A short documentary titled A Song Reborn, about the making of The Beatles’ 1994 reunion tune “Free as a Bird,” has debuted on the band’s official YouTube channel. The five-minute film features previously unseen studio footage of Beatles members Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr working on the track, as well as their commentary about the recording.
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The footage was shot during the making of the 1990s docuseries The Beatles Anthology, a restored and expanded version of which recently premiered on Disney+.
“Free as a Bird” was built around a home demo of an unfinished song John Lennon recorded in 1977. Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, gave the cassette with the recording to John’s fellow Beatles, who then completed the track.
Early in the video, we hear Harrison discussing what led to the decision to record a new track using the Lennon demo.
“Different ideas have been talked about, that we can do the background music or even write a new song,” he noted. “We always had a thing between the four of us that if any one of us wasn’t in it, we weren’t gonna go out as The Beatles.”
McCartney then explained, “We had this cassette, ‘Free as a Bird.’ It was very bad quality. It was just a mono cassette, with John and the piano locked in on one track, which nobody would normally deal with. … But the song was so strong, now, [it was] like, ‘Wow,’ you know, ‘this is impossible. John’s dead, but we’re actually gonna be able to play with him again.’”
More About the Recording of “Free as a Bird”
As the video proceeded, Starr commented, “When I first heard John’s version [of ‘Free as a Bird,’] I cried. And the idea that we were gonna do it together was very, very strange. We’d been meeting and chatting, but now we were gonna actually play.”
To get in the right frame of mind for the recording, McCartney explained, “I’d said to the guys that let’s pretend that John’s just gone on holiday and he’s rung up and he said, ‘We’ve nearly finished the album. Look, here’s a song I kind of like, but I haven’t finished it. Will you finish it up for me? I trust you.’”
Harrison then pointed out that he and his old bandmates worked together on the track the same way they would have back in the day.
As he noted, “That stage of writing a song in normal circumstances, somebody comes in the studio and says, ‘I’ve got this song. It’s not quite finished yet. What do you think?’ And you start playing it. Well, historically what we’d do, we’d say, ‘Well, hang on. I’m not sure about that chord there. Why don’t we try this cord here.’ So we took the liberty of doing that.”
McCartney and Starr on How It Felt to Record with The Beatles Again
McCartney said that working with his Beatles bandmates again immediately felt very natural to him.
“When we actually went to the studio, it was like we’d never been apart,” he maintained. “It was very strange, actually. Ringo just sat down at the drums. It could’ve been like Abbey Road 30 years ago. It was like there wasn’t a beat missed.”
Sir Paul added, “For me, it was very exciting. The idea of playing with John again, having him in my headphones. It was very moving for me, and very exciting and very comfortable.”
Starr shared a similar sentiment.
“We just had this great session,” Ringo said. “Being in the room … it was exciting for me to be with the other two, ’cause they know what they’re doing. When George does that [slide-guitar] solo, every time I listen to it, I get shivers up my spine. It’s very emotional.”
McCartney Summed Up His Feelings About the Recording
As the film wound down, McCartney reflected on the experience recording “Free as a Bird.”
He said, “There was a great feeling [that] even though it was now only three of us, and even though we’d had all the fame and The Beatles had finished, it was still just a very good, warm feeling of being with colleagues who were good, who were out—like you were—to make something special, to make something happen that they said couldn’t happen. Just that effort and just that enjoyment of doing that is really what it comes down to, sort of all it’s about.”
Paul concluded, “It was a great pleasure, I think, for all of us, having John back. And OK, we can’t really get him back, but we can nearly get him back, and that was worth it.”
More About A Song Reborn
The documentary was directed by Oliver Murray, who also directed the new, ninth episode of the expanded and restored Beatles Anthology series. The previously unseen footage in A Song Reborn was restored to the ultra-high-definition 4K format in 2025 by Park Road Post, Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson’s post-production company.
The footage incudes scenes of the surviving Beatles joking around and recording various music and vocal parts for “Free as a Bird.” The track’s co-producer, Jeff Lynne, also makes an appearance.
More About “Free as a Bird”
“Free as a Bird” originally was released in 1995 as part of The Beatles’ Anthology 1 compilation. The song peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.
A new mix of the song, using modern audio-restoration technology, was included in the new Anthology 4 compilation. Anthology 4 was released as part of The Anthology Collection box set and as a standalone album in November 2025.
(Courtesy of Disney)
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