Revamping the Red and Blue albums – it’s all too much

Amid all the hullabaloo surrounding the release of ‘Now and Then’ in November, the major facelift and expansion of the definitive Beatles compilations which followed in its wake seemed something of a footnote. The Red and Blue albums – or 1962-66 and 1967-70, to give them their official titles – were overhauled and freshened up to cash in on the tidal wave of publicity accompanying “the final Beatles song” and also, handily, the 50th anniversary of their original release. This saw the addition of a whopping 21 tracks to the albums’ already-hefty 54-song running order, plus remixes of their entire contents. Some of these were already available through the various deluxe album reissues which have come out since 2017, but many – particularly from the 1962-65 period – were brand new, taking advantage of the groundbreaking MAL technology developed for Peter Jackson’s 2021 Get Back documentary to separate all the instruments and vocals baked into the band’s early recordings, for the first time. All of this, we were told, would make the collections much more attractive and interesting to today’s young audiences listening to music via streaming platforms on their phones, and encourage them to dig deeper into The Beatles’ wider catalogue. But, in this instance, is more really more?

The Red and Blue collections, polished and enlarged for a 2020s audience

As I’ve written before, even though the Red and Blue albums came out after the band’s demise and were effectively a money-making mechanism devised by erstwhile Apple supremo Allen Klein, I’m in full agreement with all those who see them as a key part of The Beatles catalogue, a near-perfect collection of highlights spanning their entire recording career. An ideal introduction for anyone who wants to know what all the fuss was about, beautifully packaged and sequenced, a potted history which – once digested – just makes you yearn to hear more. A gateway to this most wondrous of musical journeys which, for hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of us, triggered lifelong devotion and listening pleasure. One that has introduced generation after generation to the band over half a century. That being the case, I’m not sure it was wise to tamper with it to this extent – a bit like adding extra colours to the Mona Lisa, or those notorious extra scenes and effects worked into the various re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy. I’m not sure much of it was needed, and some aspects might even be slightly counter-productive.

I should say I completely understand Apple’s desire to monetise/maximise the release of ‘Now and Then’. Even by Beatles standards, this level of publicity doesn’t come along very often, and just releasing a new single wouldn’t yield much in the way of financial returns or sustained, reinvigorated interest in the band’s full body of work. It was a golden opportunity and had to be attached to something, to lead people back to the wider catalogue, offering something for newcomers, casual fans and hardcore Fabs junkies alike. We now know that ‘N&T’ was originally scheduled to come out in the autumn of 2022, marking the 60th anniversary of their first single with the release of their last. At that point, Apple was considering the creation of a brand new compilation to go with it, largely based on the most popular Fabs tracks in the streaming sphere (where ‘Here Comes The Sun’ reigns supreme, for example). But, as ongoing work to improve the quality of John’s vocal delayed the single’s release, this plan was dropped for some reason, and the Red and Blue anniversary subsequently loomed into view instead. Voilà, Apple bosses must have thought to themselves, problem solved!

Fresh-faced Fabs at the time of ‘Love Me Do’ in 1962

But was it? Expediency and marketing symmetry aside, I think sticking ‘N&T’ on the end of the Blue album was a clumsy and ill-conceived idea. For a start, call me a stickler for accuracy but the clue is in the title – it’s 1967-70, not 1967-2023. Moreover, while I’m definitely not one of those people who disputes its claim to being a fully-fledged Beatles song, adding it here jars with the original, natural running order of the two collections, which starts with the band’s first single ‘Love Me Do’ and ends with the last, the suitably elegaic ‘The Long and Winding Road’ (though I always sequence the tracklist to end with ‘Let It Be’, which I think works as an even better closer). Adding ‘N&T’, good as it is, makes for a less satisfying listening experience. It could have worked IF they had included  ‘Free as a Bird ‘ and ‘Real Love’ as well, giving the full picture of the band’s reunion coda. And, as they are hit singles in their own right otherwise unavailable on any Fabs compilation beyond the increasingly forgotten Anthology CDs, they should’ve been on any expanded version of these albums anyway….except that brings us back to the whole 1962-70 parameter conundrum we came in on. 

