Beatlemania will never die! Over 50 years after their break-up and even after the passing of two of their members, the Beatles will be releasing a new song this year.
Last week, Paul McCartney announced that they had been able to extract John Lennon’s voice from an old cassette demo recording of a song Lennon was working on in the 1970s. Using AI (Artificial Intelligence), they were able to remove the piano Lennon was playing on the demo and clean up the vocal.
While assembling of the multi-volume Beatles’ Anthology CD sets, Yoko Ono had given her permission for the remaining band members to utilize some of John’s unreleased demos to craft a couple of new Beatles songs for inclusion on Anthology. They chose “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” But there was a third tune, known as “Now and Then,” which the band rejected because 1.) George Harrison didn’t really care for it and 2.) the cassette recording couldn’t be cleaned up enough to yield a usable vocal. According to Ono, the song was written by John to Paul when the duo was considering reteaming to write some new tunes.
Fast forward to last year when film director, Peter Jackson was able to use AI to isolate Lennon’s vocals from “I’ve Got Feeling” as sung during their famous “Rooftop Concert.” That allowed Paul to duet live on stage with his old partner during Macca’s “Got Back” tour last year – a very moving highlight of the live show.
Listen to John's original demo.
Using the same technology, Paul has now been able to extract a usable vocal from “Now and Then.” One presumes Harrison had recorded some guitar for the track back during the Anthology sessions. As Paul & Ringo Starr are still with us, they, of course, can contribute to completing the song.
McCartney says the finished product – the “last Beatle song” will be released later this year.
To which we say, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”
