"Now and Then" is a single by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 2 November 2023 as a double A-side single, paired with a new mix of the band's first single, "Love Me Do" (1962). Dubbed "the last Beatles song", it is also to be included on the expanded re-issue of the 1973 compilation 1967–1970, to be released on 10 November 2023.

"Now and Then" is a psychedelic rock ballad. John Lennon wrote and recorded it around 1977 as a solo piano home demo, but left it unfinished. After Lennon's death in 1980, the song was considered as the third Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, following "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", both based on Lennon's demos. Instead, it was shelved for nearly three decades. It was later completed by the surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with overdubs and included guitar tracks by George Harrison from the abandoned 1995 sessions.

The final version features additional lyrics by McCartney, and Lennon's voice extracted from the demo using the AI-backed audio restoration technology commissioned by Peter Jackson for his 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back. Jackson also directed the music video for "Now and Then". "Now and Then" received mostly positive reviews from critics, who felt it was a fitting finale for the Beatles.

Composition
Beatles version
Personnel
- Production
- Orchestra
See also

Composition

Lennon wrote "Now and Then" in the late 1970s, and recorded a demo in 1977 at his home at the Dakota in New York City. The lyrics are typical of the apologetic love songs that Lennon wrote in the latter half of his career. For the most part the verses are nearly complete, though there are still a few lines that Lennon did not flesh out on the demo tape performance. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Lennon's composition "a wispy, melancholy ballad" while Billboard's Kyle Denis said the original track was "a lovelorn guitar-centric rock ballad." Craig Jenkins of Vulture said "'Now and Then' languished in an unfinished state, its vocal and piano melodies enshrouded in too dense a thicket of abrasively scratchy hiss to massage into the high-quality recordings the Beatles were known for.

Beatles version

In January 1994, Paul McCartney was given two cassette tapes by Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, which included home recordings of songs which Lennon had never completed or released commercially. The songs on one of the tapes included the eventually completed and released "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love". The two other songs on the other tape were "Grow Old with Me" and "Now and Then", included on a cassette tape which Ono had mentioned to George Harrison and gave to McCartney in 1994, the year Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "Grow Old with Me" had already been released in 1984 on the posthumous album Milk and Honey, so the Beatles turned their attention to "Now and Then". In March 1995, the three surviving Beatles began to work on "Now and Then" by recording a rough backing track that was to be used as an overdub. However, after only two days of recording, all work on the song ceased and plans for a third reunion single were scrapped.

Production of the Beatles' version originally started with Jeff Lynne as co-producer.

Producer Jeff Lynne reported that sessions for "Now and Then" consisted only of "one day – one afternoon, really – messing with it. The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn't finish." An additional factor behind scrapping the song was a technical defect in the original recording. As with "Real Love", a 60 Hz mains hum can be heard throughout Lennon's demo recording. However, it was noticeably louder on '"Now and Then", making it much harder to remove.

The project was largely shelved because of Harrison's dislike of the song due to its low-quality recording. McCartney told Q magazine in 1997 that "George didn't like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn't do it."

Throughout 2005 and 2006, press reports speculated that McCartney and Starr would release a complete version of the song in the future. Reports circulated in 2007 that McCartney was hoping to complete the song as a "Lennon–McCartney composition" by writing new verses, laying down a new drum track recorded by Ringo Starr, and utilising archival recordings of guitar work from Harrison, who had died in 2001.

During a Lynne documentary shown on BBC Four in 2012, McCartney stated about the song: "And there was another one that we started working on, but George went off it... that one's still lingering around, so I'm going to nick in with Jeff and do it. Finish it, one of these days."

McCartney said in October 2021 that he still hoped to finish the track. On 13 June 2023, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had "just finished" work on extracting Lennon's voice from an old demo of the latter's in order to complete the song, using (in his words) artificial intelligence. Dubbing the project "the final Beatles record", he did not name the song; however, BBC News reported it was likely that the song is "Now and Then" and that it would be released later in 2023. On the use of AI for sound source separation, McCartney clarified in June 2023 that "nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It's all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings – a process which has gone on for years."

