Big news today from the UK: Paul McCartney said on an interview show that he and producer Peter Jackson have constructed a final Beatles record that will come out this year.
The song is an elegiac John Lennon demo from 1978 called “Now and Then.” Paul says they’ve used artificial intelligence to make Lennon’s scratchy vocal sound perfect. What the single will be attached to is unclear but obviously the Beatles are planning some kind of album release now that all their 50th anniversary collections are completed.
From McCartney’s comments, you’d guess that Ringo is playing drums on the new track and that a George Harrison guitar solo has been added.
But the Beatles did do this before in the 1990s. When they issued the Anthology albums they put together “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” two other Lennon tracks. Harrison was still alive and the the tracks are heard often on the Beatles Sirius channel.
There’s a newly remastered version of “Now and Then” on You Tube –see below. So someone knew something was up.
