How Technology Is Enabling a Mass Emotional Experience. 'It's not some cynical marketing exercise to try and push catalog sales.… I think Paul just misses John and he wants to work on a song with him.'
He said: 'I know Paul and he has an amazing memory. I'm sure it bothered him that they never finished it.'
Giles added that there was 'no marketing plan' behind releasing the track, and Yoko simply handed over the song to the band as it was 'a beautiful tune' John had written.
The track has been tipped to become The Beatles' 18th UK number one, a huge feat over 50 years after the foursome last performed together.
It was the technology used in Peter Jacksons's 2021 documentary Get Back, which allowed Paul to use the same AI system to separate John's vocals from his piano playing on the original demo. (You can read the full article on Daily Mail)
Paul came and played me the track he’d been working on, and I said, “Maybe we should add some strings to it.” He was like, “Well, yeah, we should try it, but I don’t want to make it too corny.” Also, I think he was nervous about us collaborating away from the other Beatles, funnily enough. How much do you add without them? I just said to him, “Why don’t we do something, and then we can always delete it? No one will know.” There’s no teams that hear stuff. It was just me and Paul, at that stage — and Ringo, obviously, and then Sean and Yoko and Olivia. It’s a very small network, so therefore you have that freedom to try things.
“My dad, he started to lose his hearing and didn’t tell anyone that I became his ears, and that’s how I started doing what I’m doing,” said Martin. “He started working on the [mid-Nineties] Anthology project, and he hadn’t listened to The Beatles since they broke up. I came in and I listened to ‘A Day in the Life’ on a four-track tape machine; I was in a room upstairs, we pressed play and John was, like, talking to him—obviously years ago—and it was like he was in the room. There was no hiss, there was no crackle; it was literally like he was coming through the speakers. And I thought to myself, ‘That is magical.
Speaking about the track - which uses Artificial Intelligence technology to reunite surviving members Paul and Sir Ringo Starr with late bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison through old recordings - Giles told The Sun newspaper: “Paul played me what he’d started working on from the ’94 demo plus the extras he’d already done — new bass, piano, the guitar solo. Then we discussed whether to do more things with it."
Giles brought in arranger Ben Foster to assist and they recorded musicians in Los Angeles, who believed they were working on a solo project for Paul.
Giles continued: “We started off with a 22-piece string section. But eventually I cut it down to eight for most of the song — a double string quartet of four violins, two violas and two cellos.
“I was thinking, ‘What would dad have done?’ And I know he would have said, ‘You have to serve the song.’
“So yeah, if I wanted to rip off my dad, do it for 'Now And Then' by The Beatles.”
The song also features "oohs" and "aahs" sampled from Beatles hits 'Eleanor Rigby', 'Because', and 'Here, There And Everywhere', but Giles revealed Paul took some persuading to have them added to the track.
He said: “Paul was reticent about that, understandably so, because he didn’t want some gimmicky thing.
“But I just thought, ‘The Beatles would do oohs here and I can’t get The Beatles to do them because two of the oohs are no longer with us.’
On November 10, The Beatles’ 1962-1966 (‘The Red Album’) and 1967-1970 (‘The Blue Album’) collections will be released in 2023 Edition packages by Apple Corps Ltd
Since their first incarnations appeared 50 years ago, these albums have introduced successive generations to The Beatles’ music. Now, both collections’ tracklists have been expanded, with all the songs mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos. New 4CD and 180-gram 6LP vinyl collections pair ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ in slipcased sets. The UK single version of “Love Me Do” now kicks off 1962-1966 (2023 Edition) and “Now And Then” is featured on 1967-1970 (2023 Edition) to complete the career-spanning collections.Listen to both albums in full on You Tube HERE
