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Rating: "Let It Be", as can be inferred from the title and the cover, is a remake of the Beatles' album of the same name.
Knowing the desecrating spirit that has always distinguished the Slovenian formation, we are not overly surprised: the entire work of the industrial act Laibach, if you look closely, is a ruthless process of transfiguring rock conventions, especially in its most canonical and commercial dimension. We have caught them red-handed multiple times, violating top chart titles ("One Vision" by Queen, "The Final Countdown" by Europe, "Dogs of War" by Pink Floyd, the famous "Jesus Christ Superstar" from the musical of the same name, "Life is Life" by Opus, "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Stones, shredded into seven hallucinatory versions). And in this massacre game, where the originals are overturned and stripped of their original meaning, not even Lennon and his companions, the most untouchable of all, are spared.
However, one should not think of it as a simple prank by a group of merry pranksters. Laibach's music actually has a well-defined conceptual value, and it is no coincidence that their choice fell this time on the Beatles, an immortal icon of popular rock, and on their last album, certainly not the best, a product of the disintegration that was already affecting the band in recent times and would end the dazzling career of the four from Liverpool. In this choice, it is evident, an attack on institutions (because the Beatles, like it or not, have become an institution). Reproducing in full the swan song of the most acclaimed rock band on the globe becomes an opportunity to celebrate the decadence of rock in its entirety and reflect on the meaning of this phenomenon in our society.
Always masters of provocation (they were among the first to adopt a warlike iconography, a choice that exposed them to ideological criticism from the start of their career) and intent on drawing parallels between totalitarian regimes and Western "democracy", Laibach decide to target rock, a symbol of a society that flaunts well-being, freedom, and opulence. Are we sure this isn't just a parade, I mean rock, that acts as a screen (like the entire entertainment apparatus) to shady dealings passing over our oblivious heads?
Laibach responds by dehumanizing rock, blending it in their ruthless operation of sound butchery and returning it to us in a "totalitarian" form, bare and limping, devoid of all pathos and poetic intent. The creativity of the artist is thus replaced by machine programming, Lennon and McCartney's love song turns into robotic and inhuman verses, the libertarian joy of live happenings becomes the echo of mass rallies held by mad demagogues.
You may have guessed that, among martial rhythms, mighty wagnerian orchestrations, and driving Soviet choirs (the true trademark of the band), very little remains of the original compositions by Lennon/McCartney. Milan Fras' cavernous voice completes the picture, removing any trace of humanity from the whole. Fras' hoarse baritone singing, worthy heir to Eldritch (Sisters of Mercy) and a reference point for a myriad of artists to come (from EBM to Gothic, with Rammstein leading), paradoxically manages to embody the megalomania of a haranguer and at the same time the degradation of a deportee, stripping the decadent spleen from the dark tradition from which he evidently draws. And hearing him sing makes us wonder: is it possible that through rock speaks the voice of an occult persuader? A power that evidently no longer needs a face and a shining uniform? The cult of personality thus transfers to the current idol, the political allegiance ritual in the swaying gestures of the hysterical audience, which becomes a delirious mass sublimating its frustrations in an exercise of collective annihilation. And I am reminded of Freud's mass psychology and Marcuse's revolutionary sociology.
"Let it be so", don't change, don't think about it: don't think. This seems to be the new message of "Let It Be", which, mockingly, wasn't even included in the collection, yet another bad taste joke by Laibach, who decide to leave out the most famous track of the lot. It thus starts with an unrecognizable "Get Back", pressing percussion and tragic progress, and the refrain doesn't change: decaying iron curtain industrial, where the only episode recalling Beatles echoes is "Across the Universe", for female choirs only: a melodic parenthesis in a grotesque and threatening world. The rest is a slaughterhouse of samples, drum machines, military chants, and distorted guitars that contaminate an overall still electronic setting.
Moreover, the concept itself requires more rock-oriented nuances, since the Laibach creature (and we'll see it well in the future in works like "Jesus Christ Superstars") does not fear having to change its skin to pursue its conceptual goals. Laibach writes following a precise path (the very birth of the band, in 1980, the year of Tito's death, assumes a strong symbolic value), their albums are thesis essays and the apotheosis of the new sound is in "I’ve Got a Feeling", which reproduces the mood of a live performance, with such an applauding audience, thus apparently denying the band's electronic vocation.
