A new Beatles song titled “Now and Then” will be released on November 2nd, featuring the voice of late member John Lennon which has been developed using artificial intelligence.
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‘Now and Then’ by the Beatles gets a release date
‘Now and Then’, the long-awaited final Beatles song featuring all four members will be released this Thursday, all thanks to AI, which was also used to to enhance the audio on Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back.
The song will be teased in a 13-minute documentary on its making, which will premiere at 7:30 P.M. GMT on Wednesday 1st November, and unveiled in full on November 2nd.
In 1994, ex-member John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono gave a demo to Paul McCartney that he had recorded in the 1970s, nearly 50 years ago, at home in New York City. On the cassette read a label “For Paul” that also included Lennon’s demos for “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love”.
After his death, the remaining members completed the latter songs and released them as singles as part of the Beatles Anthology project. However, due to technological limitations in the past, the band could not separate Lennon’s vocals from the piano on “Now and Then”, rendering it unusable for sound engineering.
Until filmmaker Peter Jackson used AI-assisted software to de-mix the original audio from Let It Be, Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 footage of the Beatles recording their final album. This allowed him to isolate instruments, vocals, conversation and turned the audio and images into the Get Back documentary series. Using the same on the demo, the band is able to release “Now and Then” to the public.
Ahead of the track’s release, the Beatles have displayed projections all around Liverpool in England. Other locations where the new display appeared included outside the childhood home of late member John Lennon, and next to the Sgt. Pepper Bistro in the city, referencing the band’s eighth studio album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” Paul McCartney said in a statement. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023, to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”
“It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room, so it was very emotional for all of us,” Ringo Starr added, referring to Lennon. “It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”
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