The Ghost Guitar - Let It Be

I didn't post about the 50th anniversary of Let It Be. Its release on May 8, 1970, meant nothing to me. When my mother took me to Licorice Pizza, they were sold out. I was eleven. It was devastating. The shipment came in the next day, and so, 50 years ago today, I got Let It Be.
We tend to use the release date of an LP to guide us chronologically, yet with Abbey Road and Let It Be, that's not the case. Abbey Road, in particular, the Side 2 medley, was the last piece of music the Beatles ever worked on collectively. Let It Be would be released after the band broke up (and contributed to the breakup), but its problematic recording sessions came prior to Abbey Road.
In our deep state state of mind, rather than post about everything everyone else posted about the LP, here's something completely different:
There are two different versions of the title track. If you have the opportunity, listen to them both. The single version has a far more subtle guitar solo at the midpoint of the song (1:59), a loose string version that lends itself to the 45, and sounding as if an acoustic guitar had been electrified. The LP version, on the other hand, contains a more electrified solo. Listen to them back to back. And yet, that there are two diverse versions of the song isn't the unusual part. What's odd is the ghost solo hidden beneath the layers of music that appears in both the single and the album versions. It's hard to hear unless you tune your ear to it, so it may be helpful to isolate the left side on the stereo version or to listen to the track by clicking your receiver to mono.
The Beatles entered the studio on January 31, 1969, to record the track. "Let It Be," and by they, I mean all four of the Beatles, with Paul on piano, John Lennon oddly playing the bass, Harrison playing lead guitar and Ringo on drums. Add to that, Billy Preston on the Hammond organ.
Ultimately, the single version of "Let It Be" was released on March 6 and produced by George Martin. It would go to Number 1 on the Billboard Top 100. The album version was released in May 1970.
The album version of "Let It Be" had a headier, heavier guitar solo lushly, some would say overly-produced by Phil Spector; the George Martin version more typically Beatle-esque. Interestingly, both Spector and Martin left in the "ghost solo," an earlier take somehow left audible in the background of the masters which were subsequently released as the single and the album.
So, let's put the pieces together. On January 31, 1969, with the other Beatles, George recorded an original guitar solo, the ghost track that can be heard faintly but distinctly in the background. George was back in the studio alone on April 30, 1969, and recorded the solo that's on the 45. On January 4, 1970, George again took the master tape, recorded a year prior, and overdubbed what Phil Spector would use for the LP version. Here's something else; 30 years later, Paul McCartney produced an alternate version of the album called Let It Be Naked which eliminates the orchestral and heavy-handed production by Phil Spector on the original LP. For that version of "Let It Be," McCartney chose yet another solo from the January 1969 sessions. The ghost guitar? Still there.