Just a year before the autobiographical film came out, Yoko Ono, Lennon’s widowed wife, handed Paul two cassette tapes from John. Along with this heartwarming track, Lennon composed a song he called “Grow Old With Me” that was prepared within the theme of remorse that existed on this tape.
Lennon recorded this as a home demo on a cassette tape in the late 1970s, and had planned to record it properly on the follow-up album to Double Fantasy. Unfortunately he was killed before he could record a studio version. Yoko Ono released his single-track version of this on the Milk And Honey posthumous album in 1984. Later she asked Beatles producer George Martin to score an orchestral arrangement for this to use on the 1998 Lennon Anthology set.
Paul McCartney wanted to make this the third Beatles "reunion song," but producer Jeff Lynne told him this would be very difficult because of a hum on the cassette that couldn't be eliminated. Also, George Harrison objected because it was too sad, given the nature of John's death - Yoko couldn't "grow old along with him," as the song urged
"Now And Then" (also known as "I Don't Want To Lose You" or "Miss You") is the name given to an unreleased composition by John Lennon. It was first recorded in demo form in 1978 and was considered in 1995 as a third possible reunion single by Lennon's former band, The Beatles, for their 1995 autobiographical project The Beatles Anthology.
Despite reports, for the most part the verses are nearly complete, though there are still a few lines that Lennon did not flesh out on the demo tape performance.
In March 1995, the three surviving Beatles began work on "Now And Then" by recording a rough backing track that was to be used as an overdub. However, after only two days of recording, all work on the song ceased and plans for a third reunion single were scrapped permanently. According to McCartney, George Harrison "didn't want to do it," possibly because new verses would have had to be written.
Producer Jeff Lynne reported that "It was one day—one afternoon, really—messing with it. The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn't finish." An additional factor behind scrapping the song was a technical defect in the original recording. As with "Real Love", a 60-cycle mains hum can be heard throughout Lennon's demo recording. However, it was noticeably louder on '"Now And Then", making it much harder to remove.
Ono claimed that Lennon recorded numerous versions of the song, but only one has been officially released. It was recorded at the Dakota building in New York City in November 1980 and featured Lennon's vocals and piano, and a drum machine backing. Another set of recordings, with Lennon on acoustic guitar and piano, came to light in 2009 and have been circulated among bootleg traders.
