It’s all about looking to the past and the future for Ringo Starr, who took to social media yesterday to promote his recently released solo EP Rewind Forward and celebrate the arrival of the new Beatles song, “Now and Then.”
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“What a great week, everybody. Peace and love, yeah,” the former Beatles drummer said in a video posted on his Instagram and TikTok pages. “Just a week ago, my new CD, Rewind Forward, [was released,] and tomorrow … ‘Now and Then,’ the last Beatle track ever.”
[RELATED: Hello, Goodbye: The Beatles’ “Last Song,” “Now and Then,” Has Arrived]
In the clip, Starr held up a vinyl copy of the “Now and Then” single, and also mentioned The Beatles’ “Red” and “Blue” compilations, officially titled 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, which are going to be reissued as expanded collections on November 10.
“It’s so great,” Starr continued, then added with a laugh, “The beat goes on, peace and love, the beat goes on, peace and love.”
Accompanying the video is a note from Starr in which he admits, “I actually well [up] still every time … I hear [‘Now and Then.’]”
Rewind Forward, which was released on October 13, is a four-track collection that includes a song written by his old Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney called “Feeling the Sunlight.” McCartney also sang backing vocals and played bass on the tune.
The EP also includes the title track, which Starr co-wrote with his longtime studio collaborator Bruce Sugar; “Miss Jean,” co-written by Ian Hunter and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers members Mike Campell and Benmont Tench; and “Shadows on the Wall,” co-written by Toto’s Steve Lukather and Joseph Williams.
Regarding “Now and Then,” as previously reported, the track was made available as a digital single on Thursday, November 2, while vinyl and cassette versions will be released on Friday, November 3.
The song was built around a demo that the late John Lennon recorded in the late 1970s and that McCartney, Starr, and the late George Harrison worked on during the 1990s but didn’t complete. McCartney and Starr then revisited the track recently and finished it with help from the same audio technology director Peter Jackson employed on The Beatles: Get Back docuseries, which was used to cleanly lift Lennon’s vocals off the demo recording.
In the short documentary about the making of “Now and Then” that premiered Wednesday on The Beatles’ YouTube channel, Starr notes, “Since Peter took John off [the demo] and gave him his own track, it was like John’s there … It’s far out.”
An official music video for “Now and Then,” directed by Jackson, will premiere November 3 at 9 a.m. ET at The Beatles’ YouTube channel.
