From a Beatles anthem to one about the Yom Kippur War. The relationship between "Let It Be" by The Beatles and "Lu Yehi" by Naomi Shemer
Let it be, let it be
Mary Patricia Mohin was born on September 29, 1909 in Liverpool. Her father was born in Monaghan, Ireland, and moved to Liverpool to work as a coal merchant, where he met Mary Theresa Danher, whom he married in 1905. The domestic situation was never very stable so a still very young Mary Patricia moved in with some aunts and began working as a nursing assistant in 1923; the profession would call her forever, and she decided to study to become a registered nurse. During World War II, she assisted during the intense bombings that destroyed much of the city of Liverpool, causing thousands of deaths and injuries.
It was during these years that Mary met Jim McCartney, seven years her senior. It happened in 1940 when she was lodging with Jin, McCartney's sister (mentioned many years later in the song "Let 'Em In" by Wings as "auntie Jin"), which speaks about the precarious housing situation in a devastated Liverpool. Mary and Jim married in April 1941 in a Catholic ceremony.
Jim was, before Mary, a confirmed bachelor and an amateur musician who actually considered his daytime jobs as a side project. His enthusiasm for traditional jazz—which he later passed on to his children, as will be seen—overshadowed his feelings for the cotton industry where he worked. But the marriage was solid. Their firstborn, Paul McCartney, arrived on June 18, 1942. The second son, Michael, on January 7, 1944. Both were born at Walton Centre, where Mary was head midwife.
The family was reasonably happy and, for the time, they had a progressive dynamic because Mary was a provider as much—or even more—than Jim. However, in 1956, Mary underwent a mastectomy after several months of chest pains. The operation did not go well. Mary died of an embolism on October 31, 1956. She was buried three days later at Yew Tree Cemetery on Finch Lane. It was a hard blow for the family. The two young sons coped with grief in different ways; fortunately, they had music and art, two things that Jim always promoted with the kids. In the end, both became artists in their own right.
Michael, who used the pseudonym Mike McGear and was part of groups like The Scaffold, released an album titled Woman in 1972; the cover photo features Mary in her nurse's attire. Two years earlier, Paul recorded with his group, The Beatles, a song that mentions her in the lyrics, a pop standard through and through: "Let It Be."
The song was a worldwide hit in 1970 and, with its anthem-like qualities, was soon co-opted to serve various intentions. It's easy to imagine it being played in churches, as there has always been some confusion with the reference to "Mother Mary" sung by Paul McCartney in the first verse; even in the early reviews of the single in the British and American press, there is mention of the fact that it is a "religious" song—or at least it resembles one.
The truth is that it does not refer to the Virgin Mary of Christianity (although Paul has always been clear in saying that anyone can interpret the song as they wish: ultimately it is a song that serves to comfort), but plainly to his mother Mary. Paul claims he dreamed of her during the complicated days of 1968-1969 when the song was written and recorded, which have been well documented in audio and video, as evidenced by the documentaries Let It Be (Michael Lindsay Hogg, 1970) and Get Back (Peter Jackson, 2021).
The first time "Let It Be" was registered was on September 19, 1968, while the group was working on George Harrison's "Piggies" during the White Album sessions. McCartney sang snippets of the song between takes, with no intention of properly recording it. During the Get Back project sessions, which began at Twickenham Studios on January 3, 1969, Paul also brought up the song. There is an early recording from January 8 rehearsed with the full group, but it wasn't until January 23 that they began recording it, seeking a definitive version, when the group had already moved to their Apple Studios at 3 Savile Row.
Two final takes were made on the 31st, one day after the famous rooftop concert: one forms the basis of the song released later as a single (March 6, 1970) and on the eponymous album (May 8, 1970), the other appears played live in the Let It Be film (May 13, 1970) and, many years later, in the deluxe box set of the album (October 15, 2021). On April 30, 1969, George Harrison recorded a new guitar solo, used in the single version; on January 4, 1970, he recorded another version of the solo used on the album version. It has been a pop standard ever since.
