Now and Then, the long-awaited “final” Beatles song featuring all four members, is to be released next week thanks to the same AI technology used to enhance the audio in Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” said Paul McCartney in a statement. “It’s quite emotional. And we’re all playing on it, it’s a real Beatles recording. To be working on Beatles music in 2023, and to be about to release a new song that the public hasn’t heard, I think is an exciting thing.
Now and Then was written and sung by John Lennon in the late 1970s at his home in the Dakota Building in New York City. In 1994, Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono gave the demo to Paul McCartney on a cassette tape labelled “For Paul”, which also contained Lennon’s demos for Free As a Bird and Real Love.
While the latter songs were completed by McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison and released as singles as part of the Beatles Anthology project, technological limitations meant that Lennon’s vocals and piano on Now and Then couldn’t be separated to work alongside new parts recorded by the other three Beatles, and it was shelved.
Now and Then, the long-awaited “final” Beatles song featuring all four members, is due to be released next week thanks to the same AI technology used to enhance the audio in Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” said Paul McCartney in a statement. “It’s quite emotional. And we’re all playing on it, it’s a real Beatles recording. To be working on Beatles music in 2023, and to be about to release a new song that the public hasn’t heard, I think is an exciting thing.
Now and Then was written and sung by John Lennon in the late 1970s at his home in the Dakota Building in New York City. In 1994, Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono gave the demo to Paul McCartney on a cassette tape labelled “For Paul”, which also contained Lennon’s demos for Free As a Bird and Real Love.
While the latter songs were completed by McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison and released as singles as part of the Beatles Anthology project, technological limitations meant that Lennon’s vocals and piano on Now and Then couldn’t be separated to work alongside new parts recorded by the other three Beatles, and the project was shelved.
His comments raised concerns that AI was being used to artificially recreate aspects of Lennon’s performance. McCartney later addressed the “confusion and speculation”, clarifying: “I can’t say too much at this stage, but to be clear, nothing has been created artificially or synthetically. It’s all real and we’re all playing on it. We have cleaned up some existing recordings – a process that has been going on for years. We hope you love it as much as we do.
The song will be teased in a 13-minute documentary about its making, which will premiere at 7.30pm GMT on Wednesday 1 November and be revealed in full on 2 November. It will be released on 3 November as a double A-side single with the Beatles’ 1962 debut single, Love Me Do, featuring a cover by pop artist Ed Ruscha.
The existence of Now and Then comes as no surprise to fans. In 1997, McCartney told Q magazine that it had been shelved because Harrison “didn’t like it”.
“It didn’t have a very good title, it needed a bit of work, but it had a nice verse and John sang it,” he said. “But George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it. McCartney later clarified to the New Yorker that Harrison had called Lennon’s demo “fucking rubbish”.
Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison, said in a statement: “In 1995, after several days in the studio working on the track, George felt that the technical problems with the demo were insurmountable and concluded that it was not possible to complete the track to a high enough standard. If he were here today, [son] Dhani and I know that he would have wholeheartedly joined Paul and Ringo in completing the recording of Now and Then.
Lennon’s son Sean Ono Lennon also commented on the making of the track, saying: “It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years my dad was gone. It’s the last song my dad, Paul, George and Ringo were able to make together. It’s like a time capsule and it all feels very intentional.
The physical release of Now and Then also comes ahead of new editions of the compilations known as The Red Album and The Blue Album, which have been expanded to cover the Beatles’ entire singles discography, adding 12 songs to Red and nine to Blue.