Prior to the 2023 release, the only officially available recording of the song was from Lennon's original demo. In February 2009, the same version of Lennon's recording was released on a bootleg CD, taken from a different source, with none of the "buzz" which hampered the Beatles' recording of the song in 1995.

Announcement

Giles Martin co-produced the final song.

On 25 October 2023, an image of an orange-and-white cassette tape with the tape reel winding was published on the Beatles' official website and official social media accounts. The bottom left of the tape reads "Type I (Normal) Position", and the copyright section reads "Yoko Ono Lennon, MPL Communications Ltd, G.H. Estate Ltd and Startling Music Ltd." The following day, the song was officially announced as a double A-side single with a release date of 2 November 2023, backed with a new stereo remix of "Love Me Do". Paul McCartney and Giles Martin are credited as producers for the recording, while Jeff Lynne is credited for "additional production".

Jackson's production company, WingNut Films, was confirmed to isolate instruments, vocals, and individual conversations utilising its audio restoration technology. The neural network, called MAL (machine-assisted learning) – named after the Beatles' road manager Mal Evans, and as a pun to HAL 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey – was first used for the 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back and later the 2022 mix of Revolver, based directly on four-track master tapes. WingNut applied the same technique to Lennon's home recording of "Now and Then", while preserving the clarity of his vocal performance separated from the piano. WingNut worked on a digital copy of the original tape provided by Sean Lennon, which was of much better quality than the third-generation copy that the three surviving Beatles had used in 1995.

The restoration was followed by an addition of a string section written by Martin, McCartney and Ben Foster, recorded at Capitol Studios. Finally, McCartney and Martin added portions of original vocal recordings of "Here, There and Everywhere", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Because" into the new song, following the methods used for the 2006 remix album Love. The finished track was produced by McCartney and Martin, and mixed by Spike Stent.

Promotion

A 12-minute documentary film, Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song, written and directed by Oliver Murray, debuted on 1 November 2023 on the Beatles' YouTube channel. The short film tells the story behind the song, including commentary by McCartney, Starr and Harrison as well as Sean Lennon and Jackson. The film also plays an excerpt of the upcoming release.

To celebrate the release of "Now and Then", animated projection mappings of the cassette tape from the Beatles' website have popped up at Beatles-related locations across Liverpool, including the Strawberry Field, the road sign for Penny Lane, outside Lennon's childhood home, and The Cavern Club.

The BBC prepared an extended edition of The One Show on BBC One, BBC Radio 2 podcast series Eras: The Beatles hosted by Martin Freeman, as well as other programming on BBC Two and the BBC iPlayer.

It was announced by iHeartMedia that 740 radio stations owned by them will simultaneously premiere "Now and Then" on 2 November 2023 and the single will air hourly on their Classic Rock stations.

Music video

The music video for "Now and Then", is to be released on 3 November 2023, was directed by Jackson. It features never-before-seen film of the Beatles, including footage provided by Pete Best, scenes filmed during the 1995 recording sessions for Anthology, as well as unseen home movie footage of Harrison and new footage of McCartney and Starr performing. Additionally, visual effects were produced by Wētā FX.

Personnel

The Beatles

John Lennon – lead and backing vocals
Paul McCartney – lead and backing vocals, bass, lap steel guitar, piano, electric harpsichord, shaker
George Harrison – backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Ringo Starr – backing vocals, drums, tambourine, shaker

Production

Paul McCartney, Giles Martin, Ben Foster – string arrangement
Produced by Paul McCartney and Giles Martin, with additional production by Jeff Lynne
Giles Martin, Sam Okell – stereo and Atmos mixes
Miles Showell – vinyl mastering
Oli Morgan – Atmos mastering
Bruce Sugar, Steve Genewick, Greg McAllister, Geoff Emerick, Keith Smith, Mark "Spike" Stent, Steve Orchard, Jon Jacobs – engineering

Orchestra

Violin: Neel Hammond, Adrianne Pope, Charlie Bisharat, Andrew Bulbrook, Songa Lee, Serena McKinney
Viola: Ayvren Harrison, Caroline Buckman, Drew Forde, Linnea Powell
Cello: Mia Barcia-Colombo, Giovanna Clayton, Niall Ferguson
Double bass: Mike Valerio

Now and Then (Beatles song) facts for kids

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