The Beatles are back with one song
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Technology allowed legends to be in the same studio
“I know it’s true, it’s all because of you…” sings John Lennon, and the fact that a sketch from the seventies became a full-fledged Beatles track is truly a miracle. Released on November 2, “Now And Then” is said to be the Fab Four’s latest musical number. It remains to understand how to approach this.
The release of Now And Then, to the delight of all music lovers, turned out to be as multimedia as possible. There is already a twelve-minute documentary about how it all turned out; a video for the song is promised from director Peter Jackson (the same one who filmed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and did the large-scale archival project Get Back about the recording of Let It Be, one of the most famous Beatles albums) , and as a bonus, a new version of Love Me Do.
They react differently to Now And Then, as expected. Some people see this idea as soulless marketing, others call the continuation of the Beatles story in 2023 a delightful and amazing event. It is noteworthy that both are right.
Following the assassination of John Lennon in 1980 and the death of George Harrison from cancer in 2001, the band’s legacy is primarily associated with Paul McCartney, who performs around the world with those same songs. Ringo Starr is more focused on his own career, but for Now And Then both legends coordinated their difficult schedules. And this is not the first time they have done this.
In the mid-nineties, while working on The Beatles anthology, McCartney, Harrison and Starr restored the songs Free As A Bird and Real Love, which were included in a luxurious “three-volume set” dedicated to the history of the group. The tapes that Yoko Ono gave to the musicians included a demo version of Now And Then, but it was not possible to bring it to fruition. Studio technology at that time did not allow separating the vocals from the keyboard part, and besides, according to rumors, Harrison was not at all enthusiastic about this song. After George’s death, the question of quorum disappeared by itself, and studio equipment was brought to some prohibitive level.
When working on the film Get Back, Peter Jackson and his team watched fifty-five hours of video footage and listened to one hundred and forty hours of audio recordings. The capabilities of artificial intelligence were used to process a huge amount of material; they also helped to separate the voices and the sound of instruments recorded on one track. The same technique was useful in working on the tape with the demo recording Now And Then, which was Lennon’s voice sounding under the piano.
A guitar part recorded by Harrison remains from the 1994 studio sessions. McCartney and Starr added the bass and drums already in this century. The resulting song was very typical of Lennon in the seventies. John’s voice amazingly combines laconicism and emotionality; there are few words in the song, but they immediately fall into the heart. The song is most likely dedicated to Yoko Ono, but there is a legend among Beatlemaniacs that Lennon sends a message to Paul McCartney through poetry and music, confesses his love to him and thus extends his hand to the possible unification of The Beatles. It’s too beautiful to be true, but now it’s impossible to dot the i’s.
There are serious doubts that the very next day after the release Now And Then will be heard all over the planet and will become a huge hit that cannot be avoided. In the raging and very clogged sound ocean, it is now very difficult for the public to concentrate on anything and appreciate something. However, this song is very important. All members of the Fab Four had a hand in it, and such collaboration in the studio, albeit separated by decades, probably happened for the last time.
In addition, receiving a message from another era is an incredible experience for everyone who was in any way touched by the music of The Beatles. A handwritten letter in the era of messengers, of course, looks naive, but it is about love and has special value in the era of hatred.
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The Beatles are back for one song
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