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 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."
Paul McCartney has said that “the final Beatles song” will be released later this year, dedicated to The Beatles' fans. The track will feature vocals by McCartney as well as John Lennon.
The track will feature vocals by McCartney as well as John Lennon, whose voice has been stripped from an old demo by artificial intelligence. Lennon was killed in December 1980, according to the Independent.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today, McCartney said: “We just finished it up and it’ll be released this year.”
The musician did not name the track, but it’s been suggested that the song could be “Now and Then”, which was written by Lennon in 1978.
In 1994, Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, sent the uncompleted song to McCartney; it featured on a tape recording Lennon labelled “For Paul”. One year later, McCartney considered releasing “Now and Then” as a Beatles “reunion” song to mark the release of Anthology, a documentary and music project honouring the band.
"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."
"Now and Then" did not get past this stage, however, because Harrison thought it was "fucking rubbish."
Two other songs on the tape, “Real Love” and “Free as a Bird”, were selected instead, and were completed by ELO frontman Jeff Lynne. They were promoted as “new” Beatles songs.
McCartney seemingly turned to AI following the release of Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary Get Back in 2021. For the three-part series, dialogue editor Emile de la Rey used computers to “extricate” voices from existing recordings.
“[Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette,” McCartney said in a new interview.
“We had John’s voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.’
It was largely recorded on to a boombox as Lennon sat at a piano in his New York apartment. The lyrics, which begin “I know it’s true, it’s all because of you / And if I make it through, it’s all because of you”, are typical of the apologetic love songs Lennon wrote in the latter part of his career.
Recently a YouTube user named Dae Lims has used artificial intelligence to reimagine solo material by John Lennon and Paul McCartney as Beatles songs.
In photoshop editing for the YouTube video, John and George are in reverse - left handed guitar
The AI-recreated version of “New,” the title track from McCartney’s 2013 album, mixes further vocal harmonies into the song and notably adds portions of the tune that sound as if Lennon is singing. McCartney’s vocals also sound spryer than on the original, more reflective of his younger voice during his Beatles days, as UCR reports.
The changes are even more noticeable on the AI-recreated version of Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me.” The original was recorded by the iconic singer as a demo in 1980, and was posthumously released on the 1984 album Milk and Honey. The AI version adds more depth to the tune, with broader vocal harmonies and a fuller instrumental arrangement, reminiscent of classic Beatles tracks.
Though Dae Lims gives very little information as to the process creating these tracks, the user’s profile does say “Nothing is real,” quoting a famous line from the Beatles 1967 hit “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
Indeed, in the constantly evolving world of AI, nothing does seem real. The technology has quickly become a hot-button topic in the music industry, with some artists advocating for further government regulation of AI-generated music, while others endorse the carte blanche reuse of their vocals on AI songs. Last week, an anonymous music producer released the song “Heart on My Sleeve,” with vocals ostensibly sung by rapper Drake and pop singer The Weeknd. It became a viral hit before being taken down from streaming sites, as the AI-generated song did not have the approval of either artists, nor their respective record labels.
