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THE BEATLES: From time to time (Apple)
Verdict: emotional swan song
A sequence of five resounding piano chords, the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar, the crystal clear vocals of John Lennon and the most anticipated record of the year is upon us. Now And Then, made with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), is billed as “the last Beatles song” – the final dispatch from John, Paul, George and Ringo, the four dyed-haired guys from Liverpool who shook the world. .
Created by extracting Lennon’s vocals from an old demo that’s been sitting around for decades, it’s a historic pop moment. A thoughtful and romantic ballad, it opens in a melancholy fashion, dominated by minor chords, before the mood is lifted by an optimistic chorus. “Every now and then, if we have to do it again / Well we know for sure that I’ll love you,” John sings. His voice is incomparable and it’s wonderful to hear it again after so many years.
There are plenty of other familiar sounds here, with strings in the tradition of their 1967 track I Am The Walrus and a Paul McCartney slide guitar solo with long faded notes in homage to George Harrison. But it’s when drummer Ringo Starr picks up the tempo just past the minute mark that Now And Then transforms from what could have been a bloated Lennon solo offering into a full-fledged Fab Four song.
The bar for a “new” Beatles act is incredibly high. If we are to judge Now And Then by the standards of Hey Jude, Strawberry Fields Forever or Harrison’s Something – a 1969 Abbey Road ballad that Frank Sinatra called the greatest love song in 50 years – we will find that it leaves to be desired. But it’s a track that will gradually work its way into the nation’s affections over the coming weeks.
Now And Then was shelved, with the hope that one day it would be revisited.
The band release the track Now and Then, which the late singer John began recording in the late 1970s before he was discovered by his wife in the 90s (pictured).
The Beatles have released a short film revealing how they wrote their last song together 43 years after John Lennon’s death (Paul McCartney pictured in the 1990s)
So, is this really a new single, or just a computer-generated Franken song aimed at Beatles obsessives? Given the presence of AI, can we now expect to hear Eleanor Robot or With A Little Help From My Algorithms? Some will think that there is something wrong with touching the heritage of these four national treasures. After all, The Beatles broke up over fifty years ago and two of the band’s members are no longer with us.
But Now And Then feels like an authentic Beatles song. Lennon, murdered in 1980, and Harrison, who died in 2001, are essential to what constitutes an emotional and human record, even if the sound quality has been enhanced by cutting-edge technology.
Lennon sings and most of the instrumental parts – guitar, bass, piano, electric harpsichord and shaker – are provided by McCartney. There’s acoustic and electric guitars from Harrison and encouraging drumming from Ringo. The fact that this is the band’s final song should also reassure those who fear a deluge of artificially enhanced samples.
Lennon, murdered in 1980, and Harrison, who died in 2001, are fundamental elements of what constitutes an emotional and human record.
John’s wife, Yoko Uno, handed over a series of demos that John had worked on before his death, some of which were released at the time.
Speaking about the short film which premiered at The One Show on Wednesday, Paul McCartney said: “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 “boombox” cassette at his home in the Dakota Building in New York. In 1994, 14 years after his murder, his widow Yoko Ono gave the cassette, which was marked “For Paul” and also contained two other songs, to the three surviving Beatles as they compiled their Anthology retrospective series.
The other two tracks, 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 audio quality was dismal, marred by background hiss 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 to a high enough level. The song was shelved and, despite lackluster bootlegs appearing online, it was not heard from again until McCartney teased the release in a radio interview in June.
Now And Then was shelved, with the hope that one day it would be revisited.
During the short film, Paul explained that within minutes, John’s voice was heard echoing around the room, crystal clear, as if he were there in person.
Thanks to software used by filmmaker Peter Jackson for the 2021 documentary Get Back, Lennon’s vocals have now been “separated” from the background noise and the song was finished using George’s guitar parts from 1995 alongside new contributions, including backing vocals in the chorus, from Paul and Ringo. .
What was done with Lennon’s raw demo – turning “then” into “now” – by producers McCartney and Giles Martin (son of original Beatles producer George Martin) is extraordinary. It’s a vibrant piece of music, despite moments where it threatens to become a little over-the-top. The addition of additional vocal harmonies, woven into the song from Beatles tracks Here, There And Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because, seems to go 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 let it happen. It’s a late swan song worth the wait.