I CAN'T BELIEVE IT...
Here we are in 2023 and the Beatles are chart toppers once AGAIN??!
The abandoned third Anthology track "Now and Then", which was meant to accompany The Beatles "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" in 1995 - but shelved due to excessive tape hiss and glitches galore - has been resuscitated - CLEANED UP (using AI technology - more on this later) and COMPLETED by the last two surviving Beatles - Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
...It's also (as of this time of writing) a Top 10 Hit on Billboard's charts (at #7) and #1 on the UK's Official Singles Chart!
BUT BEFORE I GO ON
Let me just squeeze this in here - - right upfront...
The bottomless quagmire that anyone writing about the Beatles finds themselves in is that just about ANYTHING said about the Beatles has ALREADY been said - and NOW AND THEN is no exception. Since it's release the media has been inundated with opinions, reviews, praise and scorn (although not too much scorn, actually) and - dear God - those teary-eyed REACTION videos on YouTube! So let me say right off the bat - forgive me - I may be preaching to the choir (or schooling the academy?) when I state the obvious, reveal the well-known, and refry those Beatle beans... but since you're already here...
EVERYONE KNOWS (DON'T THEY?)
1994 was the beginning of something beautiful. At the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony where John Lennon was posthumously inducted by his widow, Yoko Ono - she hand-delivered a cassette to Paul McCartney which contained several John Lennon home recordings that he did in 1977. On the tape were the unfinished/unreleased recordings of "Free As A Bird", "Grow Old With Me", "Real Love" and "Now And Then".
"Grow Old With Me" had already been released on "Milk And Honey" in 1984 - (and again in 1998 on the John Lennon Anthology box set with full George Martin orchestration) so the three surviving Beatles (dubbed The Threetles) focused their attentions on the other three songs for the Beatles Anthology sessions, which commenced in March 1995.
It was big BIG news back then just to learn that the remaining Beatles all agreed on reuniting - and they were going to utilize home recordings of John Lennon to release "NEW" Beatles recordings! I remember watching the countdown on TV for the "Free As A Bird" video. WHAT WOULD THIS SOUND LIKE? The anticipation was met with something unforgettable - a familiar sound that resonates in our DNA. Ringo's drums, George's haunting slide guitar, Paul's suigeneris bass, John's voice which sounded both familiar and ethereal - and those Beatles harmonies... even moreso on their second song "Real Love" - we were actually HEARING the Beatles again.
COMMENCE THE NITPICKING
Now SOME would say - adding three former Beatles to a John Lennon demo - does that REALLY make it a Beatles track? Okay - what are we going to do here - call in LAWYERS? Define a Beatles track. One might say - it's not the Beatles unless they're all alive, in the same room, recording at once... and perhaps you'd be right. But others would say (aside from saying go f-yourselves) that we'll TAKE WHAT WE'VE BEEN GIVEN... for "Free As A Bird/Real Love" was the "reunion" we thought we'd NEVER live to see. Although, technically, it was three Beatles and John Lennon on cassette tape - nonetheless it was beautiful... heartfelt... and we're awfully GLAD they did it (I know I am!)
Now, let's get to NOW AND THEN...
NOW...
Considering that the original demo of Now And Then was almost undecipherable, incomplete and somewhat depressing (due to sound quality - not sentiment) it's nothing short of amazing what Paul McCartney did with it. Okay, let's address the elephant in the room... artificial intelligence software had SOMETHING to do with it - and it was somewhat controversial.
Now let's be clear - we're not talking robot John Lennon here - what you hear is 100% John Lennon. The original recording was John Lennon singing and playing piano on cassette tape - with a TV playing in the background (yes, you read that right - a TV was playing in the background!) So what this AI software does is it learns the sound of John Lennon's voice - and then pulls every OTHER sound that's NOT John Lennon's voice (piano, TV, tape hum, clicks and ticks) OUT. That's it - plain and simple. Oh you should have HEARD the panic I heard when Paul announced that the tape was being salvaged by AI - - everyone thought the worst of it - - John's going to be artificially created! Paul's ruining the Beatles! ...Not so. Relax.
AND THEN...
This technology wasn't available in 1995 when Jeff Lynne had the production task of working with "Free As A Bird/Real Love" - which is testament to what a genius producer Lynne is, as he did a terrific job. the Now And Then demo tape - as anyone who's heard it will tell you - was a REAL MESS. George Harrison, at the time, called it "f-ing RUBBISH". They gave it a few tries. McCartney said "George didn't like it. The Beatles, being a democracy, we didn't do it."
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| Listening to the Now And Then demo? |
...AND NOW...
Present day - upon learning that they were now able to get AROUND that problem Harrison's widow issued a press release stating "George felt the technical issues with the demo were insurmountable and concluded that it was not possible to finish the track to a high enough standard. If he were here today, Dhani and I know he would have wholeheartedly joined Paul and Ringo in completing the recording of Now And Then."
A COMPLICATED ASSESSMENT
So... Was it good? Was it worth it? What do you THINK? First, a handful of comments sent to me by friends...
