My Favourite Beatles Song
My Favourite Beatles Song
Let It Be – Sophia Bennett
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Sophia Bennett writes as SJ Bennett. She's the author of more than a dozen novels, best known for a mystery series in which the late Queen Elizabeth II secretly solves crimes. Her latest, Death on the Royal Yacht, is set in 1966 – so yes, the Beatles turn up. Here she discusses Let It Be, and how it helped her through difficult times. We also talk about her DJ dad and go-go dancing mum, the Mal Evans "Brother Malcolm" story, the song's hymn-like chords, and the day she nearly met Paul McCartney in Harvey Nichols.
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Welcome to my favourite Beatles song, the podcast where we celebrate the music of the Beatles with a distinguished guest. I'm Tim Tucker, and with me today is author S. J. Bennett, or Sophia Bennett, I should call you. Welcome, Sophia.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for having me, Tim. Really looking forward to this.
SPEAKER_05You are uh the author of um over a dozen novels, I understand, for adults and children. Um, best known, I think, for your your mystery series featuring the the late Queen Elizabeth II as a secret solver of crimes, which I'm uh delighting in at the moment. And um, we'll talk more about your books later, but uh I know that there are a few mentions of the Beatles in your latest book, Death on the Royal Yacht, because it's set in 1966, isn't it? So there's some delightful references there.
SPEAKER_00Well, it was one of the things I was looking forward to, actually, setting it in my birth year in 1966 and knowing that the Beatles would be there. Um was yeah, it gave me a lot of joy to know that that was going to happen.
SPEAKER_05We'll come back to that, but um, before that, let me just uh establish some some facts about yourself and your relationship to the Beatles. So, um what what is your earliest memory of the Beatles?
SPEAKER_00Um I mean it goes back as far as my memories go. I I'm an army child, and um my father was an officer in the army and sort of in the in the 60s and 70s it wasn't paid very well, and he needed a side gig, even though he was a captain in the army at the time. Um and he was a DJ. So uh we had an estate car, and I would travel in the back of it sometimes because those were the days, no seat belts or anything. Um, but it was really for all of his kit. And I remember his his lights, he had those fantastic kind of lava lamps and and the lights that slowly, slowly rotate with a celluloid on, um, which we use for children's birthday parties. So my mother was his go-go dancer, so they would leave me with um a babysitter who was called Elizabeth Taylor, um, and and go off and do this. And so he was really into music, um, and the house was always full of it, and they were in their 20s in the 1960s, and there was a lot of Beatles, um, and particularly, I would say, a lot of Sergeant Pepper. Um, so I just I knew all of it, and I feel incredibly lucky that I grew up from my earliest childhood listening to really clever, witty lyrics and creative, inventive music, with parents going, isn't this fantastic? You know, um, and then my father switched more into the stones as time went by. Um, but I think I think my earliest memory is hearing Lucy in the Sky with diamonds, as as, you know, as John says inspired by a child's drawing and and being a child of about that age and going, Yeah, you know, I I would do a drawing like that. That makes total sense to me. Um just feeling really, really seen basically at the age of about three.
SPEAKER_05Uh and the Beatles around the house then. So he would spin those tunes, presumably, uh, as part of his set.
SPEAKER_00He would, yeah, yeah, very much so. Um, and then whenever Top of the Pops came on, we had to stop whatever we were doing and all sit down. And my mother was a dancer by training, so we had to watch Pans people, um, whoever was around and and see what the dancing was was going on. And she was often making costumes because they they put on shows as well and included dancing. So yeah, lots of music going on in Beatles, Beatles definitely are favourite. Every now and again, my mother would put on Beethoven just to train me that there was other stuff, but it was mostly Lennon McCartney.
SPEAKER_05And um, so you've obviously followed them ever since. Have you got a favourite period of the Beatles?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's I mean, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because their whole career is so telescoped, it's it's short. Um, but I I I come into it about rock rubber soul, I guess, and I particularly adore Norwegian wood. I mean, again, the lyrics are just so clever. Um, and and Michelle, my mother's best friend was called Michelle, so that was really nice. And in my life, I particularly adore. Um, and then I've got a couple on Revolver, which sort of feels a bit edgier. I mean, I love Tax Man. You know, I I learned a lot about tax theory, you know, it's one for you, 19, one for me, 19 for you. Um still kind of influences my thinking a bit. So there's that, and obviously Eleanor Rigby, but uh Sergeant Pepper is is is the big one, and then and then Abbey Road. I hadn't realized how many Abbey Road tracks I I really love. So it goes on goes kind of right on till the end after that.
