When issued as a single in May 1970, a month after the Beatles' break-up, it became the group's 20th and final number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States.

The main recording of the song took place in January 1969 and featured a sparse musical arrangement of piano, bass, guitar and percussion.

Paul McCartney said he came up with the title "The Long and Winding Road" during one of his first visits to his property High Park Farm, near Campbeltown in Scotland,[4] which he purchased in June 1966.

[22] In early 1970, Lennon and Harrison asked the Beatles' manager, Allen Klein, to turn over the January 1969 recordings to American producer Phil Spector,[16] in the hope of salvaging an album to accompany the Let It Be documentary film.

His most dramatic embellishments occurred on 1 April 1970, the last ever Beatles recording session, when he added orchestral overdubs to "The Long and Winding Road", "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" at EMI Studios.

[19] Already known for his eccentric behaviour in the studio, Spector was in a peculiar mood that day, according to balance engineer Peter Bown: "He wanted tape echo on everything, he had to take a different pill every half-hour and had his bodyguard with him constantly.

[26] Spector nonetheless succeeded in overdubbing "The Long and Winding Road", using eight violins, four violas, four cellos, three trumpets, three trombones, two guitars, and a choir of fourteen women.

[27] The orchestra was scored and conducted by Richard Hewson, a young London arranger who had worked with Apple artists Mary Hopkin[28] and James Taylor.

"[32] On 14 April, with manufacturing underway for Let It Be, he sent a terse letter to Klein, demanding that the harp be removed from the song and that the other added instrumentation and voices be reduced.

"[35] With Let It Be scheduled for release in advance of the film, Klein allowed the production process to continue with Spector's version of "The Long and Winding Road" intact.

But a few weeks ago, I was sent a re-mixed version of my song "The Long and Winding Road" with harps, horns, an orchestra and women's choir added.

"[31] Author Nicholas Schaffner commented that, in light of McCartney's contention in the High Court, it was surprising that he personally accepted the band's Grammy Award for Let It Be in March 1971 – when the album won in the category Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special[42] – and that he chose to feature his wife Linda's voice so prominently on his post-Beatles recordings.

Lennon's crude bass playing on 'The Long and Winding Road', though largely accidental, amounts to sabotage when presented as finished work.

[48] On 11 May, only one week before the album's North American release,[49] Apple issued "The Long and Winding Road" as a single in the United States with "For You Blue" on the B-side.

The Beatles achieved this feat in a period of less than six and a half years, starting with "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on 1 February 1964, during which they topped the Hot 100 in one out of every six weeks.

[54] The single had a relatively brief run on the Billboard Hot 100[13] and its contemporary US sales were insufficient for gold accreditation by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

[61][62] In his album review for Melody Maker, Richard Williams wrote that "Paul's songs seem to be getting looser and less concise, and Spector's orchestrations add to the Bacharach atmosphere.

"[63][64] Rolling Stone's reviewer, John Mendelsohn, was especially critical of Spector's work,[43] saying: "He's rendered 'The Long and Winding Road' ... virtually unlistenable with hideously cloying strings and a ridiculous choir that serve only to accentuate the listlessness of Paul's vocal and the song's potential for further mutilation at the hands of the countless schlock-mongers who will undoubtedly trip all over one another in their haste to cover it."

Mendelsohn said that while the song was a "slightly lesser chapter in the ongoing story of McCartney as facile romanticist", "it might have eventually begun to grow on one as unassumingly charming" without Spector's "oppressive mush".

"[66] MacDonald said: "With its heart-breaking suspensions and yearning backward glances from the sad wisdom of the major key to the lost loves and illusions of the minor, 'The Long and Winding Road' is one of the most beautiful things McCartney ever wrote.

Williams added: "Some might say that this track, above all others, epitomises Paul McCartney, and that when Spector sent the saccharine strings sweeping in after the first line of vocal, he was merely highlighting the reality.

"[68] In a 2003 review for Mojo, shortly after the announcement that McCartney planned to issue "a string-less Let It Be", John Harris opined: "As someone who experiences a Proustian rush every time the orchestra crash-lands in 'The Long and Winding Road', I can only implore him to think again.

Besides, underneath all the Wagnerian gloop, John's bass playing is horribly out of tune ..."[69] Referring to the version subsequently released without the controversial overdubs, Adam Sweeting of The Guardian said the song was "indubitably improved by the removal of Spector's wall of schmaltz" but "still teeth-clenchingly mawkish".

[77] George Martin produced the track, which includes saxophone accompaniment[73] and what authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter describe as a Las Vegas-style musical arrangement.

[78][nb 3] A second new studio recording of the song was made by McCartney in 1989 and used as a B-side of single releases from his Flowers in the Dirt album, starting with the "Postcard Pack" vinyl format of "This One".

[25][84] "The Long and Winding Road" provided the working title for Apple executive Neil Aspinall's early version of the documentary film that became the 1995 TV series The Beatles Anthology.

In the case of "The Long and Winding Road", the performance was accompanied by screen-projected photos taken by Linda of the family's Arizona ranch, including the horse trail she and McCartney rode shortly before her death.

[91] "The Long and Winding Road" was one of several McCartney compositions from the Beatles era that became widely covered by easy listening artists and persuaded adults that the younger generation's musical tastes had merit.

[94] Aretha Franklin released a recording of the song on her 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black, a version that Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield calls "the greatest of all Beatle covers".

[97][nb 5] Other versions include a cover by Leo Sayer on the 1976 All This and World War II soundtrack, a 1978 recording by Peter Frampton for Robert Stigwood's film Sgt.