John Lennon comes back to life in “Now and Then”, the Beatles’ final song

The highly anticipated song Now and laterThe Beatles was finally released on Thursday. With the help of artificial intelligence, the surviving band members dust off an old demo recorded by John Lennon in the 1970s. The result is impressive.

This sad ballad was originally written in 1977 by John Lennon, leader of the Fab Four. In the demo, the latter accompanies himself alone at the piano in his New York apartment.

With the help of producer Giles Martin, Paul McCartney spent several years breathing new life into the song, which also features a guitar part recorded by George Harrison in 1995, as well as Ringo Starr’s drums and vocals, recorded in 2022.

In a short explanatory film entitled Now and later – The Beatles’ last songWe learn that detailed work on the title began in 1994, when Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, sent three demos to Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the late George Harrison.

The first two songs, Free as a bird And true lovelaunched in 1995 and 1996 in the wake of a sprawling multimedia project Beatles Anthology.

It was the closest thing to having John in the same room as us.

The third was left aside, John Lennon’s voice buried beneath the sound of his piano. The Beatles then decided to wait, not having the technological means to properly isolate each of the individual tracks.

Technology from Peter Jackson

This technological breakthrough came about 30 years later, when Peter Jackson was working on it get back, An approximately eight-hour documentary series about the creation of the album Let it be.

We’ve developed technology that allows us to take any audio clip and extract the different components from it into separate tracks, using machine learning“, explains director V Now and later – The Beatles’ last song.

John Lennon’s original recording was sent to Peter Jackson’s team, who managed to improve its quality exceptionally well, with the singer’s voice no longer overpowering the piano. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr then recorded additional bass, drums, vocals and string parts to complete the song.

My father would have loved that, because he was never shy about trying new recording technology. I think it’s really beautifulsays Sean Lennon, John Lennon’s son, in the Beatles short.

With information from Rolling Stone and CBC News