The final release to the public from The Beatles was the 1970 film and album, Let It Be. As part of its original design, it was supposed to provide an inside look at the creation of a Beatles album, and while the end results did feature some amazing music and the film concluded with an exhilarating rooftop concert, the final product flew in the face of its conception.

When it was all said and done, the inescapable fact was that the Fab Four was no more, the ’60s were over and we might as well move along because there was nothing left to see there. As predicted by writer Thomas Wolfe, you can’t go home again. Although now maybe you can.

Director Peter Jackson — the creative vision behind the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies — recently announced a new version of Let It Be, which is being created from unprecedented access to 55 hours of film footage and over 100 hours of audio recordings made during those original sessions. It’s also a version that he promises will be more upbeat than the original — well, let’s face it: it couldn’t really get any more depressing.

To talk about Let It Be, both the original and what we’ve decided to call Take Two (we’re creative like that), the focus of this episode of the CloserWeekly.com Classic TV & Film Podcast is being turned to journalist Steve Matteo, author of The Beatles’ Let It Be, which has been published by Continuum as part of its 33 1/3 series. The publisher describes it as follows: “The recording sessions for Let It Be actually began as rehearsals for a proposed return to live stage work for the Beatles, to be inaugurated in a concert at a Roman amphitheater in Tunisia. In this thoroughly researched book, Steve Matteo delves deep into the complex history of these sessions. He talks to a number of people who were in the studio with the Beatles, recording the sights and sounds of the band at work bringing to life a period in the Beatles’ career that was creative and chaotic in equal measure.”

Please join us on our journey back through time.

And check out our podcast interview with Micky Dolenz regarding The Monkees.