One Final Encore For The Beatles

by Kevin Burton

   I’m guessing the final Beatles song, to be released later this week, will be neither a bang, nor a whimper.

   Or maybe it will be a bang, and a whimper and everything in between. That would be fitting for a band that was and is “ way beyond compare” to borrow one of their lines.

   So sweet to have a new Beatles song, so sad to know this is the last one.

   If you’re a Beatles fan, you’ve got to be tingling in anticipation.  I for one, never knew the song “Now And Then” existed.  This is a Lennon song recorded on cassette tape of all things.

   Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone Magazine tells the story of how Now And Then got from Lennon’s tape recorder to a worldwide release some four decades later:

   “Sixty years after their debut single, ‘Love Me Do,’ there’s a new closing chapter to the world’s most beloved group. On Thursday, the Beatles will drop their final song, ‘Now and Then.’”

   “John Lennon wrote it and sang it at the piano, at home in 1977. George Harrison played his guitar parts in 1995, when the three surviving Beatles attempted it at the Anthology sessions. Now, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have finished their friends’ work – a labor of love that seems to sum up the Beatles’ whole long and winding story. John, Paul, George, and Ringo chime in from different decades, yet they’re all playing the same tune, for one last all-together-now moment,” Sheffield wrote.

   Now and Then will be the final track on the new edition of the Beatles’ legendary anthologies, 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, forever known as the Red and Blue albums. These are pop’s most iconic greatest-hits collections – the map that guided decades of fans into the music. As producer Giles Martin tells Rolling Stone, ‘They were my gateway into the Beatles.’”

   “The Red and Blue albums drop on Nov. 10, a week after Now and Then.”

   “First things first: Now and Then is a real Beatles song. Hearing John and Paul sing the first chorus together, as they lock into the line “Now and then I miss you” – it’s intensely powerful, to say the least. Their voices join for a soulful confession of adult yearning, over George’s guitar, while Ringo plays the drums. Never maudlin, but deeply touching, like the Get Back movie.”
    “Despite the AI hysteria, there’s nothing faked, added, or changed in John’s vocal – just the clear sound of what he sang that day, at his piano in the Dakota. As Ringo says, “It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room.”

   “Now and Then hits much harder emotionally than the 1990s Anthology singles “Free As a Bird” or “Real Love,” which always sounded like spruced-up demos,” Sheffield writes.  Those two songs were footnotes to the Anthology documentary, produced by Jeff Lynne, refurbished by Paul, George, and Ringo. John sounded murky and faint, which was part of the pathos – you were just hearing a dim echo of his voice.”

   “Now and Then comes from the same home cassette, which Yoko Ono gave to Paul, George, and Ringo after John’s death. But it’s a stronger song – and thanks to the latest audio technology, it’s possible to hear far more of John’s voice and piano. Peter Jackson’s sound team uses the ‘de-mixing’ process from Get Back and last year’s Revolver box. The team, led by Emile de la Rey, uses WingNut Films MAL audio technology to isolate the vocal.

   Now and Then will drop worldwide on Nov. 2 at 2 p.m. GMT (10 a.m. EST). Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe are also releasing it as a physical single on vinyl and cassette, as a double A side with the band’s 1962 debut single, “Love Me Do.” (Yes, the version with Ringo on drums.) The acclaimed artist Ed Ruscha did the cover. The single brings the band’s story full circle, across 60 years, from nervous teenagers to weathered sages.

   “Peter Jackson directed the video, a technical tour de force that debuts the next day, on Friday, Nov. 3. It’s the epic director’s first music video -probably the shortest thing he’s ever done. “

   “A 12-minute film introducing the song debuts on Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m. GMT (3:30 p.m. EST) written and directed by Oliver Murray. Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song is a perfect way to experience the tune for the first time – it tells how the song came to be, with Sean Ono Lennon, Paul, Ringo, and Jackson telling the story, from John’s piano (Sean stresses that his dad never stopped playing music in their home) to Paul and Ringo cutting their parts in 2023. The trailer is available now.”

   “Teasing the song last summer, Paul mentioned AI, setting off ‘bigger than Jesus’ levels of controversy. As Martin says with a laugh, “It was funny, Paul – I think regrettably to a certain extent – announcing we were working on an AI Beatles track. There’s nothing about us which is either artificial or intelligent, really.”

   “Paul and Ringo began the project to finish the song their two mates left behind, with the full approval of Sean Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison.”
   “It was certainly important to Paul that it sounds like a Beatles song,” Martin says. “You don’t want it to be some sort of novelty Beatles tribute record. There was no need, from my point of view anyway, for any sort of modernization. Ringo should be Ringo and he should be playing the drums, and that’s what Ringo does. He plays the drums without a click track and sounds like Ringo, and there’s no one better.”

   “Martin did a string arrangement, as his father George Martin did for so many Fabs classics. “I was basically ripping off my dad as much as possible,” Martin says.

   Now and Then is produced by Paul and Martin, mixed by Spike Stent. As a beautifully intricate detail, Paul and Giles mixed in backing vocals from three original Beatles classics.”

   “I just thought if the Beatles were around, they’d probably sing harmonies at a certain point in the song,” Martin says. “And if there were backing vocals, it was important to have all the Beatles on it. So it’s taking just small elements from ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ and a bit of ‘Because.’ Obviously it wouldn’t be as good as the Beatles singing it live – but it is them singing live in the studio. That was important. There’s only four Beatles, and you might as well have them on a Beatles record.” 

   “But nothing gets in the way of the song’s primal impact,” Sheffield wrote.

   “Obviously, it hasn’t been, but it sounds like John’s written it for Paul now, in a very emotional way,” Martin says. “It’s a bittersweet song, which is very John. But with a combination of happiness and regret. It’s like ‘In My Life’ in that respect.” 

   Now and Then is the four lads from Liverpool, now separated by death, 60 years on from the skittish boys who start Red Side One with ‘Love Me Do, their voices full of terror. Everything has changed in 2023 – but not the most important thing, which is that fierce, unkillably enthusiastic passion for their musical bond. It’s a tribute to a friendship where Paul and Ringo go the extra mile to finish a song left undone decades ago, simply out of loyalty and fellowship. It’s a tribute to their mad love for the song – and for one another. “

   “There’s no story anywhere else in music quite like Now and Then. It’s a poignant farewell, to be sure.”