Talk:The Long and Winding Road

Untitled
Suggest including this on the Beatles page or on a Beatles miscleaneous topics page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.27.65.142 (talk) 05:50, 6 October 2003 (UTC)
 * There are a bunch of articles about Beatles songs...they should probably go on their respective albums' articles though. Adam Bishop 05:53, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem with well-done articles on particular, notable songs; care needs to be taken not to repeat too much of the information already present in the album or artist listing, though. Jgm 15:44, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This is a very good article, and I also see nothing wrong with articles on important and well-known songs, but this article, in my opinion, goes well beyond the scope of the song "The Long and Winding Road". Perhaps the information not directly related to the song could go on a separate breakup of the Beatles page? I'm sure a lot of other information could be added to such a page. Or else make a clear "Breakup" section in the History of the Beatles article, and transfer some of this information there? -R. fiend 16:07, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I've done an edit with R.'s comments in mind; specifically I've tried to limit the material to the song, with just enough framing info for context. Much of what I cut out would be a valuable addition to the Let It Be article, I think, or, as R. suggests, the History of the Beatles article.  I've also made some general structure and wording changes and copy edits and added some material from a primary source (Lewishon's book).  There are still some awkward bits (ie. the explanation of the difference between the Billboard and Cashbox charts) that could use fixing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jgm (talk • contribs) 01:44, 21 September 2004 (UTC)

To quote: "McCartney claimed that his longstanding dissatisfaction with the released version of "The Long and Winding Road" (and the entire Let It Be album) was the catalyst for his decision." But isn't a catalyst something that speeds a process up? How can longstanding dissatisfaction, thirty years or so, be a catalyst? Brendanfox 04:07, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What were the other five reasons he cited in court to break up the Beatles? -Rwv37 05:38, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

OnStar commercial
This is kinda old, so it'll be a bit hard to verify, but I believe that an instrumental version was the background music for an OnStar commercial a few months ago ("few" is used loosely, as I don't know exactly when it was). It was the commercial where there were a whole bunch of kids (separately) telling about their various experiences with OnStar and how it saved their family members, etc. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Does anyone even know what commercial I'm talking about? &mdash;Gordon P. Hemsley→ &#x2709; 09:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

linking to copyvio
I have again removed external links from this article to material in violation of copyright, per #5 under the "Links to be used occasionally" section at Wikipedia:External links. Performances and transcriptions of lyrics are protected by copyright. Unless the owner of the copyright has placed the material on the web themselves, or approved its publication on some unofficial website, it should not be linked from Wikipedia. -- Mikeblas 02:20, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Link rot
some of the citations are suffering from link rot, being new to wikia I did not continue further 75.15.195.164 20:38, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

This page can crash Mozilla
All attempts to do a Print Preview of this article's page (NOT this discussion page) on Mozilla at a display ratio other than "Shrink to Fit" cause Mozilla to crash. I don't know enough about HTML and web-design to know how to fix this. Perhaps someone else could fix what is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.191.198.26 (talk) 21:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Anthology 3 and Let It Be… Naked
The version on Anthology 3 is the same take which received Spector's overdubs, whereas the Let It Be Naked version is a different take, previously unreleased. This information is correctly stated on the Let It Be%E2%80%A6 Naked page. Sonitus 04:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Authority does not equal quality
The following quote - and the article it is quoted from - is a prime reason why "quoting authorities" is simply not good enough to create a viable reference.

>The song takes the form of a piano-based ballad, with an unconventional structure and some of the most inventive and sophisticated chord changes heard in The Beatles' catalogue. The song's home key is in E-flat major but spends ample time in its relative minor, the key of C minor.[2]

To put it crudely, it's wack BS. The "unconventional structure" is Verse/Verse/Bridge/Verse/Repeat last verse.

