Okay, now it's "murderer": Well, I suppose it could be manslaughter, but let's not quibble.

Re: "Let it Be". Your points are well-taken, and certainly I would not argue that making money equals taste w/r/t Spector and his "wall of sound". I suppose my point is that if the song was good enough to get released, as it was, then changing it now can only be about making even more money (Paul simply can't need it) or giving Yoko a pain in her side b/c she has to read about McCartney writing songs. With "Let it Be" you can't say the Beatles didn't have the clout by that point to kill Spector's influence if they didn't want it. So, someone had to agree to it. Yes, they were divided at this point, and perhaps no one cared, but it can only be surmised that there wasn't enough vocal objection to Spector's influence at the time.

Okay, I'm not really arguing the artistic merits of the song. Some people (sappy sentimentalists, the lot of 'em) like rising crescendos with choirs and twenty violins. Some people find like layered harmonies with reverberation and other neato effects. No, the Beatles weren't about that, per se, but not every song could live off of Ringo's simplistic time-keeping (oh great, here goes Eno's next rant) without further embellishment. I don't begrudge the Beatles from branching out a little and seeing what Spector could do with a rock band. However, with "The Long and Winding Road" I couldn't agree more. In general, I'm all in favor of nakedness, but usually this is limited to supermodels.