Against all odds, The Beatles have announced a new single.
Releasing Nov. 2, the track “Now and Then” is being promoted as the band’s final offering. With members John Lennon and George Harrison having died in 1980 and 2001 respectively, it might be difficult for some to believe the band even has any new music left to release at this point.
However, much like “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” which were released in the 1990s on the “Anthology” compilations, “Now and Then” comprises of a solo demo recorded by John Lennon to a cassette tape, with overdubs by Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
While the pieced-together nature of this project may feel inauthentic and anticlimactic to some longtime Beatles fans, the excitement surrounding the release is palpable.
McCartney and Starr have both vaguely teased at the release in the past year, but the single wasn’t officially announced until Thursday. The announcement was made on the band’s official website, in conjunction with upcoming expanded and remastered editions of two greatest hits albums, known as the “Red” and “Blue” albums.
Recording for “Now and Then” began in 1995 intended to follow “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” However, according to Entertainment Weekly, Harrison was frustrated by the low quality of Lennon’s original recording and did not feel it could be completed in a way that would be up to The Beatles’ standards of quality.
However, a turning point in the saga of the song came during work on the 2021 documentary “The Beatles: Get Back.” Emile de la Rey, the dialogue editor of the documentary, utilized artifical intelligence to separate vocal tracks and reduce background noise and other damage to the audio recordings. Now, with the help of the same AI technology used on the documentary, the surviving members of the band were able to enhance the quality of Lennon’s demo and complete their final overdubs.
In addition to the single, a 12-minute documentary chronicling the recording and completion of the song will be released on the band’s official YouTube channel.
With a band as famous and beloved as The Beatles, “Now and Then” is certain to be one of the most momentous new music releases of the year.