The "sophisticated chord changes" are purely diatonic, with a couple of dominant seventh chords and a single altered bass (Ab chord over Bb bass), in one key. The only "relative minor" in the song is the first phrase of each verse, which is sung over a minor chord. Only in the most strict interpretation of a small part of the classical music tradition does a single minor chord define a minor tonality.

The rest of the "Let It Be" album is heavily influence by the Beatles early rock influences, so in the context of the album, it sounds sophisticated, but compared to the songwriting on Abbey Road, the White Album, - anything post-LSD, to be blunt - it is a simple, straightforward song. No key changes, no altered notes, no "jazz" chords, nothing special except Paul McCartney's ability to deploy such simple materials in an elegant, appropriate fashion.

Perhaps I'm not sufficiently bowing down to Pollack's authority, but his article in general reminds me of A.J. Weberman's obsessive projection into Dylan's music, more so than mainstream musical analysis. 24.17.180.126 09:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I may not be as musically knowledgeable as you, but I had much the same reaction. I've always been intrigued by unusual song structures (I wrote a recent blog entry on the topic), and when I read those words in the article, I stopped short. I had to listen to the song again, and I found--as you did--that it has a perfectly standard structure consisting of verses, a bridge, and a short instrumental section substituting for a repeat of the bridge. I suppose one could argue that the verse itself has slightly irregular qualities (which might be what this critic was referring to). But "irregular" isn't the same as "unusual" or "exceptional." As you indicate, the song is nothing compared to the experimentation that characterized much of the later Beatles catalog. marbeh raglaim 10:47, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Scoring
I'd be curious to know the exact scoring of the orchestra. I'm surprised to see no mention of a French horn, as several times it really sounds like that to me. The notes are far too high for a trombone, and too mellow (to my ears) for a trumpet. Perhaps a trumpet using a loose plunger or hat or something? Can't find much on the web, which doesn't prove much. This refers to a 36 piece orchestra plus vocalists, whereas our article makes it 34: 18+4+4+3+3+2. Stevage 06:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Conflicting info
In the intro, the article currently reads:
 * It became The Beatles' 33rd and last number-one song in the United States on June 13, 1970.

Then later it reads:
 * On 13 June, it became The Beatles' twentieth and final number one single in America, according to Billboard magazine

Would somebody like to clarify this asap? I tried a quick google but I'm apparently incompitent (hence the mispelling of both incompetent and misspelling). Cheers, Rothery 22:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC).

Cleaning
This article needs a good clean with a stiff brush. --andreasegde (talk) 17:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I have changed a few things. --andreasegde (talk) 18:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I added a missing citation as request on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Beatles. While doing so, I noticed that there were a few references to Craig Cross' defunct website. I think Cross took the website down when he decided to publish the book that is also referenced in this article and contains all the material that used to be on his site. I have the book, and I will fix the refs today or soon.
 * BUT...
 * The citations in this article are a bit of a mess. I prefer a single "Notes" section where the first reference to a book (for example) lists the complete information and subsequent references (perhaps to different pages in the book) use a shorter entry. Other people evidently like all the Notes entries to be short, and they add a References section that gives the full details. When I edit an article, I try to follow whichever method is already used on the page. In this article, both methods are used, which makes it hard to decide how to add new citations. In addition, the formatting is pretty sloppy. Rather than complain here, I'd prefer to just fix it, but the article has been getting a fair bit of attention lately and I don't want to step on any toes.
 * Anyway, for the short-term, I'll volunteer to fix the Cross website references, converting them to references to his book, but will await further comment by other editors before doing anything else.
 * John Cardinal (talk) 16:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right about the references being sloppy. You should go ahead and change them as you think fit, John. I must say it's refreshing to talk about references and the quality of them, and to have (hopefully) passed the POV, vandalism, unreferenced and supposition remarks phase in an article. --andreasegde (talk) 13:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent)OK, part two. I cleaned up some of the citations, mostly Craig Cross stuff but others, too. There are still some problems:
 * 1) One of the statements supported by the Cross web site (defunct) are not covered by the Cross book as far as I can tell. Evidently, the content of the book does not match the web site exactly, or some prior editor's interpretation of the Cross text doesn't match mine. In any case, I left that citation in place. It's the only one that remains as a link to Cross' site.
 * 2) The Badman and Miles "Diary" sources/cites are a little confusing. They include published book elements (ISBN, etc.), but the cites are to online versions. Meanwhile, there are full "Notes" entries for both, and a "References" entry that seems to be for the Miles version, but has a different year, a different title, etc. I think the References entry should be removed.
 * 3) The diary entries don't always support the assertions for which they are cited. For example, the article says "On the 1976 Wings Over the World Tour, where it was one of the few Beatles songs played, it was performed on piano in a sparse and effective arrangement using a horn section", and the source is the Badman diary for 1975. If you actually go read that chapter, it says that McCartney performed the song on his 75/76 World Tour, but it says nothing about the being "performed on piano in a sparse and effective arrangement using a horn section." So--that statement is unsupported unless someone has a different source.