And what of the 20(!) 1960s-era songs Apple added to running order? To begin with, I really don’t see the logic of adding so many more tracks. While producer and remixer-in-chief Giles Martin claims this will be “just the start” for many new listeners, encouraging them to seek out the entire catalogue, I wonder if the end result for many will be just the opposite – after all, 75 tracks of anyone’s music will be more than enough for lots of people, especially in the streaming age when you can flit from track to track and, indeed, act to act at the flick of a finger. Or rely on curated (or shuffled) playlists which will trawl a band’s whole recorded canon for you, dispensing with the whole concept of a limited compilation. The genius of the original Red and Blue selections was that, while they gave you all the hits and a host of universally-known songs which encompassed all their albums, providing such a thrilling start-to-finish listen, they never felt like the full stop that many greatest hits compendiums do. The music was so great – and, equally as important, so varied – that it just served to whet the appetite for further exploration. Even classic numbers that were omitted served to underline this fact. If something like ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ didn’t make the cut, for example, it made you realise the wealth of riches at The Beatles’ disposal. To me, throwing in a load of extra tunes at this stage of the game just serves to dilute that effect.

Just shading it – in 1966, at the mid-way point of their recording career

And then there is the problem of choosing the additional tracks, which was doomed to dismay as many people as it satisfied – as evidenced by the numerous ‘I can’t believe xxxx was/wasn’t included’ howls of outrage which greeted the new tracklistings on social media. For me, once you move past the inarguable criteria of singles and beloved album tracks, stocking a ‘best of’ is always a murky, arbitrary and ultimately flawed exercise, and so it proved in this case. Okay, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Twist and Shout’ and ‘Blackbird’ are no-brainers, ridiculously famous tunes that should unquestionably have made it first time around. But while I think ‘You Can’t Do That’ is one of their greatest mop-top era songs, I can make no objective case for its inclusion here. Likewise, is ‘Glass Onion’ really a better track than White Album Lennon stablemates ‘I’m So Tired’ or ‘Sexy Sadie’? And, if so, by whose judgement? Or does ‘Oh Darling’ really warrant a place above ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’s, or ‘I Want You’ as a similarly stronger representative of Abbey Road than ‘Because’? Not in my book. And while it has lots of hip world music cachet these days, ‘Within You, Without You’ cannot lay claim to anywhere near the same level of recognition and broader popularity as ‘When I’m 64’ – yet it’s the former which bags a place here.

Launching ‘Sgt Pepper’ in all their psychedlic finery, 1967

Of course, the last example is part of the key rationale running through the new-look set, that of Beatles politics and a rough parity of esteem between the three writers – with George (and the Harrison estate) getting a much larger share of the cake in the process. While this may be very fair and worthy, it doesn’t really make any sense in the context of these records. I’ve seen people exclaim their astonishment that George didn’t get any songs on the original Red album, but the fact of the matter is that of the 116 songs the Fabs put out in their first four years, he wrote just eight of them. And, as much as I love something like ‘I Need You’, for example, he didn’t really start matching the very best Lennon/McCartney numbers until the Revolver period. With half the numbers recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions already included, did we really need ‘If I Needed Someone’ as well? And while I bow to no one in my admiration of ‘I Me Mine’, does it have the mass appeal of ‘Two of Us’ or ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ from the same Let It Be album? Such additions smack of tokenism, pure and simple, to ensure Olivia and Dhani’s sign-off on the project.

As for the remixes, well, you pays your money and you takes your choice. As I’ve posted before, while I can understand the rationale, I’m not a huge fan of Giles Martin’s efforts with The Beatles’ catalogue (for the most part) – the sound is undoubtedly enhanced, which is great, but moving instruments and vocals around to the extent he does just jars for me. That said, his work on the early material here (unlocking the original basic two-track and four-track recordings) really produces dividends, giving the uptempo numbers in particular a lot more punch. Some tracks sound great, like ‘From Me To You’, ‘I Feel Fine’ and ‘You Can’t Do That’. And I picked out things in ‘Day Tripper’ I’d never heard before. But, again, some of his remixing choices baffle me, like shoving the solo in ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ on one channel. Likewise, putting Paul’s guitar on ‘Yesterday’ over to one side is just distracting, and the mix of ‘Norwegian Wood’, with fingerclicks (or whatever they are) in the centre and other things panned to the right and left sounds dislocated and weird. Things really go haywire, though, on the radio-feed fade-out section of ‘I Am The Walrus’, a radical change which makes the recording sound significantly different to the one originally released, a move which has understandably drawn the ire of many fans. Less obviously but equally as annoying for me, the fresh mix of ‘Old Brown Shoe’ sounds messy and clumsy, neutering the tune’s no-nonsense drive, blunting its edge. I guess some people will love what Giles has done, younger fans won’t notice and traditionalists like me will bemoan his tinkering but, as long as the original mixes remain available, I don’t suppose it matters too much either way. And some of the Abbey Road 2019 mixes sounded better than I had remembered, so maybe my ears are slowly coming around to the changes.

