Vinyl Nostalgia Back to The Beatles discography
Tracklist
Side A
- Two Of Us (3:27)
- Dig A Pony (3:54)
- Across The Universe (3:49)
- I Me Mine (2:26)
- Dig It (0:50)
- Let It Be (4:03)
- Maggie Mae (0:41)
Side B
- I've Got A Feeling (3:38)
- One After 909 (2:55)
- The Long And Winding Road (3:38)
- For You Blue (2:33)
- Get Back (3:07)
Labels & dead wax
Visual reference for this specific pressing. Click any image to enlarge.
Why this pressing matters
The third pressing of Let It Be is most easily bought by mistake as an earlier one. The matrix pair 773-3U / 774-3U appears in the run-out of both this 1971 to 1973 run and one of the variants of the second pressing from late 1970 into early 1971. Sellers routinely describe 3U/3U discs as "first pressing" which obviously is not the case. A buyer who knows only the rule that a low suffix means an early pressing hits a dead end here: the suffix is low, and the pressing is later anyway.
This makes the third pressing an instructive case rather than a buying target. A matrix number rises only when EMI cuts a fresh lacquer. Discs pressed from the same lacquers across several years carry the same suffix, so a 3U/3U pair says nothing about the year of pressing. The label settles the question.
How to authenticate this pressing
Specific verification cues for this exact variant.
On the collector market the third pressing was never rare. The album sold in the millions, and the light green label is one of the commonest forms of Let It Be in circulation. The third pressing breaks with the dark green of the November variant: the label is noticeably lighter, and the "33 1/3" marking appears in its large variant rather than the small one. Those two details, colour and the size of the figure, are the only reliable dating markers.
The practical takeaway for a collector: the third pressing is not a premium object but a reference point. Held beside an earlier dark green pressing, it shows exactly where the line between variants runs, and it cures any habit of trusting the matrix alone.
Historical context & other notes
From the main release
Album Let It Be closed the band's studio catalogue with a chronological twist. The sessions, held in January 1969 at Twickenham and at the Apple studio under the working title Get Back, were finished more than a year before the album reached the shops. Abbey Road, recorded later, came out earlier, in September 1969. The tapes carrying the Get Back material sat in storage, rejected in two assembly versions by Glyn Johns, until Lennon and Harrison handed them to Phil Spector. The album appeared on 8 May 1970, barely a month after McCartney announced the group had split.
In the UK the launch had an unusual commercial structure. The first edition was not a standalone album but the Apple PXS 1 box set: the PCS 7096 disc, a sleeve, and the 164-page book The Beatles Get Back with photographs by Ethan Russell and text by Jonathan Cott and David Dalton. Despite the higher price, on 23 May 1970 the album reached number one on the chart, held the top spot for three weeks, and spent a total of 59 weeks on that chart. Within six months, however, production of the box and the book was halted, and Let It Be was made available in November 1970 as a standalone album under the same catalogue number, PCS 7096.
The disc itself was pressed at the EMI factory in Hayes, Middlesex, where the metal parts, lacquers, matrices, mothers, and stampers were also produced. The plant reached its production peak in the 1960s, employing around 14,000 people across a 150-acre site. The fully laminated covers were printed by Garrod & Lofthouse.
The historical anomaly of this release is twofold. First, the reversed order: the last Beatles album to be released contains material older than the recording and release of Abbey Road. Second, the two-stage launch: the PCS 7096 disc first served as a component of an expensive box set, and only after that set was withdrawn did it become a cheaper standalone release. And one more thing. The Get Back book had weak binding, and copies with a complete set of pages that have not fallen out are today more sought after than the disc itself.
Other releases
This album's releases in other countries, or special editions within the same market. Full per-country chronology lives in each country's hub page.