SPEAKER_05Have you ever met any of the Beatles or they were entourage or seen any of them live?
SPEAKER_00Well, my story is about the most tangential one that you are ever going to get on your podcast, I think. And it's a little bit like you know, I write about the late Queen Elizabeth II. Did I ever meet her? No, I saw her from a distance. Uh people I know intimately knew her very, very well. I did not meet her. Similar story. Um Best I can do is um my husband and I were shopping in London, and we happened to be in Harvey Nichols many years ago, and my husband nudged me afterwards and said, Did you see him? And I went, No. And Paul McCartney was like, you know, two, a few yards away, and in a very English way, my husband had just nodded to Paul McCartney. Paul McCartney had just nodded to my husband, and they'd gone about their way as English gentlemen do. Um I think that's the right approach from everyone I've talked to.
SPEAKER_05Um, I don't think it's a good idea to go up and hassle um, you know, celebrities, but I think nodding seems seems, you know, hello. You've had some sort of contact then, haven't you? That feels that feels right to me.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_05So good on him. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He can get on with his day. Um, I mean, going back to my my parents, as I say, that you know, that they were the ones who discovered all of this and passed it on to me. Um and and my father had had moved on to the Rolling Stones. And I mean, at one point he said he wanted jumping jack flash, played at his funeral, so we'll we'll see if that happens. Um but um yeah, he he wrote me. Um I was at boarding school, and my mother was a person who wrote to me uh most of the time. But one time he wrote me a 14-page letter um because he just spent the the night in a club with the with the stones, because he'd helped oh, long story, but he helped um them choose the nightclub where they were going to have their after party in Berlin in 1982, because by then he was a lieutenant colonel in the army. Um so anyway, there he was, and he was sitting with uh oh, Charlie Watts was his favourite because my father was a drummer, um, he's a drummer, and um but he was sitting down with Mick particularly, and it turned out they had a lot in common, apart from the financial side of things, but they were both in charge of a similar number of people, which I thought was really interesting, and they were both having to make quite big decisions every day, and they both had a really intense fitness regime. So they had this lovely long chat.
SPEAKER_05What a letter to get.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was lovely. But my my favourite story, which about about the Beatles, is my my grandmother was was pretty hip, and she sent them Sergeant Pepper in 1967 when it came out, and at that stage they were uh posted out in Malaysia, and I think they were probably the first people outside Kuala Limpa to get the vinyl, which I have downstairs, and it's just it's it's so special, and and it's a bit scratched by now because you know we've we've played it to death. But I have this wonderful picture of them, I mean, you know, it's a photograph of them, both uh barefoot dancing at night with flowers in their hair, and it's probably Lucy in the sky with diamonds, and yeah, it's just a really special physical object to have When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Fairy comes to me, speaking words of wisdom.
SPEAKER_02Let it be. And in my hour of darkness, she is standing.
SPEAKER_05The song you've chosen to discuss today is Let It Be. It was written by Paul McCartney, started in Rishakesh, India, between February and March 1968, and finally recorded in January 1969 at Apple Studios and at Savile Row for what eventually became the album Let It Be and also the single. It was released as a single in the UK on the 6th of March 1970 and on the 11th of March 1970 in the US, uh, and on the album Let It Be on the 8th of May 1970 in the UK and the 18th of May 1970 in the US. The album went to number one. In the UK, actually, uh the single was kept off the top by Lee Marvin's Wandering Star, but in US it got to number one and knocked uh Bridge Over Trouble Water off the top, which uh seems somehow apt.
SPEAKER_00It does seem apt, I agree.
SPEAKER_05Given what what uh John thought. So those are the facts. But tell us what um what led you to uh choose this song?
