A new Beatles song featuring John Lennon vocals? AI tune about to drop, McCartney hints
Thanks to artificial intelligence, forms of media long forgotten are rising back into being, often washing over audiences with a form of sempiternal nostalgia that will either strike a nerve, or leave folks wanting more.
And when it comes to the Beatles, nothing is ever permanently buried, not even the voices of those members who are no longer with us.
During an interview with BBC Radio, Paul McCartney announced that with the help of AI, a long-lost John Lennon demo will be added into a “final” song by the famous foursome, which will drop later this year.
And it’s all thanks to director Peter Jackson — yes, the “Lord of the Rings” guy.
Jackson developed AI technology that can separate audio (vocal, instruments) for the his Beatles documentary series “Get Back,” resulting in a major breakthrough.
“We developed a machine learning system that we taught what a guitar sounds like, what a bass sounds like, what a voice sounds like. In fact we taught the computer what John sounds like and what Paul sounds like,” Jackson told Variety in 2021.
But what is the song? According to news outlets including The Guardian, the piece is a Lennon composition titled “Now and Then.” It was originally on a demo — named “For Paul” — that was given to McCartney in the 1980s by Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono.
At first, the song was considered cringey thanks to background noise in Lennon’s apartment, where the song was recorded and was eventually put on the back-burner when the late George Harrison called it “rubbish,” The Guardian said.
But thanks to Jackson’s technology, McCartney says the track has been “purified” in a way.
“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had and we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI,” McCartney said. “Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.”
This isn’t the first time the Beatles have dropped a “new” track. In 1995, the surviving members released “Free as a Bird,” which was another demo recorded by Lennon at his home in 1977. The song debuted on “The Beatles Anthology 1” album. Originally, the song was supposed to be released in a musical called “The Ballad of John and Yoko” that was planned to go into production before Lennon was tragically murdered in 1980. The demo also featured “Real Love,” “Grow Old With Me” and the final song, which is dropping this year.
Not everyone was a fan of the song when it was released.
Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian called the song “possibly the most mediocre single the group has ever released” thanks to the sound quality and expressed that she believed the Beatles were exploiting their brand.
The band’s official official last song, “The Long and Winding Road” was released in 1970, a month before the bandbroke up.
This story was originally published June 13, 2023 at 1:45 PM with the headline "A new Beatles song featuring John Lennon vocals? AI tune about to drop, McCartney hints."