THE NEW, pared-down version of Let It Be supplies further proof of one of the least-recognised facts about the Beatles: they were great not because they were perfect, but because they were imperfect. The album, free at last from Phil Spector’s saccharine over-production, lets us hear the Beatles exhibiting the fallibility that makes us love them.

John Lennon’s bass playing on The Long and Winding Road, for instance. You can just make out, through Spector’s Muzak-like string section, that Lennon is missing notes, playing out of time, and generally proving why the job was normally left to Paul McCartney. On the new album, these errors are all the more apparent. But as with all Beatles mistakes, they don’t detract from the band’s charm, they’re the reason for it. And the Fabs made loads of mistakes.

Take Hey Jude, to quote a McCartney example. Have you noticed that after messing up a backing vocal (just before the “nah-nahs” begin) he says “f****** hell”? Or that She Loves You is actually two versions stitched together? (The edit comes just before “pride can hurt you too”.) Hear it once and you’ll wonder how you ever missed it.

Then there’s George Harrison’s guitar solo in All You Need is Love. After making a mess of it he simply gives up.

But, just as a Playboy centrefold is never as sexy as the girl you meet down the pub, the Beatles’ lack of perfection is what makes them approachable, and keeps attracting new fans 30 years after they split up. Modern recording studios achieve technical perfection — and it’s boring as hell.

The Beatles used primitive four-track machines, meaning that on many songs the vocals are almost the only thing on one channel. So adjust the balance on your stereo and it’s like being in the studio. In You Won’t See Me the vocals are all on the right; you can hear the band’s coughs and lip-smacks as they wait to come in.

Listen to Good Day Sunshine on the right and you’ll get a private performance from Paul, including a mistake on the piano as he sings “She is mine”. Pete Townshend once listened to the Beatles like this and found some of their vocals “flippin’ lousy”.

On I’ll Get You (the B-side of She Loves You), John and Paul can’t remember if it’s “‘make you mine” or “change your mind”, and do one each.

Some errors show the band’s sense of humour. In Helter Skelter you can hear John squeaking a child’s toy and making Paul laugh. In Maxwell’s Silver Hammer Paul giggles as he sings “writing 50 times”. The rumour is that John mooned him.

Turn Paperback Writer to the right channel and you’ll hear the band are singing “Frère Jacques” as backing vocals (John’s late for the second verse). But listen carefully to the beginning of Come Together and you’ll hear something more disturbing: Lennon’s saying “Shoot me”.

Walter Bagehot claimed you should “not let in daylight on the magic” of the Royal family. But daylight only makes the Beatles’ magic more fascinating. A Day in the Life will always be a great song. The fact that you can hear the band’s roadie Mal Evans counting in the alarm clock somehow makes it even better.

The same goes for the whispered count-in to the zither-like Indian svarmandal on Strawberry Fields Forever. And George’s guitar pedal clicking on I Want You (She’s So Heavy). One error was so lucky that it even sounds deliberate: the rattling sound at the end of the White Album’s Long Long Long. It fits with the song’s eerie conclusion, but only happened because the final bass notes on the Hammond organ vibrated an empty wine bottle on the speaker.

Even the band’s famously masterful producer got in on the act. George Martin is rightly acknowledged for nurturing the Beatles, developing their songwriting from its early basic level. So we can forgive him I Call Your Name, in which he edited two versions together despite there being a loud cowbell on the second but not the first, so that it suddenly appears out of nowhere during the opening line.

Martin also figures in the best mistake of all. He and Evans joined John, Paul and Ringo to perform the final chord of A Day in the Life, the famous conclusion to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

They played it on three pianos, multi-tracking it four times. It’s billed as the never-ending chord, one that fades away in absolute perfection, proving that the Beatles were the best. But what’s that at four minutes and 50 seconds? Listen on headphones, turn the volume right up, and you’ll hear a creak. Rumour has it it’s Ringo shifting on his piano stool. Whatever — it’s better than perfection.

• Let it Be . . . Naked is released by Apple/Parlophone

OTHER HITS IN NEED OF A CLEAN-UP

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy could be improved by dropping Yoko’s songs and calling it Fantasy.

Joy Division’s Closer, one of the most miserable albums ever, could be cheered up by some comedy sound effects.

The beginning of Queen’s We are the Champions (moody power ballad) bears no relation to the end (football chant). One must go.

Similarly, the codas to Layla by Derek and the Dominoes, and Oh, Well by Fleetwood Mac, are superfluous.

Reverse the Unplugged concept and get everyone to re-record using electricity, the way God intended.

Ban tribute albums. If the original artists wanted them sung that way they’d have sung them that way.

And finally . . . get Schubert to pull his finger out and finish his Symphony. He’s had 200 years, what’s the problem?