‘Let’s Love’ is the eighth track on Paul McCartney and Wings’ 1974 live studio album One Hand Clapping.
The song was written for Peggy Lee, whose ‘Till There Was You’ The Beatles had recorded on their second album. In 1974 Lee invited the McCartneys to dinner.
Yeah, I used to have records of Peggy. I did ‘Till There Was You’ because I had Peggy’s record of it… So I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, you know. And she came to London and she invited us for dinner over at her hotel. So I thought ‘I’m going along to dinner. Well, I’m either gonna take a bottle of champagne or a song…’So I took a song along and Peggy said, ‘Great. Let’s do it.’ So we got a hold of [producer] Dave Grusin. And really that’s all there is to it.
Zoo World magazine, 18 July 1974
Lee recorded ‘Let’s Love’ in June 1974 at Abbey Road Studios in London and the Record Plant in Los Angeles. McCartney guested on the recording, which was released as the first song on Lee’s album Let’s Love later that year.
McCartney’s version of ‘Let’s Love’ features just him on vocals and piano. It was recorded during the One Hand Clapping sessions at Abbey Road on 28 August 1974. A shorter version, taped on 30 August, was included in the One Hand Clapping documentary.
Much of One Hand Clapping was included on the 2010 Band On The Run Archive Collection DVD. It included various performances including ‘Let’s Love’. Extracts of the song also appeared on the Venus And Mars Archive Collection release and the 2007 DVD box set The McCartney Years.
The 2024 release of the full One Hand Clapping contained a previously-unreleased take of ‘Let’s Love’.