[imagesource:youtube]

Yes, the Beatles did break up 53 years ago and only two of the four original members of the iconic band are still alive today.

John Lennon was murdered in 1980, and George Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001, which leaves Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to carry the legacy onwards. Yet, the band has released a new song, and it includes the voices of all four original Beatles performers.

The last “new” Beatles song, ‘Now and Then’, was released last week, with McCartney and Starr essentially finishing what was initially an old demo recording by Lennon. The track draws on the group’s signature style and features an emotional chorus where, together, McCartney and Lennon’s voices sing, “I miss you”. The song also features sounds by the band’s late guitarist George Harrison, using pieces from one of his 1995 studio recordings.

So how did this come about?

Recorded by Lennon more than 40 years ago, the original ‘Now and Then’ song came from the same group of demo recordings that his former bandmates used to create the songs ‘Free As a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ in the mid-90s.

Last year, the song was made using artificial intelligence to separate Lennon’s original vocals before incorporating McCartney and Starr’s musical additions in the studio.

A short documentary film chronicling the making of ‘Now and Then’ was released on The Beatles’ official YouTube channel:

“All those memories came flooding back,” said McCartney. “My God, how lucky was I to have those men in my life? To still be working on Beatles music in 2023? Wow.”

Starr added, “It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him [Lennon] back in the room … Far out.”

Check it out:

Which came ahead of the music video that also dropped:

The comeback has been heartily welcomed, with ‘Now and Then’ on track for the UK chart title, Billboard reported:

Based on sales and streaming data captured from the first 48 hours in the chart week, “Now And Then” is in pole position, outselling the rest of the top 5 combined, the Official Charts Company reports.

If it holds its spot, “Now And Then” will become the Fab Four’s 18th U.K. chart-leader, and their first in 54 years, since “The Ballad of John and Yoko” topped the weekly tally back in 1969.

On the day of its release, the song was quickly named as BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record.

The song is all-love, McCartney told Radio 1’s Clara Amfo. “Just a loving feeling,” he says of the recording, “because that’s often what we were trying to do with our records, we were trying to spread love. And in this one it is very poignant. It’s John talking about ‘I miss you’ and stuff like that so, I think emotion, that would be the key word for people to take away from it, ‘emotion’.”

The emotions have been pouring in with The Guardian readers sharing their feelings about the new track. “As soon as I heard John’s voice in the opening lines, I was transported back to December 1980”, noted Robert Lastdrager listening from Melbourne, while Klara from London remembers her late brother through the song, saying; “I had no idea how emotionally I would react to this song”.

“When I heard the opening lines and the melancholy in John’s voice, I got chills all over. The sadness of the song encapsulates the emptiness you feel when you lose someone you love, and you know you have to continue on without them,” she said.

“AI is terrific and terrifying”, Carlotta Fontana from Italy concluded, with Steve Block from Walton-on-Thames saying it is just “such a suitable ending”.

[sources:verge&billboard]