Mary McCartney was a nurse and a midwife in Liverpool. Her two boys adored her.
In 1956, when her son Paul was 14, she died of cancer. Paul and his younger brother Mike were suddenly growing up in a house without her.
Twelve years later, Paul McCartney was one of the most famous people in the world. And he was not doing well.
It was 1968. The Beatles were pulling apart. There were business fights, long nights and a lot of tension in the studio. Paul has said he was worried, tired and not sure where it was all going.
Then, one night, his mother came to him in a dream.
He has told the story many times. He could see her face clearly, the way she looked when he was a boy. She seemed to understand exactly how he was feeling. And she told him, gently, that it was going to be all right. Just let it be.
“It was great to visit with her again,” he later said. “I felt very blessed to have that dream.”
When he woke up, he went to the piano. The first line of the new song came straight from that night: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me.”
Many listeners heard a prayer in those words, and some still do. Paul has always said people are welcome to hear it however they like. But for him, Mother Mary was his own mother.
He first played with the song in the studio in September 1968, and the Beatles recorded it in January 1969. It came out as a single on March 6, 1970, and went to No. 1 in America. It was the last single the Beatles released before Paul announced he was leaving the band.
A few months after the recording, in August 1969, Paul and Linda McCartney had a daughter. They named her Mary.
More than 50 years later, Paul still sits at the piano and plays “Let It Be” at his concerts, and thousands of people sing along to the words his mother gave him in a dream.
Watch the official video above.
