One last 'new' tune from The Beatles
The other big news coming next week: the "last new Beatles song." The track, called Now and Then, will be released Nov. 2 and is made possible with help from AI, The Beatles said in an Instagram post.
It's "from the same batch of unreleased demos written and sung by the late John Lennon, "which were taken by his former bandmates to construct the songs 'Free As a Bird' and 'Real Love,' released in the mid-1990s," according to the Associated Press. While George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr worked on Now and Then in the mid-'90s, they weren't able to finish the song for technical reasons.
Four decades after it was initially recorded, Now and Then got an AI boost came from director Peter Jackson, who put together the 2021 documentary Beatles: Get Back using original footage from the recording session in which the Fab Four produced the album Let It Be.
Jackson was able to separate Lennon's original vocals from the late 1970s recording. "The much clearer vocals allowed McCartney and Starr to complete the track last year," the AP said, noting that. "There it was, John's voice, crystal clear," McCartney said in the announcement, according to the AP. "It's quite emotional. And we all play on it, it's a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven't heard, I think it's quite an exciting thing."
There's actually a lot going on in Now and Then.
"The new single contains guitar that Harrison had recorded nearly three decades ago, a new drum part by Starr, with McCartney's bass, piano and a slide guitar solo he added as a tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001. McCartney and Starr sang backup. McCartney also added a string arrangement written with the help of Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer George Martin," the AP reported. They weaved in backing vocals from the original Beatles recordings of Here, There and Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because.
The day before the new song is released, a 12-minute film that tells the story behind Now and Then will be shared. The trailer is here.
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