"It's a bit of a dirge. I just watched the video for the first time. It's fantastic. Much better than the song. I don't think there is any George on this. It's a shame this is the last "Beatles" song."
Another said they felt chills, "first by the song, then the video gobsmacked me again! This is the closest we'll ever get to having a religious experience. One thing's for sure - we picked a great band to love!"
The Out Of Bodies pretending to be The Beatles
HIT PLAY
I too, like much of the world, heard the song first - without visuals - and, like much of the world, absorbing this as the "LAST Beatles recording" went into this ALREADY clutching a box of Kleenex. The first thing you hear is Paul's straightforward piano - playing very true to what John had done while he lived at the Dakota 47 years ago. Then John's voice comes in - as Paul had said it would be - crystal clear. .....CHILLS.....!!
I found myself straining though to hear George's presence - I wondered if that slide guitar was his (I learned later, it wasn't - it was Paul) - and then you hear the beautiful addition of orchestration added by George Martin's son - Giles (very nice, very nice!) - and what's THIS? Beatles harmony in the background? Where did THAT come from? (Turned out, as I read later, they used background singing from "Because", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Here, There and Everywhere") - - and then, before you knew it, the song shifts down in tempo, and ends. Knowing that there was no real ending on the demo I was wondering how they were going to handle this part. At 4 minutes and 8 seconds, the song ends. I was left wishing there was more.
WANTING MORE
Up against "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" which have George's slide guitar ALL OVER them - you DO notice that, even with the orchestral embellishments of Giles Martin and Paul filling in with an admirable George-like slide guitar, Now And Then DOES still seem to be... MISSING... SOMETHING...
...that integral, unmistakable George slide guitar. He might be playing acoustic guitar on this, I'm not certain - I know there was something of George's carried over from the Anthology sessions, but you wouldn't know it. It must have been daunting enough to complete "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" without John... it must've been even harder to do "Now And Then" without George.
THE VIDEO
The video does a very good job at filling in some of these gaps - although to some, it also seemed highly manipulative. Intermixed with present day grey-haired Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr we see Beatle-day George Harrison in a Sgt. Pepper suit and a smiling, dancing Beatle-day John Lennon - pointing at the others - as if even HE can't believe this AMAZING REUNION.
I became instantly fascinated with this video - but I remember saying to my buddy Lloyd "Just don't do what I did... started to look at animated young John and George, frame by frame... you look too closely they start to look like marionettes." Where he answered "Yeah, no point." "I know!! I have a tendency to look behind the curtain. It spoils things. But overall, VERY NICE!!" and he answered "No... you have a tendency to enjoy hearing YOURSELF COMPLAIN!"
The video also appears to have an aim at convincing us all that George, does in fact, contribute to (and approve of) Now And Then - as it includes 1995 Anthology Session George - strumming along while Paul mouths the words. Ringo is also there, of course, playing the drums - although he decided later to re-record them.
Likewise, with the overall meaning of the song - 1977 John was probably not singing about his other half of the Lennon/McCartney partnership - but film-maker Peter Jackson, who created the Now And Then video, would help cement it forever more - that it's NOW a love song between old friends - living and departed. John Lennon, looking out across the ocean, sees four young Beatles clad in striped bathing suits circa 1963.
I know it's true, it's all because of you,
And if I make it through, it's all because of you
None of these visual connectors are coincidental. It all appears to be carefully crafted - handpicked - to create the perfect BEATLE-FAN DREAM. And for most of us it's just what we wanted - it's just what we need - especially now.
Now and then, I miss you.
Oh, now and then, I want you to be there for me.
Always to return to me.
AND IN CONCLUSION
The world is a cynical place, where nothing is off limits to armchair critics and cynical types everywhere... (sometimes I find myself doing the same thing!) and I've grown tired of those who've said that Now And Then shouldn't have been done - and questioned McCartney's motives - as if he needed the money. Please - the guy is a multi Billionaire - he doesn't need the money. Maybe Ringo does but NOT McCartney (that's a JOKE folks, relax!!) I see it as a loose-end that was lovingly tied up nicely and shared with us all. It could have easily been left as a "what if" - and I'm glad that McCartney decided to give it another go.
Perhaps he wouldn't have if technology didn't make it a possibility - surely he had seen how it helped turn 55 hours of Beatles documentary footage into the critically acclaimed "Get Back" series - it made it look and sound as if it was recorded yesterday - even though it was 54 years ago. So for all of the bogey-man status AI has gotten recently, at least in this case, it's done more good than harm.
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| The Threetles 1995 as imagined by Mark DeGross. |
AND IN THE END
With every passing day and a quick browse of YouTube - Now And Then CONTINUES to inspire discussions, demo to finished track comparisons, more reaction videos, note by note analysis and even cover bands doing versions of the song as if it was recorded circa 1964. For all the fuss and controversies surrounding Now And Then - to me it's simply a moving remembrance of four brothers who had each others backs and in spite of their problems never lost track of the fact that they truly loved each other.
NOW AND THEN... AND FOREVER.
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