Let it happen, make it happen
Naomi Shemer (born Naomi Sapir) was born at the Kinneret kibbutz—which her parents helped found—in northern Israel, on July 13, 1930. Her formative years were spent on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. At the age of twenty, she joined Nahal—an acronym for Noar Halutzi Lohem, the Fighting Pioneer Youth—a program of the Haganah, the Israeli Defense Forces, combining military, social, educational, and agricultural work through farming. Part of her duties included organizing shows for soldiers. Later, she studied music at the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem and then in Tel Aviv with a group that included Josef Tal (composer and great promoter of Israeli contemporary music), Ilona Vincze-Kraus (Hungarian composer, student of Béla Bartók), Paul Ben-Haim (composer and Israel Prize winner in 1957), and Abel Ehrlich (composer and Israel Prize winner in 1997).
Naomi Shemer is widely known in the modern Middle East for her song ירושלים של זהב (Yerushalayim Shel Zahav), translated as "Jerusalem of Gold," first performed in 1967. It could be considered as an unofficial anthem of Israel following the Six-Day War.
In 1973, Shemer also saw an opportunity to appropriate "Let It Be," this time as a peace anthem. Her idea was to translate the lyrics so that Chava Alberstein, one of the most popular Israeli singers of all time, could perform it; thus, the original Beatles melody would remain, but sung in Hebrew.
In the end, it didn't happen that way: Shemer created a very loose translation of the lyrics but ended up writing an original melody, though clearly inspired by "Let It Be." It was called "ול יהי" (Lu Yehi), and it became one of the most intensely listened-to songs in Israel during the fall and winter of 1973-1974.
There is a distinctly Jewish detail in this story: intentional wordplay that evokes the philological analyses of the sages of the Talmud. The phrase "let it be" can be interpreted as a passive way of resolving something: allowing it to happen, not intervening; waiting, because the solution will eventually come, whatever happens will be fine. Or perhaps, living intensely in the present without expecting anything more than what is happening, without trying to change it, being one with the moment.
However, in the Hebrew translation, the phrase takes on another meaning, one of prayer. Instead of "let it be," the emphasis is on the verb, "let it be", as in "let it happen." We could even derive the meaning as "make it happen," far from the passive contemplation of the original intention; it is an active petition, a call to not go with the flow but to fight it and try to stop it so that something else—something different— can happen.
Seen this way, it can be taken as a modern psalm. The chorus says "לו יהי אנא לו יהי" (lu yehí, aná, lu yehí), which could be translated as "let it happen, please [God], let it happen" (although, with Hebrew's plurality of meanings, it could also be translated as "if only, please, if only" which nonetheless carries a similar linguistic intention).
The issue becomes deeper when considering that the Yom Kippur War broke out in October 1973, during that same period. Instead of accepting what is, as McCartney seems to do in "Let It Be," Shemer rebels and begs for a positive outcome. "Lu Yehi" became a canticle for the safe return of the young Israeli soldiers who went to war.
The sentiment still holds today, especially after October 7, 2023 and its long and painful aftermath.
בתוך שכונה קטנה מוצלת
בית קט עם גג אדום
כל שנבקש לו יהי.
זה סוף הקיץ סוף הדרך
תן להם לשוב הלום
כל שנבקש לו יהיIn a small and gloomy neighborhood
A little house with a red roof
What we ask for is
At the end of summer, at the end of the road
That they return here
What we ask for is...
Let it be, let it be.
"Lu Yehi" is also a song that calls for reconciliation and peace, an appropriation and redefinition of a universal Beatles message that is particularized in this case with profound meaning. Although The Beatles had already disbanded by then—and, as newspapers and chronicles of the time attest, not without acrimony—their intent to convey a message of possibility through music crystallized in a distant country with a very different culture, thanks to a woman with a special sensitivity. Naomi Shemer created an anthem from another and, through the voice of Chava Alberstein, made a new classic inspired by "Let It Be." This is how creativity works, this is how culture works, through adaptation and appropriation.
The Beatles' influence reaches, sometimes, unsuspected places.
C/S