The sounds (we are in 1988) are in reality bare and crude and could date back five years earlier, but these too play into Laibach's hands, who wisely recreate the tense and elephantine atmospheres of an enormous bureaucratic machine that inexorably crushes the individual and his emotions. Alienation, therefore, but also the suffocating stench of steam, the roughness of rust, the unbearable weight of the steelworks that go along with the incontrovertible imperatives of the Machine. To close the dance, we find the only piece that is not by the Beatles: the march "Maggie Mae", a revisitation of an air from the Slovenian folk tradition.
To prevent any ideological observation, it's important to clarify that Laibach, unlike other formations dedicated to the same atmospheres, embody the provocative spirit of early industrial, which shows and extremistly exaggerates what is to be demonized. Labeled as sympathizers of both the extreme left and extreme right, the true key to understanding Laibach's art is found in their satirical intent. And if it's true that our friends, by pushing the provocative spirit to the extreme, have mockingly managed to walk the fine line of ambiguity (famous is Fras' statement: "We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter"), it is also true that penetrating the mind of those who have truly lived through dictatorship, especially in a screwed-up context such as former Yugoslavia, is really a difficult thing.
What makes it all even more confusing is that Laibach's visual art (album covers, posters, but also images projected during concerts — let's remember Laibach originated as a multimedia project) is reminiscent of the art of Helmut Herzfeld (aka John Heartfield), an anti-Nazi and communist German artist, known for his satirical photomontages aimed at ridiculing Nazi propaganda.
Are Laibach just pulling our leg? In doubt, all that's left is to bow to the power of the Machine. Long live Laibach!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Get Back (04:25)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
Jajo was a man who though me was laner,
But he knew it couldn't last.
Jajo left his home in Tuscon, Arizona,
For some California glass.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you was belonged.
Get back, Jajo, go home.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you was belonged.
Get back, Jajo.
Sweet Loretta Modern thought she was a woman,
But he was another man.
All the girls is around her say she's got it coming,
But she gets it while she can.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you was belonged.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you was belonged.
Get back home, Loretta.
Your mammy is waiting for you,
Wearing her high hed shoes.
And her low mosk sweater,
Get back home, Loretta.
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you was belonged,
Get back, get back,
Get back to where you was belonged.
02 Two of Us (04:04)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
Two of us riding nowhere,
Spending someone's hard earned day.
You and me Sunday driving,
Not arriving on our way home.
Here on our way home,
Here on our way home,
We're going home.
Two of us sending postcards,
Writing letters on my wall.
You and me burning matehes,
Litting latches on our way back home.
Here on our way home,
Here on our way home,
We're going home.
You and I have memories
Longer than the road,
That stretchers out a head.
Two of us wearing raincoats,
Standing solo in the sun.
You and me closing paper,
Getting nowhere on our way back home.
Here on our way home,
Here on our way home.
We're going home.
04 Across the Universe (04:15)
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views inviting and inciting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
million suns, it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
05 I Me Mine (04:40)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
All thru' the day I me mine, I me mine, I me mine,
All thru' the night I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Nobody're frightened of leaving it,
Ev'ryone weaving it,
Coming on strong all the time,
All thru' the day I me mine.
I-I me-e mine, I-I me-me mine,
I-I me-e mine, I-I me-me mine.
All I can hear I me mine, I me mine, I me mine,
Even those tears I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Noone's frightened of playing it,
Ev'ryones saying it,
Flowing more fredy than wine.
Al thru' your life I me mine.
06 Dig It (01:31)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
Like a "Rolling Stone",
Like a "Rolling Stone",
Like a "Rolling Stone",
Like the FBI,
And the CIA,
And the BBC,
B.B.King,
And Doris Day,
Matt Busby,
Dig it...