Nearing the end but still a perfect team, 1969

So, accepting the remixes, how would I have changed the albums? Well, I would have limited the additions to just six tracks, bring each compilation up to 30 tracks apiece. Along with the three ‘no-brainer’ songs I mentioned earlier, I would have dropped in a track from either With The Beatles or Beatles For Sale, both of which were poorly-served originally (and the latter still has just one paltry track, compared to the seven – seven – lifted from Rubber Soul) – probably ‘No Reply’, which was under consideration as a single back in 1964 before ‘I Feel Fine’ came along. And I would definitely have added ‘Taxman’, upping both the Harrisong and Revolver quotient on the Red album. Finally, I have no quibble with the inclusion of ‘Hey Bulldog’ as the best representative from the Yellow Submarine album (though ‘It’s All Too Much’ would have worked just as well), but I would certainly have placed it before the White Album songs, not after, as Apple have bizarrely done here. Yes, I know Submarine wasn’t released until early 1969, but all of its songs were recorded and aired in public (on the film soundtrack) long before the White Album was even completed, never mind released. But doesn’t the same apply to the Let It Be material, recorded before Abbey Road but placed after that album’s songs on the Blue running order, I hear you cry? Well, yes, but all four Let It Be tunes included here were not completed or released in any form until long after Abbey Road came out – so I think it’s fair they get to close the book here.

Why not expand the collections in a different way? How a post-1970 solo compilation might look

But, of course, that still leaves us with the problem of where to put ‘Now and Then’. Personally, I think it should have been placed where it was always intended to go – as the opening track on the third volume of the Beatles Anthology CDs, which could have been remastered and revised/expanded especially for the occasion, perhaps alongside a spruced-up version of the accompanying documentary series (on Blu-Ray discs or a streaming platform, or both). True, there are issues with that. Some of the then-rare material first released on those discs has been superseded by the deluxe box sets of the later Fabs albums released since 2017, and no doubt that process will continue as the earlier records are revisited in similar style over the coming years. I still think those collections, with some changes, have a place in The Beatles catalogue, as part of a big multi-media exploration of the whole Anthology period, but that’s a post for another time. But even if Apple did ultimately put something out along those lines, it would still leave ‘Free as a Bird’, ‘Real Love’ and ‘Now and Then’ available only on a rarities grab-bag aimed at hardcore fans, rather than front and centre on a more mainstream hits collection. I think Apple missed a trick here, because they could have been really radical and issued remixed and (slightly) expanded Red and Blue sets AND a Green Beatles 1970-2023 30-track compilation, showcasing 27 of the biggest solo hits alongside the three reunion tracks. Their 90 biggest tracks, spanning 60 years. “But it’s not The Beatles!” I hear some people cry. Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that. It would be a fabulous way to introduce anyone to the band’s body of work, together and solo. Though, on second thoughts, scratch that idea – even if the United Nations’ entire diplomatic corps were involved, it’s hard to imagine the negotiations over individual Beatle song allocations on that third compilation being resolved in our lifetimes.

The ad for the 2023 Red and Blue collections

‘Now and Then’ – the videos

As well as the unexpected thrill of hearing a brand new Beatles song in November, we were also treated to two wonderful bits of film to go with it. First, on the eve of the single’s unveiling, Apple released Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song, a short film detailing the (very) long and winding road from the tune’s creation to ultimate completion, tantalisingly previewing a few excerpts of what we would hear the following day. And 24 hours after the track itself came out, the promotional video arrived on You Tube, stirring the promotional pot and whipping up fan frenzy even more. It was a brilliant burst of short, sharp marketing from Apple and EMI, which undoubtedly helped establish the remarkable, emotional narrative surrounding the song and boost interest in it (three months on, and the video’s already clocked up 43 million views on YouTube). They may have botched things on one or two previous Beatles releases, but they pitched it just right on this occasion. Not only did they set the scene for casual viewers, they also provided us hardcore fans with the kind of fantastic unseen footage and new clips/interviews we crave. So, Fab Macca-style thumbs-aloft all round, then? Well, for the most part, yes. But for me the promo video, in particular, fell frustratingly short of what it might have been. 

