George Harrison’s widow, Olivia, has shared “a surprising magical story” involving the recently released Beatles song “Now and Then,” explaining why she’s sure that her late husband, who died of cancer in 2001, approves of the tune. Olivia tells the tale, which involves a clock that the former Beatles guitarist purchased decades ago, in a voice-over that accompanies an animated video posted on Harrison’s social media pages.
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“We were in this store, [and] George saw this clock made out of bits and pieces, and it had some Scrabble letters and it just said, ‘Now and Then,’” Olivia said in the clip. “He was attracted to it for some reason, [and he] just took it off the wall and bought it. [He] built this little Russian dacha [cottage] in the garden and hung the clock on it, and there it sat for 25 years.”
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Olivia then noted that at the end of last summer, she cleaned the clock up a bit and then placed it on her mantelpiece, and not long after that she received a phone call from Paul McCartney. McCartney began telling her about the unfinished track that was on the same cassette tape John Lennon had recorded in the late 1970s that also featured two other songs—“Real Love” and “Free as a Bird”—which Harrison, McCartney, and Ringo Starr had completed and released during the mid-1990s as part of The Beatles’ Anthology compilation series.
“And I said, ‘I remember it. It’s called ‘Now and Then,’” she recalled telling McCartney. “And I’m standing there looking at the clock that said ‘Now and Then.’ We were so moved and happy that this thing that George had held in his hand somehow magically appeared. And I said, ‘I think this is Georgie saying it’s OK.’”
As previously reported, Harrison, McCartney, and Starr decided to shelve “Now and Then” after recording parts for the song during the mid-1990s because the quality of Lennon’s original vocal track was poor. McCartney recently revisited the track after technology was developed that cleanly lifted Lennon’s vocals from the cassette. Starr and McCartney then recorded some new parts, and a new string arrangement also was added to finish the song.
The track was released on November 2, and is being billed as “the last Beatles song.” “Now and Then” recently reached No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart and debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also appears on the recently released expanded reissue of The Beatles’ 1967-1970 compilation, also known as “The Blue Album.”
(Featured Image by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
