Earlier this week, The Beatles announced the release of their final song. “Now and Then” will hit streaming platforms on November 2 at 10 a.m. Additionally, a short documentary surrounding the making of the song will hit the band’s YouTube page on November 1.
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In the newly released trailer, the surviving Beatles discuss how the song came to be. George Harrison reveals that he received a demo containing John Lennon’s piano and vocal parts from Yoko Ono. Lennon and Ono’s son, Sean Ono Lennon also appears in the short video. “It’s the last song that my dad and Paul and George and Ringo will get to make together.”
“Now and Then” has been decades in the making. Lennon recorded the demo in the late 1970s in his home studio. Then, it sat on a shelf for decades. Finally, Ono passed the demo over to the rest of the band in the ‘90s. Initially, The Beatles hoped to include the song in the Anthology compilation series. However, the audio was too rough. They knew that audio technology would eventually advance far enough to make Lennon’s audio clear.
In 2021, Peter Jackson showed the remaining members of the Fab Four how far audio technology had advanced. He was able to enhance many of their archival recordings for his documentary The Beatles: Get Back. They used the same enhancement techniques to bring “Now and Then” together.
“Now and Then” will feature Lennon’s enhanced piano and vocals. Additionally, Harrison, Starr, and McCartney recorded fresh accompaniment for the song. McCartney and Starr also recorded backing vocals for the song.
McCartney worked with composer Ben Foster and producer Giles Martin to create a string arrangement for the song. “Now and Then” also features sampled backing vocals from “Here, There, and Everywhere,” “Because,” and “Eleanor Rigby.”
McCartney discussed “Now and Then” in a statement. “There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear. It’s quite emotional,” he said. “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.”
Now and Then—The Last Beatles Song will be available to stream on The Beatles YouTube channel at 3:30 p.m. ET on November 1. Watch the trailer below.
Photo: Youtube