07 Maggie Mae (Auf der Lüneburger Heide & Was gleicht wohl auf Erden) (03:43)
[Traditional]
Dirty Robin Maggie Mae,
Did I've taken here the way
And she never walked down lounch beat anymore?
Oh, the Church he quilly pounder,
Robin at home a bound,
That dirty noke Robin Maggie Mae.
Disapart of a little pew,
The edit turn me too,
Took part ten a week there was my pay.
08 I've Got a Feeling (04:35)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
I've got a feelin', a feelin' deep inside, oh yeah...oh yeah...
I've got a feelin', a feelin' I can't hide...oh no no...whoa no...
Yeah, yeah, I got a feelin', yeah...
Oh please believe me, I'd hate to miss the train...oh yeah...oh yeah...
Ooh, and if you leave me, I won't be late again, no no no, oh no...
Yeah, I've got a feelin', yeah...whew...ooh...oh yeah...
And I don't understand, how come nobody told me?
Why I'd want to sing like Milli Vanilli
All I ever wanted was someone who looked like you...you...oh...
I got a feelin', that keeps me on my toes, oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah...
Uh huh, I got a feelin', I think that everybody knows, oh yeah yeah, oh yeah...
Yeah, wow, I got a feelin', yeah...whoa...
Everybody had a good year, though we never saw the sunshine
Everybody had a wet dream, making Temple was a good time
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Everybody made a movie, everybody had one line
Everybody misses Andy, we'll be seein' him in no time
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
Ooh yeah, I got a feelin', yeah...oh...
I got a feelin', a feelin' deep inside, oh yeah yeah, oh yeah...
Ooh, I got a feelin', a feelin' i can't hide, oh no no, oh no...
Yeah...I got a feelin', yeah...yeah...ah...ooh...yeah...
09 The Long and Winding Road (01:48)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
The long and winding road,
That lead to your door
Will never disappear,
I've see that road before.
It's always leads me here -
Leads me to your door.
The while and windy night,
That a rain washed a way,
Has left a pool of tears,
Crying for the day.
Why leave me standing here,
Let me know the way.
Many time I've been along
And many time I've cried,
Anyway you'll never know
The many ways I've tried.
But still they lead me back,
To the long winding road,
Don't leave me standing here,
Lead me to your door.
But still they lead me back
To the long winding road,
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don't keep me waiting you,
Lead me to your door.
10 One After 909 (03:20)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
My baby says she's the one
After 9-0-9
I said move over honey,
I'm traveling on that line.
I said move over once, move over twice,
Come on, baby, don't be cold as ice,
I said I'm trav'ling on one after 9-0-9
I begged her not to go
And I begged her on my bended knees,
You're only fooling around,
You're fooling around with me.
I said move over once, move over twice,
Come on, baby, don't be cold as ice,
I said I'm trav'ling on one after 9-0-9.
I've got my beg, run to the station,
Then I said you've got a number wrong,
I've got my beg, run right home,
Then I find I've got a number wrong.
Well, I said I'm traveling on one
After 9-0-9
I said move over honey,
I'm traveling on that line.
I said move over once, move over twice.
Come on, baby, don't be cold as ice.
I said I'm trav'ling on one after 9-0-9.
I've got my beg, run to the station,
Then I said you've got a number wrong,
I've got my beg, run right home.
Then I find I've got a number wrong
Well, I said I'm traveling on one
After 9-0-9,
I said move over honey,
I'm traveling on that line.
I said move over once, move over twice,
Come on, baby, don't be cold as ice,
I said I'm trav'ling on one after 9-0-9.
I said I'm traveling on one
After 9-0-9...
11 For You Blue (05:09)
[Originally performed by The Beatles]
Your lips are sweet and lovely, girl,
I love you.
Because you're sweet and lovely, girl,
It's true.
I love you more than ever girl I do.
I want you in the morning, girl,
I love you.
I want you at the moment
I feel blue
And ever ev'ry moment girl to you.
I want you from the moment
I saw you.
You looked at me - that's all you
Had to do.
I feel it how I hope you feel to do.
Because you're sweet and lovely, girl,
I love you.
Because you're sweet and lovely, girl,
It's true.
I love you more than ever girl I do.
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