Below is part of an interview with Paul McCartney on how he wrote the iconic song, Let It Be.
“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....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....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....
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
When we fight with circumstances in life we create turmoil: a widower drinks himself into a car accident after his wife dies. The alcohol is the agent of resistance to death--which creates more turmoil than the death itself. If this man could have let his wife’s death be grieved and accepted he could move on with his life.
Multitudes have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge after years of depression. Depression is the resistance to feeling angry and isolated. Suicide is the ultimate rejection of the pain of depression. If a suicidal person can access the ability to feel their rage, and experience “unconditional positive regard” from another (this can require a therapist), they can find their way through the emotional turmoil. If they can just let their pain be felt, they can come to a place of acceptance and peace.
The most healthy minded people have an objective, compassionate view of their challenges. One friend, whose house was foreclosed on said, “I thought of it as a bad investment. I’ll buy again after my credit rebounds.” When another friend’s factory ceiling collapsed he said, “Its a pain, but it’s the cost of doing business. Insurance will cover it.” A man diagnosed with cancer shrugged, “Its just another thing to deal with.” That is, they all let their problems be. The foreclosed on friend did buy again, the factory was restored and went on to be even more successful, the man with cancer survived many more years. Letting things be doesn’t guarantee things will work out in the way we want, it just gives them a much better chance of working out, and removes the undue psychological suffering of fighting the river of what is. The Beatles did break up, but Paul put himself in a place of peace during the breakup, and if you didn’t notice, he came out ok.
If you’re going through some difficulty click below to get some healing from him: