In advance of the newly created Beatles song, “Now and Then,” which will be released Thursday, November 2, a 12-minute documentary about the making of the track premiered Wednesday afternoon on the band’s official YouTube channel.
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Titled Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song, the film, which includes new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as archival commentary from the late George Harrison, details how the track came into existence, and offers a bit of a preview of the recording.
The documentary also features new interviews with The Beatles: Get Back director Peter Jackson and John Lennon’s son Sean, as well as film clips of the Fab Four from throughout their career, new footage of McCartney and Starr working on “Now and Then” in the studio, and archival footage from McCartney, Starr, and Harrison’s reunion sessions from the mid-1990s.
As the film begins, McCartney laments the loss of Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, then discusses how the opportunity arose in the 1990s to create some new Beatles songs using unfinished demos Lennon had made in the 1970s that his widow, Yoko Ono, had given to the surviving members.
McCartney recalls that he first wondered about whether the surviving Beatles should go ahead and finish the songs, without Lennon around to give his approval.
“Every time I thought like that, I thought, Wait a minute, let’s say I had a chance to ask John, ‘Hey John, would you like us to finish this last song of yours?’” McCartney notes. “I know the answer would’ve been, ‘Yeah!’ He would’ve loved that.”
The bandmates did complete two tracks, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” which ended up being released as part of The Beatles’ 1995-1996 Anthology series of compilations, but a third track they began working on, “Now and Then,” remained unfinished because they were unable to separate Lennon’s vocals adequately from his piano parts.
With “Now and Then” shelved, McCartney points out that Harrison died in 2001, “which kind of took the wind out of our sails.” What finally inspired him to revisit the track was that Jackson, while working on the Get Back docuseries, had developed technology that could “separate off certain instruments and voices.”
Using the technology, a clean and clear Lennon vocal track was lifted from the “Now and Then” demo, finally allowing the recording to be finished. Poignantly, a section of the track is included in the documentary.
The film then features commentary from McCartney and Starr discussing how they proceeded to record new bass and drum parts for the song. McCartney also talks about how he enlisted Giles Martin, son of late Beatles producer George Martin, to work on a Fab Four-style string arrangement for the track, which was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles.
For one of the last elements on the track, McCartney notes that he added a slide-guitar solo that he played in the style of Harrison that was “really a tribute to George.”
As the film nears its end, a snippet of “Now and Then” is played, as Sean Lennon comments, “It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that my dad had been gone. It’s the last song that my dad and Paul and George and Ringo will get to make together.”
McCartney then reflects on how lucky he’s been to work on so much great music with his Beatles bandmates, and shares his feeling of satisfaction in completing “Now and Then.”
“To still be working on Beatles music in 2023, wow!” he says. “We’re actually messing around with state-of-the-art technology, which is something The Beatles would’ve been very interested in. ‘Now and Then,’ it’s probably, like, the last Beatles song, and we’ve all played on it, so it is a genuine Beatle recording.”
As previously reported, “Now and Then” will be released globally as a digital single on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET. A physical version of the single that’s paired with the Beatles’ original 1962 single version of “Love Me Do” will be released on November 3, and will be available on 7-inch black and colored vinyl variants, on a 12-inch black vinyl disc, and on cassette. You can pre-order the single now.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
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