“Now And Then,” the last Beatles song completed with the help of artificial intelligence, was released on November 2, 2023. This is what Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr say about the new track
The new Beatles-Song “Now And Then” is here. This is a song completed with the help of artificial intelligence and based on a Lennon recording from the 1970s. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are thrilled with the result.
“[Paul] called me and said he would like to work on ‘Now and Then’. ,What do you think?’ ‘I think it’s great’. So he played the bass and sent me the files,” Ringo Starr said in a recent interview with “Radio Times Magazine“. “I played the drums. We’ve never been this close to him [John] to be back in the room, so it was very emotional for all of us. “It was like John was there, you know?” the drummer continued.
McCartney: “How lucky was I to have these men in my life?”
McCartney is also enthusiastic in the short film for “Now And Then”. Among other things, he remembers listening to John Lennon’s voice track, extracted using artificial intelligence. “They said that was the sound of John’s voice. A few seconds later… she was there. John’s voice, crystal clear… Peter took John with him and gave him his own lane. It’s like John is there, you know – it’s crazy.”
“All these memories come back,” said McCartney. Later he gets downright emotional: “My God, how lucky I was to have these men in my life and to work so closely with them and create such a body of work that in 2023 I’m still working on Beatles music. Craziness. We work with cutting-edge technology and this is something that would have been very interesting to the Beatles. Now and Then’ is probably something like the last Beatles song. And we all played on it, so it’s a real Beatles record.”
Sean Lennon talks about “Now And Then”
In the short film for “Now And Then,” John Lennon’s son Sean also talks about the song. “I remember living in the Dakota with my dad and mom,” he said. “It seems like my dad stopped music for a while to raise me, which I think is partly true since he didn’t tour or have any big record label commitments. But he always played music at home. He was always making demos and I remember him recording on these tape recorders. My mother had a handful of songs that my father hadn’t finished and she gave them to the other Beatles.”