SPEAKER_00Um well I I've had different favourite Beatles songs over the years. Obviously, at one stage it was paperback writer for quite a long time, and Origin Woods. But this one um in recent years has been my favourite because, and this will come back to the Beatles, but in 2018 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it was early on and it was all treated really well, and it went fine. And uh and in the the kind of bubbling up of happiness after that was over, I started the series that I'm writing now. And then uh sort of as I reached my five-year mission thing, um, in 2023, I uh was diagnosed with a different cancer, and I made the mistake of Googling this one when I got home, and I wasn't gonna go down any rabbit holes or anything, but the first thing I saw was the survival rate, and it was so awful that it just kind of took my breath away. And I I realized that I was going to have to come to terms with it somehow in order to just kind of carry on. And I should say at this point, so this was 2023, and now I am fine. Um, and I don't think they particularly use the words in remission, but I I mean I sort of am. Um and I'm doing Pilates and it's all it all went well. But you know, at that stage, um the stats weren't great. Um and friends of mine have processed their diagnosis in different ways, so it's different for everybody. And for some people, it's like I'm just gonna fight this all the way, and that carries them through. But for me, it was I had to understand what the worst case scenario would be in build up. And at that stage, our youngest child, we've got four, but our youngest um was just starting his A levels, and it was, you know, would I would I see him graduate? Um and I was looking for stories that would give me hope. And the story that did, more than anything else, quite early on, was that uh Paul and John bonded through the fact that they had lost their mothers. And I sort of knew that individually they had, um, but I never really put two and two together, that that was something that uh that they might consciously share. But I just sort of hadn't thought about that. And my first thought was, well, they did okay, you know, individually and creatively. Um bloody hell, they they got through that. Um, and that gave me, I can't tell you the tremendous amount of comfort that gave me. And also our youngest is uh is a very talented guitarist and a musician generally, um he's just gone back to uni with a with a keyboard and a guitar that he could hardly fit in the car. Um and so knowing that meant that I could just park that thought, not think about it anymore. Whatever happens, worst case scenario, we'll be fine. And then I could just focus on living my life to the fullest, which I have done ever since. With enormous thanks to Paul, because I I've always been a Paul girl. I mean, I know I know people can take sides, um, but it's just it's just always kind of been Paul for me. Um and then of course we've got the song itself and what it says, um, and and then in the middle of all the the chaos and drama that they were dealing with during the sessions and everything, this this moment of stillness and calm, and and so the lyrics of it fit with the story that that sort of got me through, and that's that's why.
SPEAKER_02Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. Whisper words of wisdom, let it be. And when the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer.
SPEAKER_05So the the song, as it's of come to us, has Mother Mary of obviously in it, doesn't it? And um Paul McCartney's.
SPEAKER_00Well, my mother's called Marie, by the way, which is you know, this is another connection, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so um, yeah, the line uh Mother Mary comes to me. Um this is a quote from many years from now. Uh I had a dream, I saw my mum who'd been dead 10 years or so, and it was so great to see her because that's a wonderful thing about dreams. You actually are reunited with that person for a second. In the dream, she said it'll be all right. I'm not sure if she used the words let it be, but that was the gist of her advice, which is um uh another lovely connection. I can see why that would present comfort. It's quite an ambiguous term, let it be, isn't it? Um, in terms of its message.
SPEAKER_00It's it's not an everything is gonna be fine, which is actually unhelpful at the time at the place where I was. Uh deeply unhelpful, actually. It's not that, it's just kind of whatever happens will be okay. You you can let go and you can ride this. That's how I interpret it. And that that is really helpful.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and there are I've always found it ambiguous in the um in the song, actually, because there are times when it means let it be, let it be how it will be, as you say. Um, and there are other times where it feels like he's saying, let it be, leave it alone, don't you know, turn away. That's yes. Um, so that's a sort of ambiguity to that phrase in my mind. Um, I've I uh this is making me feel very emotional hearing your story, and I'm so pleased that you've come through. But he's Paul was um in many years from now, he said one of the last things his mother said was, I would have liked to have seen the boys growing up. Um, and to me, that colours all of this song, really. That there's his mother hovering over it, certainly. Obviously, Mother Mary has a quasi-religious overtone to it as well, doesn't it? Which is reflected in the tone of the song.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's interesting because um I was brought up Catholic, um, and maybe that's why I find that interpretation, which I get completely slightly overbearing. Um, I'd for me, I prefer it just as more of a family thing than a than the religious thing.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yes, yeah, but you can see how others, certainly gospel singers like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin have picked up on that and done beautiful covers of this song, haven't they? With that kind of sentiment in mind.
SPEAKER_01When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my darkness, she's standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
SPEAKER_05I should mention now that that reading has been challenged by Mal Evans, the band's famous roadie, who said that when it was first written, it was actually Brother Malcolm. Um, and it was about the dream was actually that he'd come to Paul. There is a version on the white album box set, a very early run through of this before they got obviously it wasn't on the white album, um, where they run through it and you can hear him singing Malcolm, not uh Mary. So that that does seem to back that up.
