Paul McCartney has described the process of making The Beatles‘ final song ‘Now and Then’ as “magical” following its official release on November 2nd.
While it’s taken until 2023 for ‘Now and Then’ to be released, the origin of the song dates back to 1977 when John Lennon recorded a demo for the track in his New York apartment. Years after his death, his widow, Yoko Ono, handed the cassette tape to McCartney, who vowed to turn it into a song with his old band.
In 1995, the three surviving members of the band attempted to record the track as a trio, but due to technology issues, they aborted their plans after two days in the studio. However, during the making of Get Back, director Peter Jackson created a piece of AI software called the MAL, which allowed The Beatles to clean Lennon’s voice on the demo and finally finish ‘Now and Then’.
During a new interview with Clara Amfo on BBC Radio 1, McCartney explained: “Before John died, he was working on some songs, and Yoko spoke to George Harrison and said ‘I’ve got a cassette with some John songs on that he never got to finish would you be interested in finishing them off?’ So we thought about it, and we thought, ‘Yeah, it would be great’, cause in a way we would be working with John again, which we thought we would never be able to do.”
McCartney added: “I ended up talking to Ringo, and we asked him if he fancied putting the drums on again, and then I thought, ‘Well, I could up the bass a bit’, so I put the bass on again, we already had George playing guitar, and we had John on vocal, it was kind of magical doing it. So we ended up making it into a real record, and that’s what’s being released.”
When asked whether making ‘Now and Then’ was a “healing experience”, McCartney said: “Yeah, that’s true, when we were in the studio we had John’s voice in our ears 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.”
McCartney also revealed what he wanted fans to take away from the track, stating: “Just a loving feeling because that’s often what we were trying to do with our records, we were trying to spread love. And in this one, it is very poignant. It’s John talking about ‘I miss you’ and stuff like that, so I think emotion, that would be the key word for people to take away from it, ‘emotion’.”
In a five-star review of the track, Far Out wrote: “As ever with The Beatles, it is a piece of art created with unrivalled chemistry even via the conduit of AI. This is evidenced by the wondrous syncopation of McCartney’s bass that rumbles perfectly beneath his old pals stabbing piano jabs. And the extra lashings of care that have gone into crafting a perfectly pitched score rather than wheeling out something half-cooked for the cash-in.”
