A Beatles recording thought to be unsalvageable, has been reborn through artificial intelligence.
Now and Then is set to be released next week and has been described by Sir Paul McCartney as a “genuine Beatles recording” because all of the band play on it.
However, it has only come about through Artificial Intelligence and the work Peter Jackson’s team did during their research for the Disney+ documentary, Get Back.
Rewind to the 1970s, Now and Then was originally written by John Lennon after the band split up.
After he was fatally shot in New York in 1980, the tape, which was labelled “For Paul” was handed to Sir Paul McCartney by Yoko Ono.
The tape also had recordings of Free As A Bird and Real Love – which were released on the 90s Anthology collections.
Work on Now and Then was abandoned, as George Harrison said the quality of the vocal recording was “rubbish.”
However, the Get Back documentary, gave new life to the recording.
Jackson’s WingNut Films and dialogue editor, Emile de lay Rey worked with AI technology while they were going through archive of the Get Back recordings, to highlight individual voices and bring out recorded conversations.
It led to Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr working with the team to use the same process to clean up the John Lennon vocal.
In an interview with BBC Radio, McCartney explained that they extracted Lennon’s audio using AI to remove the guitar and cleaning up the original recording – but that none of Lennon’s vocals had been “artificially or synthetically” created.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” said McCartney.
“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.”
They added the original guitar recorded by Harrison in 1995 and new drum, bass, piano and vocal tracks.
Ringo added:
“It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room so it was very emotional for all of us. It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”
Lennon’s song, Sean Ono Lennon said that it was “incredibly touching” that they were all working together again.
“It’s the last song my dad, Paul, George and Ringo got to make together. It’s like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be.”
The track will be released on 2nd November and will be followed by the reissue of the band’s Red and Blue albums, with new mixes in stereo and Dolby Atmos.
This will be preceded by a 12 minute documentary, to be released on The Beatles’ YouTube channel on 1st November, which tells the story of the song.
