Paul McCartney in London (archive image, December 12, 2022) Photo: Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP
From BZ/dpa
Paul McCartney has announced a ‘final’ Beatles song produced using artificial intelligence (AI).
The technology was used to extract the voice of John Lennon, who died in 1980, from an old demo tape, ex-Beatle McCartney (80) told the BBC. “We just finished it and it’s coming out this year,” he explained.
He did not name the song. The BBC reported on Tuesday it was likely a 1978 composition by Lennon entitled “Now And Then”. The song had already been considered as a possible “reunion song” for the Beatles in 1995.
McCartney received the demo tape a year earlier from Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono. It included several songs on a cassette titled “For Paul” that Lennon had recorded shortly before his death. Most of the tracks were recorded with a ghetto blaster while the musician sat at the piano in his New York apartment.
The Beatles (“Let It Be”, “Come Together”) with McCartney, Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were one of the most successful bands in music history. In 1970 they separated. Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980 and Harrison died in 2001.