So far, the more I look, the more issues I find. They're mostly minor stuff, but fixing some of them may result in article content changes. John Cardinal (talk) 18:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * andreasegde, re: comments above about it being "refreshing to talk about references ...", I completely agree. I appreciate what you've done to clean up the article and I wish I had made that point above. John Cardinal (talk) 13:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
 * There is an old English saying about "I wish I had...". The reply is, "But you will John, you will", meaning that maybe you didn't do it in the past, but you will certainly do it in the future, which is a very nice compliment, and very positive. --andreasegde (talk) 19:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:WYGG.jpg
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Brown vs. Bown
Assertions in the article are cited to Cross, and Cross attributes comments to balance engineer Pete Brown. That's probably a mistake; the balance engineer was Pete Bown. Does someone have another source for the comments so we can cite the proper name? &mdash; John Cardinal (talk) 04:52, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Possibly confusion with Peter Brown. PurpleChez (talk) 19:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

A-Side, B-Side
The sidebar listed "For You Blue" as the A-side, while the text of the article lists it as the B-side. I'm certain that the latter is correct, and changed the sidebar accordingly. PurpleChez (talk) 19:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed?
I've noticed a 'citation needed' tag is present on this page, at this line: "Remarkably, a quite strong auto-tune effect has been applied to McCartney's voice, which makes the whole song sound somewhat synthetically, as it lacks the typical, imperfect McCartney vocal part."

Per FA criteria, a citation is needed at his point - a FA should never have a 'needs citation' tag, and it is legitimate grounds for removal IMO. My suggestion is to quickly remedy or remove the bit entirely, as this article has been put under review before. I'd hate to see an article get downgraded, but it may be justified if this is not fixed.  Toa   Nidhiki  05  01:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, the opinion presented in the text is both unattributed and uncited, and the edit that introduced it was unexplained; so I've removed it. Uniplex (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:46, 13 September 2011 (UTC).
 * Alright, very good. :)  Toa   Nidhiki  05  20:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Also, Auto-tune technology did not exist in 1970. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.52.120 (talk) 01:38, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

"Will Young version"?
Why does a 2002 cover version of this song by the relatively unknown "Will Young" receive such prominent treatment in this article? Just below the impressively detailed entry for the mysterious Mr. Young is a long but much less prominently-featured list of musical artists who have covered the song, among them such established and illustrious performers as Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Johnny Mathis, Cher, Kiri Te Kanawa and Barry Manilow. It seems to me that Mr. Young should be somewhere in this list. Perhaps towards the bottom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.52.120 (talk) 01:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Probably because Young's version "reached the top of the UK Singles Chart where it stayed for two consecutive weeks". If there is anyone else who released a cover as a notable single, we could expand the article for them as well.  GoingBatty (talk) 15:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Billy Preston on "electric piano" not "organ"
I have "Let it Be...Naked" and I didn't hear a Hammond organ in the song-I heard a Fender Rhodes electric piano. I assume that it was Billy Preston. I know the sounds of both the Hammond B-3 and the Fender Rhodes. He must have been playing the organ very softly because I didn't hear it.