SPEAKER_00Okay, there's evidence. I've been reading recently, I can't think where it was, about sometimes the legend is better than anything that might that might uh muddy the waters.
SPEAKER_05Paul says in the lyrics that he might have subconsciously picked it up from Hamlet. Um there's a uh a line, oh I could tell you, but let it be, Horatio, I am dead, um, which he says he would have had to have uh memorised for at school, and that could have subconsciously seeped into his into the meaning of the song.
SPEAKER_00Uh but of course we've got to be or not to be. So, you know, that there's that sort of hovering there as well. Of course, yeah. Um yeah, I mean I the the word smithery of of all of them, actually, all four of them, is something that I keep coming back to. I'd I I my the first person who I felt I discovered was Ian Dury, really, who I I stayed with. And again, it's it's it's the lyric. I mean, I I think the blockheads are an incredible band, but um it's the lyrics there are clever. But uh probably I I I graduated to him because of the Beatles. And so yeah, there's so much in their their wordsmithing that that has influenced me, I think. I mean, even like just the name Sergeant Pepper, for example, uh it didn't really occur to me that it might have come from salt and pepper, but maybe it resonated with me because it did. And the fact that they captured that lightning in a bottle, just mild confusion, is fabulous. And I mean, I think probably my favourite line is, you know, now we know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall. I mean, again, as somebody who's like five, it blew my mind that I understood exactly what that meant, but it it but it was also absurd, and um gosh, they were good.
SPEAKER_05We can talk a bit about the music as well, because it's the the the term hymnal has been applied to this, this song. And I think that's partly the arrangement with piano, organ, obviously with the Phil Spectre version of choirs and and so on, but it's also the way it's written, it's it's almost entirely, if you'll forgive me being a little bit um technical here, it's almost entirely diatonic, which means all the chords belong to the key. There's there's only one note that's out of the key, and that's very fleeting. Um, so it's very, very hymnal in that sense, and it has what's known as a plagal cadence, which is a four to one cadence, which is like an Amen. Amen, which is um, you know, let it be. It always ends up back on that Amen cadence, and I think that really keeps the atmosphere of the song in tune with its lyrics, which is always a great thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It feels very disciplined as a song, very contained, which again, yeah, very contemplative. I I do remember somebody quite recently made a track list of Paul being sad and angry, which is very much not the Paul that I grew up with. And I was thinking, surely not. And it was a long track list, and it's great, it's got some really good tracks on it. Um, yeah, but I mean he can do both. I mean, I I love him really going for it on Helter Skelter, so yeah, the range.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the range is is superb. I don't know if you have a favourite version. There are so many. Um, there are four different guitar solos available just on released versions. Um, so George seemed restless about his guitar solo. John doesn't appear on the official release. Um, he played bass on the I mean you can get it on the box sets now, his bass version, but Paul replaced that bass and he replaced their backing vocals as well. So um there's yeah, you can go down a real rabbit hole with all the different versions of this song. Do you have any favourites?
SPEAKER_00I am happy to hear it in any form. There are other ones that I sort of cling passionately to, but but with this one, it's a song itself. It's you know, it could be a pub sing-along, and I'd be really happy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it has been um in Life After the Beatles, it was of course a big hit charity hit in 1987 after the Zebrugger ferry disaster. Ferry Aid, do you remember that? Kate Bush, Boy George, Mark Knopfler. Yes. They all did a version which was number one for three weeks, so uh it reached the top again in 1987. And Dolly Parton did a version of it in 2023 with Paul on piano and Ringo on drums. So um, and obviously we'd just lost Dolly, so um, I might I might drop a clip of Dolly doing it in there.
SPEAKER_03Let it be the night is cloudy. There is to the light, the child.
SPEAKER_00I was I was at Glastonbury for the for the famous Dolly Glastonbury moment. Um and and and it was great because I didn't know she was coming out. We did we went that went there just because my parents live locally, and um yeah, we we just spent that afternoon. We we only sort of stood in front of the stage because it was filling up with the crowd so much, and it was such a spine-tingling moment. Good old dolly.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00Uh obviously get back is amazing, but yeah, it's it's interesting to see that they, you know, they went on to do Come Together and Something and Here Comes the Sun and just others that are are much, much more dear to my heart than that album collectively is. They still have so much creativity left. It's extraordinary.
