The Beatles released a Short Film Trailer for new song 'Now And Then'
The Beatles announce release of “final” song ‘Now And Then’ and expanded ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ albums out on Nov. 2
The poignant 12 minute film, which you can view below, was broadcast as part of a series of programmes on the BBC to celebrate the legacy of The Beatles.
Paul McCartney introduced the film ahead of its airing. “Hello I’d like to introduce you to a short film which tells the story of how me, John, George and Ringo came together to record our last song. It’s a single called ‘Now And Then’. We hope you enjoy it,” he said.
"When Apple asked me to make the music video, I was very reluctant - I thought my next few months would be a hell of a lot more fun if that tricky task was somebody else’s problem, and I could be like any other Beatles fan, enjoying the night-before-Christmas anticipation as the release of a new Beatles song and music video approached - in 1995, l loved the childlike excitement I felt as the release of Free As A Bird was inching closer.
I just needed a little time to figure out a good reason for turning The Beatles down - so I never actually agreed to make the music video for Now And Then (in fact I still haven’t to this day).
I told Apple how the lack of suitable footage worried me. We’d need to use a lot of rare and unseen film, but there’s very little … Nothing at all seemed to exist showing Paul, George and Ringo working on Now And Then in 1995 … There’s not much footage of John in the mid-seventies when he wrote the demo … I grizzled about the lack of unseen Beatles footage from the ’60s … And they didn’t even shoot any footage showing Paul and Ringo working on the song last year.
I knew The Beatles don’t take no for an answer if their minds are set on something - but they didn’t even wait for me to say no. I found myself swept along as they quickly addressed my concerns. Paul and Ringo shot footage of themselves performing and sent that to me. Apple unearthed over 14 hours of long forgotten film shot during the 1995 recording sessions, including several hours of Paul, George and Ringo working on Now And Then, and gave all that to me. Sean and Olivia found some great unseen home movie footage and sent that. To cap things off, a few precious seconds of The Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of The Beatles and never seen before, was kindly supplied by Pete Best.
Watching this footage completely changed the situation - I could see how a music video could be made. Actually, I found it far easier if I thought of it as making a short movie, so that’s what I did… My lack of confidence with music videos didn’t matter anymore if I wasn’t making one. - Read the full version on Evening Standard
The announcement will be made at 2pm BST (UK), 9am ET and 6am PT (USA) 26 October and midnight AEDT 27 October (Australia).
The Beatles fans have been expecting the announcement of the Red and Blue expanded editions since July after Penn Jillette and Penn & Teller leaked word of the project after a visit with Giles Martin at Abbey Road.
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.”
Starr agreed: “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.”
The Beatles 1962-1966 (The Red Album) Track Listing:
LP1
1. Love Me Do
2. Please Please Me
3. From Me To You
4. She Loves You
5. I Want To Hold Your Hand
6. All My Loving
7. Can’t Buy Me Love
8. A Hard Day’s Night
9. And I Love Her
10. Eight Days A Week
11. I Feel Fine
12. Ticket To Ride
13. Yesterday
LP2
1. Help!
2. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
3. We Can Work It Out
4. Day Tripper
5. Drive My Car
6. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
7. Nowhere Man
8. Michelle
9. In My Life
10. Girl
11. Paperback Writer
12. Eleanor Rigby
13. Yellow Submarine
The Beatles 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) Track Listing:
LP1
1. Strawberry Fields Forever
2. Penny Lane
3. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
4. With a Little Help From My Friends
5. Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds
6. A Day In the Life
7. All You Need Is Love
8. I Am the Walrus
9. Hello, Goodbye
10. The Fool On the Hill
11. Magical Mystery Tour
12. Lady Madonna
13. Hey Jude
14. Revolution
LP2
1. Back In the U.S.S.R.
2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
4. Get Back
5. Don’t Let Me Down
6. The Ballad of John & Yoko
7. Old Brown Shoe
8. Here Comes the Sun
9. Come Together
10. Something
11. Octopus’s Garden
12. Let It Be
13. Across the Universe
14. The Long and Winding Road
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“It was surprisingly easy and it only took a few minutes to generate the vocal.” Pretty wild, right?
If you’ve been following the developments in this space in recent months, then I don’t need to remind you that a lot of what we’ve seen up to this point regarding AI and music has to do with the novelty of a computer coming up with a song on its own — which is to say, by simply rearranging some of the inputs that it’s been fed (obviously, I don’t mean to imply a machine has a creative spirit and “composes” a song the same way a person does).
Meanwhile Ringo Starr defends The Beatles' new single: "This is absolutely John Lennon's voice". McCartney now making it clear that all four original Beatles are indeed playing on the upcoming song.
Ringo Starr has broken his silence on The Beatles‘ forthcoming single and confirmed it “is absolutely John Lennon’s voice” on the track rather than an inauthentic version created by artificial intelligence.
Now, in a new interview with People, Starr opened up about the upcoming release, commenting: “This is absolutely John Lennon’s voice, taken off, as neat as we can, a cassette. And that’s all I can tell you!”
In the same interview, Starr also reflected on the legacy of The Beatles: “There’s an interview of the four of us — Paul was going to write songs, George was going to have a garage, and I was going to have a hairdresser. We thought that’s what we’d be doing, and it would last three or four years, but it lasted eight and we did a lot of great tracks.”
"Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project. No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year," McCartney wrote to Twitter.
"We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it. Seems to be a lot of guess work out there," he continued. "Can’t say too much at this stage but to be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created."
"It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings — a process which has gone on for years."
"It was a demo that John had that we worked on," McCartney said. "We were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we could mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway."
