The Beatles are releasing their “final” song, recorded by John Lennon and resurrected four decades later by the remaining band members.
Now And Then was written in the late 1970s by Lennon, who produced a demo with vocals and piano at his home in New York. His widow, Yoko Ono, gave the tape to Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in 1994.
The remaining Beatles added their voices and instruments to the song but technological limitations at the time meant they were unable to separate Lennon’s vocals from the track to create a clear sound.
The two other tracks on the tape, Free as a Bird and Real Love, were completed and released as singles in 1995 and 1996. But Now and Then was shelved, in the hope that it may one day become possible to salvage it.
Now using AI, the remaining two Beatles have managed to isolate Lennon’s voice from the piano and remix the track. The technology was previously used to restore audio for Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back and on a re-release of the band’s seventh studio album, Revolver, last year.
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The Now and Then original vocals were then set alongside electric and acoustic guitar recorded in 1995 by Harrison. Last year a new drum part from Starr was recorded alongside bass, guitar and piano from McCartney, which matched Lennon’s original playing.
McCartney added a slide guitar solo inspired by Harrison and he and Starr also contributed backing vocals to the chorus. A new string arrangement and backing vocals from the original recordings of the hits Here, There And Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because have all been woven in.
While a bootlegged version of the track has long been available online, this will be the first time a clean, official one is released.
McCartney, 81, described the process of re-recording the song as “quite emotional”. He said: “There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”
Starr, 83, added: “It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room so it was very emotional for all of us. It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”
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Now and Then is being released on November 2 in a double single which will pair the last Beatles song with the first: the band’s 1962 single Love Me Do. The American artist Ed Ruscha has designed the cover art.
A short documentary about the making of the single, as well as a new music video, will also be released. Sean Ono Lennon, the singer’s son, said the single was “like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be”. He said: “It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that Dad had been gone.”
