by Kevin Burton
Think of the individual Beatles’ colossal talents, with egos to match. Think of the group putting together an album.
It’s John Lennon trying to get his songs on the record, Paul McCartney doing the same and George Harrison fighting to be heard at all.
There is creativity, artistry, but there is competition too, make no mistake.
Now imagine Lennon has “Now And Then” as a song in his hip pocket. Is he really bringing that song to the table to compete with McCartney’s best?
Of course not. But is that beside the point when listening to, reacting to, the last Beatles song?
“The real – unfair – question is whether the song comes close to measuring up to the Beatles or their collective solo works’ towering legacy,” writes Jem Aswad on msn.com. “Of course it doesn’t, but it’s still an unexpected pleasure that marks the completion of the group’s last bit of unfinished business.”
Then there is this much less kind assessment on the Brutally Honest Album Review blog on WordPress:
“Now and Then” isn’t a song. It’s just a publicity stunt. It’s just attention whore Paul McCartney hiking his skirt up to try and get everyone’s attention.”
“It’s a strangely pathetic and desperate attempt to fire up the Magical Mystery Tour sans any magic or mystery.”
Keep reading the blog and you find the writer is a Beatles fan.
“I love The Beatles more than anyone. When the new versions of the Red and Blue albums come out next week, that is all I will listen to for the next month, and I’m not even kidding,” the blog reads.
“The Beatles were amazing, and I don’t think we will ever see their like again. There has never been a more potent mix of songwriting genius, sonic experimentation, raw musical talent, and grand artistic vision. ‘Now and Then’ is utterly devoid of any of that. It kills me to have to savage a Beatles (allegedly) song like this, but we don’t deserve the moniker Brutally Honest if we don’t call this out for the stinker that it is.”
The revised Red and Blue albums (Beatles Greatest hits sets) and the need to promote them is certainly one of the reasons behind the release of song. Now and Then is the last track on the Blue Album.
I can’t savage McCartney, Ringo Starr and the others involved for good marketing (even though I’m not going to buy a new Beatles set every time they add or subtract a song or two).
. Neither do I feel the need to savage the song itself. It’s more that I just don’t have a place for it. It doesn’t scream 60s, or 2020s. It’s neither now, nor then.
If you find out there is another John Lennon song available, you’re going to listen. But to me it’s not “an unexpected pleasure,” as Aswad wrote. It’s also not “the group’s last piece of unfinished business.” The Beatles business was finished long, long ago. Their catalog is complete, their legacy intact.
My very first reaction to Now and Then was they should pick up the tempo a bit. If you had it in a stack of demos, this tune would stay buried for sure, but for the international fame of its composers.
I had the feeling all along that if the new song were anything even close to say, Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane or I Saw Her Standing There, we would have heard it or at least heard about it before now.
If you want to hear some really good music, credited posthumously to the artist, check out “Rest in Blue,” a reworked set of unfinished Gerry Rafferty demos completed under the direction of his daughter Martha after Gerry’s death. Check out “It’s Just The Motion” from that set and you might agree with me that it has a place alongside the best of his work.
Martha said in a radio interview that there are more Rafferty songs on the way. I hope that is the case and I’ve been watching for a new release.
But since we can’t reunite the four Beatles and have them squabble their way to more genius, let’s allow their catalog to speak for itself.
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