Some Thoughts on the New Single From The Beatles and AI

Thanks to Peter Jackson, John Lennon and George Harrison live once again. Just in time for the holiday gift rush.

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Something that I always find interesting as a music fan is where people’s fandom with a particular artist or band started. As cool as we may try to be, not everyone was there for the debut or that fifth album that was somehow the one that sucked you in. With legacy acts, there’s a good chance you weren’t even born yet, but something clicked that made you listen to music that came out a few decades before you were born.

I’m guessing that, like many of you, The Beatles were one of my gateway drugs into this full-blown addiction that has me listening to something from early morning until it’s time to call it a night; if you were around in the mid-nineties, then surely you’ll remember what an event The Beatles Anthology was at the time.

Early on, the radio in my room played plenty of KOOL 105, the oldies station out of Denver. Along with my beloved Beach Boys, it wasn’t an hour block of music if you didn’t hear The Beatles. This, along with playing my parents’ vinyl copies of 1962-1966 (commonly known as the Red Album. No, not the Weezer album with “Pork and Beans” on it) and Let It Be, with my ear near the wax on an old speakerless record player in the basement, were my first forays into the Lads From Liverpool.

It was The Beatles Anthology, though, that had me screaming like a teenage girl at Shea Stadium and embracing the nineties interpretation of Beatlemania.

If I’ve learned anything about the band’s living members and their business handlers over the years, it’s that they cannot miss a holiday gift season. The Beatles Anthology aired stateside on ABC right before Thanksgiving, and you bet your ass the merch was in tow. I watched the three-part series with my dad while ensuring it was also on a few blank VHS tapes for maximum obsessive rewatch value (the DVD reissues in 2003 were fantastic, and I wish I still had my copy). Still, the double CD collection Anthology 1 was the must-have Red Rider BB gun for my friends and me that Christmas.

Anthology 1 was a treasure trove of demos, live stuff, and interviews for the old heads, but it’s pretty ridiculous in hindsight to think about a bunch of elementary school kids talking about covers of “My Bonnie” from the fabled early Hamburg days or the fifth take of “One After 909” instead of anything from their actual studio albums. Anthology 2 dropped in time to be a convenient Easter present the following year, and we would see this again in November 2000 with 1, the remastered collection of all of their chart toppers - just in time to find its way into your stocking.

Now, in the present day, we’re watching it all happen again. You may recall that for The Beatles Anthology, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr got together to spiffy up a few of John Lennon’s old demos and release them as new Beatles songs. “Free As A Bird” works the best as a Beatles song, as McCartney’s lead vocals on the pre-chorus and Harrison’s heavenly slide guitar work really drive the band feel home. While “Real Love” is also a pretty great song, it’s always sounded more like a Lennon solo work.

There was another song they attempted to work on back in 1994 called “Now and Then.” Recorded at John’s Dakota apartment in 1979, only one year before his murder, the song was impossible to finish, as it didn’t have a proper chorus and suffered from a loud hum since it was intended to be a home demo on cassette tape. The fellas and producer Jeff Lynne of ELO and The Traveling Wilburys only spent one day on the song because of its low quality. Another reason for the low effort could also be that George “The Quiet Beatle™” Harrison called it “fucking rubbish,” according to a fairly recent interview McCartney gave to The New Yorker.

Almost twenty years later, the tune has changed, and a press release let everyone know the song was on its way for a release this week. While the idea of a fresh Beatles song piqued my interest, I wasn’t alone in honing in on the mention of using AI to complete it. As both a writer and lover of arts, it makes my butthole pucker when I read those two letters - for music, I’ve mostly seen AI used to construct a slew of freaky Frankenstein’s Monsters, like Frank Sinatra singing “Gangsta’s Paradise,” or using it to write lyrics, which always warrants a heavy sigh and string of expletives.

It turns out that AI isn’t quite the boogeyman in the case of “Now and Then,” though. A few days ago, The Beatles’ YouTube channel posted a short film detailing the updated recording process, and honestly, it’s more fascinating than the release of the song itself. Thanks to new software from Peter Jackson’s Wētā Workshop team (how many times have we said that over the past few decades), Lennon’s vocals could be separated from the piano and cleaned up. While the vocals do sound a bit odd in parts, overall, this is an idea of “AI” I can get behind. I highly recommend you watch it at the link above, as it’s cool to watch the song progress from 1979 to 1994 to the modern day, where we have a string section recording the new arrangement without their knowledge of it being a Beatles project.

As for the song itself, it’s an intriguing idea to embrace technology (McCartney insists many times in the short film that The Beatles were always chasing new recording tech, and Abbey Road Studios is still that proof), but after multiple listens, it comes off as an enjoyable novelty. To me, it’s the most solo Lennon-sounding of these three “new” songs and wouldn’t have been out of place on Walls and Bridges or Double Fantasy. It also reminds me of the latter-day Oasis, the ultimate Beatles apers, and I want to see the critic’s opinions of the song if it had come out on Oasis’s Heathen Chemistry or Don’t Believe the Truth instead.

Speaking of AI, there’s heavy visual use of the technology in “Now and Then”’s music video, and it’s more terrifying than any of the horror movies I watched over the past month. I’ve teed up the closing montage, which reminds me of the head-scratching and belly-laugh-inducing finale to The Flash (don’t worry, I didn’t pay to see it in theaters, and the box office numbers say I’m not alone). McCartney, in particular, looks wonky, going from Michael Myers’s Shatner mask in the Halloween series to Sloth from The Goonies:

As I’ve grown older, my love for The Beatles as a band has waned. It might be due to the nonstop chatter about the most influential rock band of all time, who were around for less than a decade. I mostly suspect that it’s because I’ve worked for a few British companies, though. My attempts to play Thundercat or Kamasi Washington during my time in a small office in Beverly Hills full of English ex-pats were always met with a switch back to The Beatles Pandora channel.

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate this moment. I still listen to their solo catalogs fairly regularly (McCartney’s “Où Est Le Soliel” is probably one of my most played songs this year - yes, it’s annoying. Yes, it’s fantastic). My wife and I had our first dance at our wedding to “I Live For You,” an All Things Must Pass b-side from my favorite Beatle, George Harrison. I don’t often find myself revisiting their classic albums, though.

“Now and Then” is a neat project - I’m glad it's here for the worldwide fans of the legendary band, and I’m sure many folks are on their way to purchase a new wide-ass stocking to stuff the 12” single into.

Gimme your thoughts on the song and Beatles stories in the comments!

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Hey there! As many of you know, it’s another Bandcamp Friday. Mama Mañana Records has something special for you this month: enter MMR30 at checkout, and you’ll receive 30% off whatever you order. You won’t find any songs that Peter Jackson worked on, but when you buy a tape, CD, or rad t-shirt, it goes directly toward our upcoming releases. I appreciate your support!

Visit MMR’s Bandcamp page here!