SPEAKER_05I know, all in that. I mean, when you look at their timeline, as you said earlier, how much was compressed into such a short period of time. And so between writing this in late 1968 and Let It Be, they got the White album done, they got Abbey Road done and this done. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It is amazing.
SPEAKER_05Um, and yeah, it feels like a sign-off, Let It Be, but actually, as you say, it wasn't the last thing they recorded. They went back into the studio and recorded Abbey Road. It just so happens that Let It Be was released after Abbey Road. So, in fact, the the the single went to number one um a week after the Paul McCartney announced the death of the Beatles. So it felt like, as many said at the time, it was a gift from the Beatles to the fans to say, don't worry, you know, let it be. Which obviously wasn't the intention, but it's one of the many happy accidents that occurred throughout throughout the Beatles' career. Comes up time and time again, these odd things. It does seem to be perhaps the right song to leave fans with.
SPEAKER_00That you're you're being very um very noble about it, Tim. But I was just listening on your podcast, which I love to Chris Odell talking about being with the others when that news came out. And I don't think they were being quite so phlegmatic and gracious about it at the time.
SPEAKER_05It's not the way they felt, was it? No. No, exactly.
SPEAKER_00I mean, exactly.
SPEAKER_05There was a lot more tension and uh aggravation, but but I remember a time when we didn't have the internet, we didn't have any of the I mean, a lot of things that we know now, and that you can look up at the sitting at your computer or your phone, obviously didn't come out for months or even years sometimes, these details, didn't they? And so you were left with the impression that this was what the Beatles wanted to leave behind, weren't you?
SPEAKER_00That's you know isn't that lovely, the innocent age that we both grew up in, where that's true, people could craft a narrative and and we could take that narrative, that beautiful narrative to our hearts and and it not be destroyed the following day. Yeah, it was they were good times.
SPEAKER_05Is there any other songs you'd like to give an honorary mention to us amongst your favourite Beatles tracks?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, I think I've I've probably mentioned the ones that I do. I mean, say Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, totally up there. I remember having a very long argument when I was a schoolgirl with somebody about whether or not it referred to LSD. Um, and I I choose to believe the man who wrote the song that it's about his child's drawing. I I do very much love it. Um and I'm just looking at the the list that I've done. It's saying that I'm such a poor girl, but it's interesting, it's John John songs that stand out. What is wrong with me? Um but Norwegian Wood is a John song, isn't it? Yes, it is. I I love the humour of that. I it's a he's the the guy singing Norwegian wood is a very 21st century male, I think, uh on the wrong end of a of a very powerful woman, and I've always adored that. And that there's something about the wistfulness of in my life that uh that is very wonderful. Um but uh uh when I was growing up, when I when they were fresh to me, um I loved the ones, it was the musical arrangements particularly that I adored. I love it when you know just suddenly there'd be a whole bunch of trombones or a tuber or an Indian instrument or a clap or silence followed by an orchestral explosion. Um it was that that was what really um drew me into them a lot when I was in my teens, I would say.
SPEAKER_05Let's talk about your books, because as I said, I'm reading, I'm in the middle of your book, which I've got a pre-pressed copy for. When is it coming out, by the way?
SPEAKER_00Uh Death on the Royal Yacht is coming out next Thursday. So on the 15th of October, it's coming out. And in America on the 19th.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it's the sixth book in the series, is it?
SPEAKER_00Sixth book in a series, yes. The first three are set in 2016-17, and then I go back in time to the 1950s and 60s. So I start in 1957, and then um I've got one called A Deaf and Diamond set in 61. Actually, no, The Queen Who Came In From the Cold is set in 1961, and then this one is the end of that trilogy, which is 1966, and it's set entirely really on on aboard the Royal Rock Britannia um on a trip of around the Caribbean Islands for five weeks.
