Behind the making of the Beatles ‘last song’
The new track arrives with a video featuring ‘unseen footage’ directed by New Zealand’s Peter Jackson.
A short film chronicling the four-decade labour of love that was completing the Beatles’ ‘last song’ has been released.
“Now & Then – The Last Beatles Song,” directed by British documentarian Oliver Murray, features unreleased music and never-before-seen studio footage of the Fab Four. It premiered worldwide today.
The elusive track, ‘Now and Then,’ was penned and sung by John Lennon, who recorded it as a demo in the fabled Upper West Side apartment building, The Dakota, in 1978. In 1994, Yoko Ono presented the recording to McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, alongside Lennon’s demos for ’Free as a Bird’ and ’Real Love.’
Collaborating with producer and Electric Light Orchestra guitarist Jeff Lynne in 1995, the three surviving Beatles recorded new parts for a version of ‘Now and Then.’ However, technological limitations of the era hindered them from isolating Lennon’s vocals from the piano on his original demo. The song was shelved for decades, with little hope that it would ever be completed. Murray’s short film features footage from the recording session.
McCartney and Starr revisited the project after working with New Zealand director Peter Jackson on his 2021 Get Back documentary series. The AI software system developed by Jackson and his team to restore audio for the documentary allowed for the separation of Lennon’s vocals from the piano on the “ropy little bit of cassette” it was recorded on.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear. And we all play on it; it’s a genuine Beatles recording,” McCartney said of the process.
In 2022, McCartney and Starr completed the song, which features electric and acoustic guitar laid down by Harrison in 1995, alongside a new drum part and backing vocals from Starr, and bass, guitar, and piano by McCartney, who embellished the song with a slide guitar solo inspired by the late Harrison.
McCartney, 81, described the process of finishing the song as “quite emotional.”
“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 an exciting thing,” he said.
Director Oliver Murray acknowledged that there has been much scepticism about AI, “and for good reason in many cases.”
“But to see it used here with such warmth and attention to detail paints a much brighter future,” he said. He added that the documentary is a story of music archaeology and “a brotherly bond that gave the world some of the most popular music in history.”
Sean Ono Lennon, John and Ono’s son, said hearing the finished track was “like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be.”
He said: “It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that Dad had been gone.”
‘Now and Then’ will be accompanied with a music video directed by Jackson. It will feature unseen footage of the band, including what Jackson describes as “a few precious seconds of the Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of the Beatles and never seen before.”
Jackson said that working on his first music video for the band “produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with.”
“My lifelong love of the Beatles collided into a wall of sheer terror at the thought of letting everyone down,” he said in a statement.
‘Now and Then’ will be released digitally and as a double A-side single on Friday, November 3, backed with the band’s first released single, 1962’s ‘Love Me Do,’ with cover art by the American artist Ed Ruscha.
Watch The Beatles - Now and Then below
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