Now and Then (Beatles song)

• 1. Origins And Demos

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  John Lennon recorded a five-minute piano demo of Now and Then around 1977 at his home in the Dakota building in New York City. The tape captured a ballad with nearly complete verses, though some lines remained unfinished on that original recording. Stephen Thomas Erlewine later described the track as a wispy, melancholy ballad typical of Lennon's apologetic love songs from the late 1970s. Craig Jenkins noted the vocal and piano melodies were enshrouded in dense scratchy hiss that made high-quality processing difficult. This rough cassette became the only source material for decades after Lennon died in 1980.

• 2. The Anthology Attempt

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  Yoko Ono gave Paul McCartney two cassette tapes in January 1994 containing four unfinished Lennon songs including Grow Old with Me and Now and Then. The surviving Beatles began working on the track in March 1995 by recording a rough backing track with acoustic guitars played by McCartney and Harrison. Ringo Starr laid down a drum track while Harrison added electric guitar parts. Jeff Lynne reported the sessions consisted of just one afternoon of messing with the song before all work ceased. George Harrison called the demo recording fucking rubbish due to technical defects like a loud 60-Hz mains hum drowning out vocals. McCartney stated the group did not proceed because Harrison disliked the low quality and the song itself.

• 3. AI Restoration Process

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  Peter Jackson's production company WingNut Films isolated instruments and vocals using machine-assisted learning technology over a four-year period during the Get Back documentary. The neural network named MAL separated Lennon's voice from his solo piano demo which finally allowed the song to be finished. A digital copy provided by Sean Lennon was much better quality than the third-generation copy used in 1995. McCartney clarified that nothing had been artificially or synthetically created since they cleaned up existing recordings rather than generating new audio. Giles Martin co-produced the final version after applying this restoration technique to the home recording.

• 4. Final Production Details

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  Paul McCartney recorded bass guitar, slide guitar solos, electric harpsichord, and piano in his East Sussex home studio while Ringo Starr finalized drums in Los Angeles. Harrison's acoustic and electric guitar tracks from the abandoned 1995 sessions were inserted into the song as tribute. A string section written by McCartney, Giles Martin, and Ben Foster was recorded at Capitol Studios under the decoy name Give & Take. McCartney added portions of original vocal recordings from Here There and Everywhere Eleanor Rigby and Because following methods used for the 2006 Love album. The finished track was produced by McCartney and Martin with additional production credited to Jeff Lynne.

• 5. Visual Legacy And Video

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  Peter Jackson directed a music video premiering on the 3rd of November 2023 featuring footage of the band including newly found film from 1962 supplied by Pete Best. Wētā FX juxtaposed archival clips from the 1995 Anthology sessions with recent footage of McCartney and Starr performing backing vocals and instruments. Jackson filmed new scenes of the surviving members using restored old footage to place all four Beatles visually on screen simultaneously. He described the middle section as needing to capture the irreverent funny spirit of the group rather than just emotional power. Apple unearthed over 14 hours of long forgotten film shot during the 1995 recording sessions which changed his initial reluctance about directing the project.

• 6. Chart Performance Records

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  Now and Then debuted on the UK Singles Chart on the 3rd of November 2023 before rising 41 positions to reach number one the following week. This marked the Beatles' only UK number one song in 54 years since their 1969 single The Ballad of John and Yoko setting a record for the longest gap between chart-toppers. The track accumulated 78,000 units in its first full week with 48,000 coming from physical sales and downloads. It became the only song co-written by Ringo Starr to top the UK chart while also reaching number one on the Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart. In the United States it debuted at number seven on the Hot 100 dated November 18 selling 73,000 units that week.

• 7. Critical Reception And Awards

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  Review aggregator Metacritic gave the single a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 indicating universal acclaim from critics. Rob Sheffield called it the final masterpiece fans deserved while Mark Beaumont rated it five stars as the musical event of the year. Geoff Edgers found the song kind of mundane compared to Strawberry Fields Forever or A Day in the Life. The track won Best Rock Performance and was nominated for Record of the Year at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards marking the group's first nomination since 1997. This nomination held historical significance as the first artificial intelligence-assisted track ever nominated for a Grammy Award.