Two great stills from the ‘Now and Then’ video

Let’s get into the ‘making of’ mini-documentary first, though. Running a little over 12 minutes, it’s a very slick telling of the whole ‘Now and Then’ tale, mixing familiar Fabs footage from the 1960s with a mouth-watering array of new clips and interviews spanning 1978-2022. It’s effectively narrated, offscreen, by Paul and Ringo (but mainly Paul) with contributions from Sean Lennon and film director Peter Jackson, talking us through John’s original demo recording of the song at the New York’s Dakota building, Yoko’s subsequent handing over of the song (along with ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’) for the surviving Fabs to work on as part of the Beatles Anthology project in the 1990s, and the track’s recent resurrection and completion thanks to the development of MAL technology during the work on Jackson’s 2021 The Beatles: Get Back documentary. The voice-overs join the dots very well, though I think Macca comes over as a little too scripted at times, and there is undoubtedly a glossing over of certain aspects of the story, especially Paul’s claim that ‘Now and Then’ was shelved back in 1995 because they “ran out of steam a bit, and time.” His own admission, repeated a couple of times over the years since, that George thought the song was “rubbish” and didn’t want to finish it, is not mentioned here. It does highlight, however, how finishing the track remained on McCartney’s mind for the best part of 30 years. 

Scratching a 27-year-old itch – Paul completing ‘Now and Then’, 2022

The real draw of the film, however, lies in the reels of footage released into the wild for the very first time. There are some brief, lovely home movie snippets showing John, Yoko and Sean at home in the late-70s I don’t recall seeing before, as well as freshly-minted clips of Paul and Ringo performing their new parts for ‘Now and Then’ in 2022. We also get to see Macca and Giles Martin overseeing the song’s string section being committed to tape at the famous Capitol Building in Los Angeles. But the real money shots are the ones of the Threetles – Paul, George and Ringo – working on the song with Jeff Lynne at Macca’s Sussex studio in the spring of 1995. These sessions also yielded the second reunion single, ‘Real Love’, and it’s fascinating to see that some of the clips which feature in the video for that song were actually captured while they were attempting to knock ‘Now and Then’ into shape. For example, we see that during the outdoor scene of George playing his acoustic guitar while sat next to Paul (sipping a mug of tea or coffee), he was running through a half-remembered bit of ‘Norwegian Wood’. Stuff like that, along with them chatting, tuning up or listening to playbacks in the studio, is just solid gold. Peter Jackson has revealed there are around 14 hours of footage from those sessions, and that’s possibly not including the audio banter recorded between takes (some of which is played over the film’s closing credits). While it’s a pity we don’t see more of this film here (and even what we do get is sometimes intercut, unnecessarily, with ‘60s clips), it does open the door to a world of possibilities around a future documentary about the whole Anthology/reunion period – an awesome prospect which I’ll return to another time.

A suitably mystical-looking George during the 1995 Threetles sessions

Further film of the Threetles at work shows up in the ‘Now and Then’ promo video, directed by Jackson. You can see why Apple thought he was the man for the job – an acclaimed, Oscar-winning filmmaker, as well as a major Fabs fan who worked wonders with the Get Back documentary, turning accepted history on its head and recasting The Beatles’ January 1969 travails into a riveting drama packed with wondrous detail and magical musical interplay. Handing him the keys to the band’s visual archives to create a short film to go with the Fabs’ final bow must’ve seemed like a no-brainer. Yet, on reflection, I wonder if he had right skill-set – as Madonna found in her film career, long-form film is a very different beast to the demands of making a four-minute pop video; a bit like how a crafting a poem or short story is an entirely different exercise to writing a novel. While he undoubtedly gets a lot right with ‘Now and Then’, I think Jackson’s lack of experience does show in places. The fact that the clip, much like the track itself, had to be cobbled together from a variety of different sources probably didn’t help much, either.

The central concept of the video is a sound one. Taking aforementioned footage of the 1995 and 2022 recording sessions, Jackson weaves in some ‘70s clips of John as well as film from the Fabs’ heyday, reflecting the whole ‘Now and Then’ motif. Most ingeniously – or controversially, depending on your viewpoint – he extracts 1967 Beatles (from the various versions of the ‘Hello Goodbye’ promo video) and inserts them alongside their latter-day equivalents. So we get George and John stood either side of Paul and Ringo while they sing the chorus or larking around while the classical musicians lay down the song’s strings. Old Ringo gets to play in sync with young Ringo; 80-year-old Paul plays bass while his 25-year-old self (and bandmates) mess about around him; 1960s George trades guitar licks with 1990s George, and so on. Jackson said he wanted to showcase the band’s “nutty” side, the cheeky, silly element which was such a key element of their collective persona, and – while some people have carped it is out of place, inappropriate, or just plain wrong to use dead people’s images in such a fashion – I think his instincts were sound. If Lennon and Harrison were still around, I think they’d have been keen to amplify the humour of the situation; John rarely kept a straight face for long in any situation, while you only to watch a few of George’s own videos to see his tongue-in-cheek approach to such things.