SPEAKER_05That's such a great scenario. Um it's actually happened, right? That's this is actually happened.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I set my books, I gave myself halfway through the writing process of the first book, which I'd intended it to be very, very vague about setting and timing and all of that. But then then I discovered I could find out what the Queen was doing every single day. And then I set myself the challenge of setting my murder mysteries among everything I knew that she really did. Um, so not just the official things, but also she popped out to a horse show or whatever. Um, so yes, this is absolutely everything she did. I mean, I when I set out to write this one, I thought it would be the most comforting book I would write. It's the Beatles, they are in the book. Um, which again are as as true as I can make them. Um, you know, Philip had had indeed met them a couple of times and talks about them. Um and yeah, and it's got the swinging sixties back home, and the UK is doing really well on the international sphere and the Queens in the Caribbean. And I thought, how much fun will that be? And then I researched it and I realized that the mid-60s were terrible politically, you know, Vietnam was going on. This country was becoming uh increasingly racist as uh as the Windrush generation sort of tried to move in and enacting some awful laws. And um there was a huge amount of tension, and and I actually, and and drugs were going on, which are in the book, and I wanted to get some of that in as well. So in a way, it was it sort of ended up being reassuring to me is is no time is totally happy and no time is totally sad. But it's silly to have rose-tinted spectacles on the past because that if you'd asked those people back then whether they were stressed out, they would tell you that they were.
SPEAKER_05I love that. Is it the steel band playing I Wanna Hold Your Hand? You've got in there, and uh you've got um obviously the reference to them getting knighted and the potential, though it's it's contested by some, but that they smoked they smoked weed in the in the royal in the Buckingham Palace, which is great. I love that.
SPEAKER_00I hope they did. I do hope they did.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's lovely. Um, of course, when it's set, so is it February, February, March time 1966? That's when John was doing his interview with Maureen Cleve, when he said we were more popular than Jesus. Which um which didn't come out till the end of August when um when the it caused the storm in America. But uh it's interesting that there's that backdrop to it as well.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think I do think it's it's interesting, yeah, and I didn't include it, and that's that's probably why. And I've always thought that was uh a comment that I completely resonate with. He was just kind of stating a fact about the the level of their celebrity, wasn't trying to say anything, I don't think, more more um controversial than that. And I guess you're sort of sort of trying to, in a way, criticizing the rest of us for allowing them to get to that stage. But it to me it ties into what Paul McCartney says at the end of Her Majesty. Um, you know, she she's a very nice girl, but she doesn't have a lot to say. Um and I see what he means. Having having done the research for this book, and as I say, the legislation in the in the UK was increasingly uh antagonistic towards people who had been effectively British citizens up until the point where we decided that they were they weren't. When it was difficult for them to come to the UK, they could be whatever they wanted. Um, when they actually started acting on that and arriving, we changed our minds. I decided that. Um and the Queen had did had nothing to say, I have to say. Um and she never did talk, which I think was her superpower, but she did use imagery uh very effectively throughout her reign. And she could have, I think, hired maybe more staff who were Jamaican immigrants or the children of Jamaican immigrants, or done something at that level, surrounded herself with people from the Commonwealth that she's genuinely so adored to just to show they're here, it's fine, let's get on with our lives. And I don't think she really did do that. Um and uh with all the Ed Sheeran business that we're living through at the moment, I find it so fascinating that we all just go, yeah, but the Beatles were in exactly the same sort of position, and and they they did the right thing. They showed that it is possible to do the right thing. They refused to play in segregated stadiums. They could have just kept got their head kept their heads down, said, you know, it's not it's not our fight, but it was their fight. And we all to this day profoundly admire them for that, and it did change things. So yeah, I'm increasingly on Paul's side in this. But on the other hand, so many people watched the Queen's funeral, and so many people queued to, you know, pay their respects. And I think she managed that by being non-controversial for such a long time. And though those of us like me who would have been more controversial, I think we'd have had much shorter cues to be honest.
SPEAKER_05I should say we we kind of skipped over this, but you're she is the kind of key person in solving the crimes in your novel, isn't she? In your novels and Queen.
SPEAKER_00She she's a sort of golden age detective, and her thing, she does it secretly, but in my novels, her thing is she knows her world better than anybody else does. Um, she's lived in it for longer and she understands it better. So if something is out of place, she spots it better than anybody else does. Um, and she's a woman, so she is slightly overlooked and disregarded, even though she's the queen. Um, and she is just better at spotting nuance than the men who serve her. So yeah, that's lovely.
SPEAKER_05And and I th I also think that you've given her a lovely character, which is, as you say, it's knowing, it's uh a step ahead of everyone else, but also very understanding and very compassionate to others, I found. I I I like the character of the queen you've painted in your books.
