It's a great song, don't get me wrong, but it sounds so very out of place on the 1970 Let It Be album.  Even the song "Let It Be" sounds okay because of how Spector produced it (with all the raunchy guitars instead of the angelic harmonies), but "The Long and Winding Road" just glaringly stands out.

Every song on the album has that "live in the studio" sound to it, loose, informal, fast, and ballsy.  Except for "Long & Winding Road."  Even the way its placed on the album sounds awkward - like there wasn't any good way to lay the track down.  

I mean, they could have left the song off the album and still had it as a single.  They've done it before - "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" for instance.  And to fill the gap, put in the electrified version of "Revolution," since it wasn't included on any album.

Would you have them leave Yesterday off Help! Or Michelle off Rubber Soul? They barely had enough material for LIB in the first place.

Quoted from Buttmunker

Every song on the album has that "live in the studio" sound to it, loose, informal, fast, and ballsy.  

Two Of Us, Across the Universe, Let It Be, and For You Blue. Fast and ballsy?

If Spector hadn't put the strings on it, this would have been the song on the album that came closest to what they originally set out to do. make an album with no overdubs or frills.

True about "Two of Us," and such, but even those acoustic numbers are "guitar-driven," as opposed to the two Paul songs that are "piano-driven."  The two piano-driven songs could have been reworked and used on their Abbey Road album, much like the song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was.

So far as I understand it, the songs from the Get Back sessions were shelved, and essentially forgotten about by the Beatles.  But I'm sure Paul cared a bit for his two piano songs, and probably would have been better suited for Abbey Road.  

Glyn Johns tried to make an album of what was recorded for Get Back - tried it three times, yet failed - until Phil Spector came along and did something good with the material.  And while I think what turned out to be Let It Be is good, I still think Paul's two piano songs are misplaced on it.

And you can't compare older Beatles albums like Help! or Rubber Soul because those albums had the "Beatle Sound," so you could incorporate ballads with the faster tunes.  Let It Be was an almost complete departure from the Beatle-sound, and as such it should have held on to its concept of being a guitar-driven album.  Why the Beatles abandoned it is beyond me?  How could they abandon that, yet go on to record another album like Abbey Road in relative harmony?  The whole idea about Get Back was that they were super-pissed at one another.  How could they "not" be super-pissed at one another while recording a "new" album?  Weird.