Ringo, ahem, playing with himself – 1967 and 2022

Much of this is really lovely, and often very touching. The Threetles stuff is joyous (contrary to what some people like to claim, George seems very happy to be back in the studio with his fellow Fabs), there are a couple of rarely-seen shots of John in the ‘70s, and some pristine colour clips of The Beatles collectively in the early 1960s. And when the splicing together of past and present is done well, it’s very effective – seeing John poke fun at Paul and Ringo is entirely in keeping with the band’s dynamic, watching Ringo keep time with Ringo as the song gathers pace is a blast, and Paul’s smile of fond reminiscence during the strings recording session while his past self and bandmates clown it up around him, like ghosts from the past, makes for a special, poignant moment. Kudos to Jackson too for the showreel of classic Beatles scenes which closes the video, taking us back through their career from the final group photoshoot at Tittenhurst Park in 1969 to their Liverpool childhoods, before ending with the final bow from A Hard Day’s Night and their disappearance into memory. It’s particularly nice to see the footage of the band, in leathers, onstage in Birkenhead from February 1962 (apparently supplied by Pete Best), the earliest known colour film of the band but which turned up too late to be included in the Anthology series.

One of my favourite moments from the video

Sadly, though, the execution leaves something to be desired in places. The ‘70s photo of John at sea watching the sunset is a great image, but overlaying film of the 1963 Beatles and then a 2022 McCartney singing the song is just too on the nose, too chintzy. Other inclusions seem a bit random or there for the sake of it – it’s nice to see footage of George during his 1963, pre-US Beatlemania solo visit to Manhattan, for example, but it serves no purpose here and seems a bit out of place. But the biggest failings come with matching ‘now’ Beatles with ‘then’ Beatles. Dropping modern-day Ringo into the stage performance of ‘Hello Goodbye’ works brilliantly, but when the camera pans over to Paul and he’s stood there clutching his headphones rather than his bass, the special visual symmetry of the group is lost and the spell is broken. It’s only a little detail, but it stands out like a sore thumb – they couldn’t have filmed Macca holding his bass while doing his vocal? Likewise you can only scratch your head why he and Ringo couldn’t have made time to be filmed singing in the same room rather being digitally edited together. The final Beatles song (and video) is worth making a bit of an effort for, right? The other problem with this mix-and-match stuff lies with its length, and limited scope. The tomfoolery element goes on a little too long, and I’m baffled why the 1960s Fabs are represented solely by the ‘Hello Goodbye’ performance. If you’re going to do this, why not go the whole hog and have Paul and Ringo interacting with their bandmates lifted from scenes in Let It Be/Get Back, the ‘Lady Madonna’ promo, Help! or even the Shea Stadium concert film? The total omission of anything from the Get Back documentary, which Jackson masterminded, is just plain bizarre. And did no one think to edit in 1967 Paul conducting the orchestra during the ‘A Day in the Life’ clip for the 2022 strings studio session?

This sequence was a bit too much for my taste

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if Jackson was working to a tight deadline and had to cut corners. Strange, considering the song was in the can for more than a year before it was released, but not impossible or even unlikely. He himself explained that Paul and Ringo shot film of themselves performing and sent it to him, so he had no agency over that – he had to make the best use of what he had, instead of telling them what he needed. Maybe it would’ve been asking a bit much for the two surviving Fabs to wear their Sgt Pepper outfits (though how cool would that have looked for the performance bit?), but they could have aligned their contributions a bit more closely with Jackson’s concept. It would also explain why he just stuck using to the 1967 footage of the band, though that may have been an artistic choice on his part. Likewise, the reverse trip back through their career feels a little rushed, and misses out some pretty important moments. And do we need to see them as children at the end?

