THE BEATLES: Now and Then (Apple)
Pronunciation: Emotional swan song
A series of five flowing piano chords, the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar, John Lennon’s crystal clear voice and the most highly anticipated record of the year are just around the corner. Created using artificial intelligence (AI), Now And Then is billed as ‘the last Beatles song’ – the final message from John, Paul, George and Ringo, the four messy-haired lads from Liverpool who shook the world .
Created by extracting Lennon’s voice from an old demo that had been in the vault for decades, it is a milestone in pop music. It is a reflective, romantic ballad that opens melancholicly, dominated by minor chords, before the mood is lifted by an upbeat chorus. “Every now and then, when we have to start over / Well, we’re sure I’ll love you,” John sings. His voice is unmistakable and it’s great to hear him again after so many years.
There are plenty of other familiar sounds here, with strings in the tradition of their 1967 song I Am The Walrus and a Paul McCartney slide guitar solo with long, swooning notes in tribute to George Harrison. But it’s the point where drummer Ringo Starr picks up the tempo just past the minute mark that Now And Then is transformed from what could have been a souped-up Lennon solo offering into a full-fledged Fab Four song.
The bar for a ‘new’ Beatles song is impossibly high. If we judge Now And Then by the standards of Hey Jude, Strawberry Fields Forever or Harrison’s Something – a ballad from 1969 Abbey Road that Frank Sinatra called the greatest love song in fifty years – it will fall short. But it’s a song that will steadily work its way into the nation’s affections in the coming weeks.
Now And Then was shelved, hoping it would be revisited one day
The band releases the song Now and Then, which late singer John began recording in the late 1970s before being unearthed by his wife in the 1990s (pictured)
The Beatles have released a short film revealing how they made their last song together 43 years after John Lennon’s death (Paul McCartney pictured in the 1990s)
So, is it really a new single, or just a computer-generated Franken song made for Beatles obsessives? Given the presence of AI, can we now expect Eleanor Robot or With A Little Help From My Algorithms? Some may feel that there is something wrong with tampering with the legacy of these four national treasures. After all, The Beatles went their separate ways over five decades ago, and two of the band members are no longer with us.
But Now And Then feels like an authentic Beatles song. Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, and Harrison, who died in 2001, are fundamental to what an emotional, human record is, even if the sound quality has been improved by state-of-the-art technology.
Lennon sings lead, and many of the instrumental parts – guitar, bass, piano, electric harpsichord and shaker – are provided by McCartney. There are acoustic and electric guitars from Harrison and Ringo’s encouraging drumming. The fact that this is being trumpeted as the band’s final song should also reassure those fearful of a barrage of artificially enhanced outtakes.
Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, and Harrison, who died in 2001, are fundamental to what an emotional, human record is
John’s wife Yoko Uno presented a series of demos that John had worked on before his death, some of which were released at the time
Paul McCartney said of the short film which premiered on Wednesday’s One Show: ‘When we lost John we knew it was really over’
The song itself dates back to 1978, when Lennon recorded a piano-and-vocal version on a cassette ‘boombox’ at his home in New York’s Dakota Building. In 1994, fourteen years after his murder, his widow Yoko Ono gave the tape, which contained “For Paul” and also contained two other songs, to the three remaining Beatles as they were putting together their retrospective Anthology series.
The other two songs, Free As A Bird and Real Love, were worked on and released as singles in the 1990s, but Now And Then was deemed unusable. The sound quality was dismal, haunted by background noise and the hum of the electrical circuits in Lennon’s apartment. Paul, George and Ringo added new parts with producer Jeff Lynne, but the technological limitations of the 1990s meant that John’s vocals could not be ‘isolated’ and then produced at a high enough level. The song was shelved and, despite boring bootlegs appearing online, nothing more was heard of it until McCartney teased this release in a radio interview in June.
Now And Then was shelved, hoping it would be revisited one day
During the short film, Paul explained that within minutes John’s voice rang through the room, crystal clear, as if he were there in person.
Using the software used by filmmaker Peter Jackson for the 2021 Get Back documentary, Lennon’s vocals are now ‘separated’ from the background noise and the song is finished with George’s guitar parts from 1995, alongside new contributions, including background vocals in the chorus, from Paul and Ringo.
What was done to Lennon’s rough demo – turning ‘then’ into ‘now’ – by producers McCartney and Giles Martin (son of original Beatles producer George Martin) is extraordinary. It is a lively piece of music, despite moments when it threatens to become a bit over-the-top. The addition of further vocal harmonies, woven into the song from the Beatles tracks Here, There And Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because, feels like a step too far.
But Now And Then is still a loving restoration. With their old rivals The Rolling Stones topping the charts with Hackney Diamonds, their first album of new material in 18 years, it’s only fitting that the surviving Beatles decided they couldn’t just let it be. This is a late swan song that’s worth the wait.