Making the “last” ever Beatles song brought a bit of joy to Paul McCartney – and a spiritual reunion with his old friend, the late John Lennon.
The Beatles released “Now and Then” on Thursday, November 2, a song marketed as the “last” single from The Beatles – McCartney, 81, Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. Lennon recorded a demo of the song in the late 1970s, and AI was able to extract his vocals for this now-complete track. For McCartney, it was a way to once again work with his friend, who was murdered in 1980.
“When we were in the studio, we had John’s voice in our ears,” McCartney told BBC Radio 1, per Billboard. “So you could imagine he was just in the next room in a vocal booth or something and we were just working with him again, so it was joyful. It was really lovely, you know, because we hadn’t experienced that for a long time, obviously, and then suddenly here we were working with ol’ Johnny.”
Starr, 83, and Harrison (who passed away in 2001 at age 58 after a three-year battle with cancer) attempted to rework the song in the 1990s but couldn’t make it work. The demo, with Lennon’s vocals, was recorded on a tape recording back in the “Imagine” singer’s apartment in New York City. The quality was too poor, and the technology wasn’t advanced enough to salvage Lennon’s “lost” voice.
Enter Peter Jackson, who helmed the Get Back documentary about the band making the Let It Be album. His team at WingNut Films developed the MAL audio technology, which is powered by artificial intelligence, to extract vocals from pre-existing documentary footage. That technology was able to successfully extract Lennon’s vocals from the demo and allow them to be mastered into this new recording.
“It was kind of magical doing it,” McCartney told BBC Radio 1. The song involves a string arrangement written by Paul and Ben Foster and Giles Martin, the son of Beatles producer George Martin. The track also includes contributions from all four Beatles, which is why it’s called the “last” song from the Fab Four.
The use of AI to seemingly resurrect the late John Lennon has raised a few concerns. The issue of using technology to replicate a musician’s voice is a hot-button issue, with Ed Sheeran, Selena Gomez and Drake all speaking out against the practice.
However, McCartney explained that “Now and Then” is more about using new technology, something the Beatles were not afraid to do.
“The first time we heard a tape go backwards by mistake, we went, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ and we wanted to put that on our record, whereas other people would just go, ‘Oh come on, get the tape on the right way and let’s get on with it,’” he said. “But we always grabbed little things like that so Peter Jackson, he’s organized it so it’s magic. It’s very special for me to be singing with John again.”
