrelson played The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’
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In a 2020 Rolling Stone article, Paul and Swift recalled bumping into each other at a party. Swift had fond memories of that time. Paul, on the other hand, was not the biggest fan of the music he heard there.
“I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing ‘Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, ‘I can do that better,’” he said. “So I said, ‘Come on, move over, Woody.’ So we’re both playing it. It was really nice.”
Harrelson doesn’t dabble in music much. However, he has some classic rock cred. He covered Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love” for Zombieland: Double Tap. Harrelson didn’t give the “All Shook Up” singer a run for his money (who would?) but he proved himself a capable singer with that cover.
Paul McCartney compared Woody Harrelson and Dan Aykroyd as musicians
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Paul compared Harrelson to another iconic actor. “I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, ‘You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff,’” he said.
Swift implied that Paul likes playing so many instruments as a way of showing off his talent. “Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit,” he explained. “I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ when I was, you know, a teenager.” Swift was surprised that Paul wrote that classic song when he was so young.
How ‘Let It Be’ performed on the pop charts
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The Beatles’ “Let It Be” became the band’s penultimate No. 1 single before “The Long and Winding Road” and “For You Blue” were released as a double A-side single. “Let It Be” was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, staying on the chart for 14 weeks. It appeared on the album Let It Be, which served as the soundtrack to the documentary of the same title. That record was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for four weeks and lasted on the chart for 79 weeks in total.
According to The Official Charts Company, “Let It Be” peaked at No. 2 in the United Kingdom and stayed on the chart for 17 weeks. Upon its release in the 1980s, “Let It Be” hit No. 78 for a week. The record Let It Be was No. 1 for three of its 53 weeks on the U.K. chart. Let It Be later reached No. 2 and lasted on the chart for another 18 weeks.
“Let It Be” is one of The Beatles’ best songs even if Harrelson wasn’t great at playing it.
