"The Long and Winding Road" is a ballad written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) that originally appeared on The Beatles' album Let It Be. It became The Beatles' last number-one song in the United States on 23 May 1970, and was the last single released by the quartet. "The Long and Winding Road" was listed with "For You Blue" as a double-sided hit when the single hit number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.
While the released version of the song was very successful, the post-production modifications to the song by producer Phil Spector angered McCartney to the point that when he made his case in court for breaking up The Beatles as a legal entity, McCartney cited the treatment of "The Long and Winding Road" as one of six reasons for doing so.
In an interview in 1994, McCartney described the lyric more obliquely:
It's rather a sad song. I like writing sad songs, it's a good bag to get into because you can actually acknowledge some deeper feelings of your own and put them in it. It's a good vehicle, it saves having to go to a psychiatrist