Now I am not going to change the band lineup to this but this is my understanding of it: Paul McCartney-lead vocals, piano: John Lennon-Fender Bass VI: George Harrison-lead guitar: Ringo Starr-drums: Billy Preston-organ (???) and electric piano. In the article for "Let it Be" Preston is credited as having played electric piano and not as having played organ. But I guess what I just said before would be considered original research, wouldn't it?--Kevjgav (talk) 13:52, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, I think the confusion comes from the film where the vision shows Billy Preston playing a Hammond organ in the solo, however he doesn't appear to be playing the actual notes you hear in the audio, and further the audio is the sound of an electric piano not the Hammond like you said. It appears in the movie that they spliced in vision of him playing the organ from some other song.
 * See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxjaq1R3AYw at 2:22  Woodywoodpeckerthe3rd (talk) 23:04, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article to reflect that it is actually electric piano, consistent with Let It Be...Naked and Let It Be (album).   Woodywoodpeckerthe3rd (talk) 07:47, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Criticism of John Lennon's bass playing
I don't mean to be subjective, but in the Let It Be...Naked version of this song, I think that John Lennon didn't do too bad. I believe this is the same version as heard in the film. I also discussed this in the "Let It Be...Naked talk page. I don't know why Ian MacDonald described Lennon's bass playing as "atrocious to the point of sabotage." I guess it's possible that in the "Naked" version, Paul McCartney may have removed John Lennon's bassline and replaced it with his own. My only other thought is that the mistakes may have been fixed by studio technicians. I would like for other users to tell me what they think.--Kevjgav (talk) 20:29, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note that the "Naked" version is not the one used by Phil Spector for his overdubbing. Str1977 (talk) 13:58, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Is there a reason why John's bass playing was allegedly so bad as Ian MacDonald describes? I know that Paul believes that Spector should have just edited out the relevant mistakes and rerecord them, a technique supposedly used elsewhere on that album, but is there any proof to verify the claim of how it would've been a simple errand of having Paul overdub a new bassline to replace John's original? I don't know if Paul intended to replace John's bass part with his own or not if the wrong notes were played on purpose to "sabotage the song" as MacDonald claims, but let's face it: it's not like Sid Vicious was asked to play bass during the Apple sessions - he couldn't play bass at all, let alone with The Sex Pistols. 61.69.217.3 (talk) 01:37, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Recording session
The session originally consisted of Paul McCartney on Bluthner piano, John Lennon on Fender Bass VI, George Harrison on guitar, Ringo Starr on drums and Billy Preston on Fender Rhodes electric piano. When Phil Spector added the strings, brass and choir, McCartney regarded the song as having been ruined.--Kevjgav (talk) 20:32, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Concerns regarding FA quality
I've just tidied up the article a little, and removed some unsourced trivia. The article doesn't appear to me as either FA or GA quality in terms of coverage, prose, and MoS requirements - it was promoted in 2006, and reviewed again in 2008, and hasn't been well maintained. I will not have the time to tidy up the article or take my concerns further, however it seems appropriate to raise those concerns rather than merely pass on by, so, per the stage one process at Featured article review I am making a note here, and will ping relevant Projects.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  16:12, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Billy Preston on electric piano, NOT organ
Who changed the band lineup to "Billy Preston on organ?" Preston clearly plays electric piano in this song and this should be apparent to any keyboardist who listens to the Let It Be...Naked version, so I edited that accordingly. Consistent with Let It Be and Let It Be...Naked.--73.200.194.72 (talk) 23:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Billy Preston is seen playing organ in the movie. However he doesn't appear to be playing the actual notes you hear in the audio, and furthermore, the audio is the sound of an electric piano, not an organ.--73.200.194.72 (talk) 23:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Suitability of reference used in article
You are invited to join the discussion at WT:BEATLES. Ojorojo (talk) 18:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC) —Ojorojo (talk) 18:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Genre?
The genre is listened as Rock, but I don’t see it that way. Wouldn’t this song be considered more of a soft rock or pop ballad than just Rock? Opollo03 (talk) 03:21, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that it isn't Rock Music. Personally I consider it to be Pop Music, though for anything to be listed as a genre, besides the band's standard genre, it would need to be sourced. ― C.Syde  ( talk  |  contribs ) 07:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Questions about source quality
Sorta like with Something (Beatles song), there's an ongoing thing going on to doublecheck old FAs. The idea is to see where improvements can be made to these articles, and to ideally avoid WP:FAR. - You helped with figuring out what sources were okay and what should be marked as notes for future improvement. There's a lot of overlap between this one and the last one in sources, so that makes things easier. Again, the idea is to see how this article can be improved, not to go around stripping stars.