SPEAKER_00Good. Well, I mean, going back to what you're saying about refuge, yeah, I do uh the books I write are definitely for all of us going through the times we're going through is when you just want to step up, step back from that for a while. And imagine yourself in a world where the person in charge really wants the right thing to happen and to an extent can make it happen. Um, yeah, that that's and I think she genuinely that was what what she was trying to do, not always successfully, but that was her her aim. And it's increasingly rare, which is a sad thing. Hopefully it will come back. But I I was writing in a initially in a post-Brexit world, and you know, the the millions of prime ministers we were living through at the time. And I I really felt that not all of them did have our best interests at heart. So it felt very fictional the world that I was writing, but a really nice refuge.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's a wonderful read. I I highly encourage people to um to buy it, not just for the Beatles reference, but uh but to engage in that that lovely world. And um, I found, I mean, I I admit I hadn't written read any of the previous ones, but I could go in with this one, and uh there didn't seem to be any um any need to have read the previous one.
SPEAKER_00So oh I'm so pleased you say that. Yeah, that's that's my plan.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I was gonna say, have you written them in a way that allows for any point of entry?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I have, because the way that I got into a series of books was uh on other people's bookshelves. You know, I'd be staying at somebody's house or something, and I'd be bored and I'd pick a book out of their bookshelf, and uh usually it was book five or seventeen or three or something in a series. Um, and I I like to be able to just start there and and get a full story beginning to end. So that's what I try and deliver with my books too.
SPEAKER_05Have you got plans for future ones you can talk about?
SPEAKER_00Well, so this one, as I say 66. The when I started to go back in time, I had planned to write one more set in 2017 before I went back to the 50s. But that was in 2022, and 2022 was the year when the queen died. And at the point at that point, I had a really live TV option open, and the people, amazing team were working on that, and they said, We cannot make uh you know a lovely warm bath of a mystery story about an elderly queen if she's just died. Please, can you write a book where she's younger? So I paused the book that I was gonna write and wrote book four in the series. I'm now writing that book set in 2017 where the Queen is 90 and um or 91. Um, and it's set in Balmoral because I haven't done a Balmoral book yet. And it's going to be called The Day of the Corgi. Um and I finished it, I'm on the rewrites.
SPEAKER_05Brilliant title. I love that title. And and on you you hinted there of TV interest. Is that panning out? Do you have any news on that?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I am in classic development health, which is any any author who's been lucky enough to sell the rights will will know very much how this feels. Which is it gets, well, in my case, twice. It's got really, really close, and then and then and then the wave has pulled back from the shore. So that that's where we are. Um, I'd love it to come to TV one day. I think it would uh I think it would sit there nicely.
SPEAKER_05I have to say, I'm I'm picturing in the the version the book I'm reading, Death Death on the Yacht Royal Yacht, um, I'm picturing Claire Foy in her lovely performance of the Queen in the Netflix series. She did it so well, didn't she?
SPEAKER_00She did. I'm so glad you said that because that partly inspired me to write the series. I I it was I loved the first two. After that, not so much of the crown, but the first two I adored. I adored her. Um, there was just one scene she was in to do with her private secretary having lots of model soldiers um on a on a battlefield, and she picked one up and put it back in the wrong place. And I just thought she wouldn't do that. Uh, she would know the battle and she would have put it back in the right place. And that's just just feeling that I had that insight into her is what sort of kicked off my character of the queen. So good old Clefoy.
SPEAKER_05So listen, how do people find out more about you and your books and follow what you're doing? What's the best place to go online?
SPEAKER_00Uh, the best place is my website, which is sjbennettbooks.com, and that encourages you to sign up to my newsletter. There are two, but the the one that I recommend is my my author newsletter, because um I write I'm one of those people who I sort of write a sort of longer newsletter about bits going on in my life and things that I have watched and listened to and recommend to people and that kind of thing. So that's a good way of getting in touch with me. And I'm on Instagram and Facebook. Um, so you can find me there.
SPEAKER_05Well, listen, it's been amazing talking to you today about the Beatles and specifically let it be. Thanks so much, it's been great.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Simon. Thank you for the podcast. I just love it. It's such a fantastic lesson. Bye.
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SPEAKER_05Thanks for listening to my favourite Beatles song. If you like the podcast, please consider giving it a rating or review on your favourite podcast platform. This helps me to reach new listeners. You can follow the podcast on x.com, Instagram, and Facebook. Look for the links in the show notes. Thanks to Joe Kane for the fantastic music and Mark Cunningham for the logo design. I'll see you next time.