The Beatles’ Let It Be album is generally considered to be the weakest of their “real” albums (the original Yellow Submarine soundtrack hardly counts, given that it only really contained six songs, two of which were already available on other Beatles albums, and a set of instrumental film score tracks that most Beatles fans have never really cared about). And while Let It Be, like all the band’s albums, does contain at least a handful of classic Beatles gems, its negative reputation isn’t entirely undeserved…it has more outright clinkers than any other album in their discography, and “Dig a Pony” is one of the most severe.
Part of the reason this song feels so disjointed is that it was actually two different unfinished song fragments by two different songwriters within the band that were combined to make a barely-passable facsimile of a finished composition. However, this fact cannot entirely explain or excuse the song’s problems, since John Lennon’s verses would make absolutely no sense even without McCartney’s “All I want is you” chorus.
Now, there are certainly no shortage of all-time classic Beatles songs that don’t make any more sense than this one, but those songs were generally full of memorable and evocative imagery and language. This song, on the other hand, is essentially just random drivel that means nothing whatsoever even on an abstract level, wedded to a cliche chorus that doesn’t fit with the rest of the song in the slightest. It may not be the worst Beatles song of all time, but it is without a doubt the most pointless.
Verdict: Bad.