The ones I have questions about are:


 * Is John Whelan going to be considered an expert for his Beatles timeline?
 * Graham Calkin clearly produces a lot of output on the Beatles, but are his self-published works widely cited by others?
 * My experience with the Daily Mirror is that it is a sub-optimal tabloid-type source, but others may have differing opinoins.
 * Not sure that musicoutfitters.com is the best source for chart positions (my browser also says it has iffy security and won't let me access it)
 * Tropicalglen.com is not going to be the best source for Cash Box chart positions, are those available online elsewhere?
 * Whats The Morton Report

There's a couple citation needed tags, but nothing too serious. Overall, this looks like it shouldn't be too hard to fix if we can figure out what sources are okay and what would need replacement.


 * Didn't get the ping (so perhaps neither will Koncorde) but I watch the page anyway.
 * In fact, highlighted this as a problem FA at the Beatles project page, years ago, from memory. I did some work since then, trying to improve it, but it doesn't surprise me to hear there may still be a few problem areas. (Btw, when you mention the Something song article, that is all sorted now, not ongoing? Discussion there has since been archived at Talk:Something (Beatles song).)
 * Looking at those sources, they should be easy to replace, as you say. (Some of them should never have been used here, imo, given the wealth of literature and other coverage on the Beatles.) The only one I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with is The Morton Report. That links to Andrew Morton's page, of course, but it's not as if he writes the music content on that arts/entertainment website. Perhaps others know more than I do about this; from my very limited involvement with The Morton Report as a source for Wikipedia, the pieces are always written by others. JG66 (talk) 05:52, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I forgot to sign, apparently, so that's the issue with the pings not going through. Thanks for taking a look at this.  My only music contribution is the low-quality David Ashley Parker from Powder Springs, so I'm not sure how useful I will be with working on music FAs.  And yes, the Something song discussion is completely resolved, and it has been marked as satisfactory at the old featured articles study. Hog Farm Talk 16:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This looks okay for FA to me. I'll be marking it as satisfactory at WP:URFA/2020, and if you think it's satisfactory as well,, I'd invite you to do so as well. Hog Farm Talk 06:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I know the sources are a whole lot better,, but I think there are a couple of points unsourced – in that the reference never actually supported all the text that precedes it. I noticed one or two examples; perhaps I'll get back on it, although I can't say the song's one that interests me a great deal (ie, it feels like hard work!) . As mentioned, this article was flagged on the project page as a problem FA, years ago, so ... JG66 (talk) 09:02, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay. I'll mark this as one with notes and pointing to this discussion then.  It doesn't have to be perfect, and this one is very far from the worst, so I don't anticipate this one seeing FAR anytime in the near future. There's some rather iffy ones at WP:FAR right now, and this one is nowhere near that level. Hog Farm Talk 16:15, 18 February 2021 (UTC)