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The Beatles always get lucky because this one is a really good song for now, almost like John is singing to his friends from beyond the grave,” says Giles Martin, who helped produce it. From him to them, then a family broth (Giles is the son of the band’s original producer George Martin) of warm memories and harmonised love. In the same way that Jackson’s Get Back reestablished Lennon as the leader of the band (appearing towards the beginning of the film strung out on drugs, by the time of their rooftop performance he is very much back in charge), so Now and Then moves him very much to the foreground, only this time by McCartney. In essence this is now a song of brotherly love.
Every new Beatles project produces a kind of global media frenzy, an echo of the Beatlemania that swept Britain in 1963, and America a year later, when their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, just months after the tragedy of J.F.K.’s assassination, lifted a depressed American mood.
On its release, inevitably there were many who were disappointed with Now and Then. But there were many more who were transported. One of the most effecting eulogies I read was a reader’s comment in The Guardian. “I had no idea how emotionally I would react to this song,” wrote Klara, 33, from London. “My youngest brother passed away last year from a brain tumour at 27. He was a big Beatles fan; he chose Beatles songs for his wedding and for his funeral – a lot of people commented that he had the music taste of someone twice his age. I had been wondering, in the lead-up to the release, what he would have thought of the band using AI to finish it, and if he’d have liked the final result.
“When I heard the opening lines, and the melancholy in John’s voice, I got chills all over. The sadness of the song encapsulates the emptiness you feel when you lose someone you love, and you know you have to continue on without them. I don’t know if I could have appreciated the song as much without having known this feeling. My brother had a habit of humming Beatles melodies to himself as he was out working in the garden, and I could imagine him singing the Now and Then chorus every time I listened to the song today. I wish my brother had been able to hear it; I think he would have given it a thumbs up.”
There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear. It’s quite emotional,” says Paul, who with Ringo, set about completing the song in 2022. Besides John’s vocal, Now and Then includes electric and acoustic guitar recorded in 1995 by George, as well as Ringo’s new drum part, and bass, guitar and piano from Paul, which matches John’s original playing. Paul added a slide guitar solo inspired by George; he and Ringo also contributed backing vocals to the chorus.
“It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room, so it was very emotional for all of us,” says Ringo. “It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”
In Los Angeles, Paul oversaw a Capitol Studios recording session for the song’s wistful, quintessentially Beatles string arrangement, written by Giles Martin, Paul and Ben Foster. Paul and Giles also added one last, wonderfully subtle touch: backing vocals from the original recordings of Here, There and Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because, woven into the new song using the techniques perfected during the making of the LOVE show and album. The finished track was produced by Paul and Giles and mixed by Spike Stent.
“We all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording,” Paul says. “In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and to release a new song, I think it’s an exciting thing.”
And it is brilliant. Neither a re-tread or an homage, it is something genuinely new, with a reinvigorated vocal, Ringo playing rimshot, and a melody for the ages. It is a classic Beatles single, and worthy of all the fuss.
“It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that Dad had been gone,” says Sean Lennon. “It’s the last song my dad, Paul, George and Ringo got to make together. It’s like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be.”
How Anthology changed Beatles history
This time capsule, came from a time when the Beatles were at an incredibly low ebb. The Anthology series started in 1995, serendipitously piggy backing onto Britpop, which was itself a massive echo of the Beatles’ heyday. Anthology was basically Beatlemania II.