So, how would I have improved it? Well, I’d have tried to do something a bit more creative and less obvious with the image of John watching the sunset, or maybe just substituted a 1970s clip of him at the piano instead. Would certainly have asked Paul and Ringo to film their vocal scenes together (allowing a more natural interaction between them), and also maybe asked them to wear some different, lighter clothes. I wouldn’t expect coats of many colours, but seeing them both in all black next to John and George in their psychedelic finery jars a little – a red jacket here or a blue shirt there would have brought them more into line with their bandmates. As already stated, I would also have mixed in old footage from different Beatles eras for them to interact with, instead of just the 1967 edition, and cut back the studio goofing to allow more time for the whistlestop tour of their career at the finale. In turn, I would’ve extended each of the clips in that montage by an extra couple of seconds, and also incorporated excerpts from the 1969 Apple rooftop gig, the 1967 ‘All You Need is Love’ broadcast (or maybe the ‘I Am The Walrus’ scene from Magical Mystery Tour), the Royal Command Performance from 1963 and, if there was time, the ‘Some Other Guy’ Cavern clip from 1962. And I would have ended that section with the Quarrymen-era photos, cutting straight to the A Hard Day’s Night bow and fade.

Reunited across the decades – the video’s big ‘money shot’

But that’s just me. The video is what it is, there’s still much to enjoy, and I’m very glad we have it. On balance, I thought the promos for the two previous reunion singles worked a little better – ‘Free as a Bird’ as a misty-eyed tour of the Beatles legend, and ‘Real Love’ as a more traditional, beautifully assembled blend of old and new footage. But the way the film for ‘Now and Then’, like the song itself, brings the Fabs back together in a manner which would have been unimaginable just a few years ago adds yet another strand to the band’s vast creative tapestry. Love it or loathe it, this sort of thing is probably going to become increasingly prevalent as advances in technology allow artists of all kinds a permanent afterlife in the public eye (consider the Abba Voyage concert experience currently pulling in the crowds in London). Indeed, it may not be long until virtual reality allows us to interact with The Beatles, watching them in the Cavern or sitting in on a studio recording session, and how magical would that be? But for now, for all its missteps, this video allows us one last chance to see the group’s chemistry and camaraderie shining brightly across the decades – now and then, and in between. And, if you are anything like me, there are few things in life more enjoyable than that.

The last Beatles video? We shall see…

‘Now and Then’: one sweet dream came true, today

I still remember the disappointment I felt when, on my way home from work in the late summer of 1996, I leafed through the new issue of MOJO magazine and saw the exclusive reveal of the tracklisting for the forthcoming Beatles Anthology Vol. 3 album. It stated, categorically, that – unlike the first two volumes in the series – there would no ‘new’ Beatles to lead off the set, that the well of ‘Threetles’ sessions which had produced ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ had run dry. It wasn’t a massive surprise. There’d been no updates on Paul, George and Ringo working together since the previous year, and no hype to prepare us for a third and final reunion track, whether it be another souped-up Lennon demo or a brand new McCartney/Harrison composition (which had been rumoured at one point). But I was still gutted. Despite the sniffy reaction to the new songs from some quarters, I’d loved them and had been hoping against hope that the surviving Fabs would come together one more time and complete the set, as it were. That feeling was reinforced the following year when Paul revealed they had indeed worked on a third song, but had aborted it because George didn’t think it was up to scratch. Despite Macca’s chirpy claim that they still might finish it off one day, I resigned myself to listening to John’s crackly demo of the tune (called ‘Now and Then’) which leaked out on bootlegs and – later – more polished fan reworkings of it on YouTube, and imagining what might have been.  

The ad image which finally confirmed a new Fabs song was on the way

Fast-forward more than a quarter-century later and the release of ‘Now and Then’, the much-heralded “last Beatles song” makes headlines around the world, gives the band their 18^th UK #1 single and even cracks the Billboard US Top Ten. As you will no doubt know by now, the development of machine-assisted learning (MAL) technology during the production of 2021’s The Beatles Get Back documentary allowed Paul and Ringo to surmount the technical problems presented by the original cassette demo, isolate John’s vocal and add fresh parts to their abandoned first pass at the song in 1995 (but retaining George’s guitar playing from those sessions). Throw in a newly-added string section and some reworked Beatles harmonies from the 1960s (adroitly lifted from ‘Here, There and Everywhere’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘Because’) and – voilà – a brand new song from the Fab Four. I covered the long and winding road which got us to this point in a post after Paul let slip the tune was on its way earlier this year, but it’s still hard to believe it’s happened. Certainly, if you’d have told me back in 1996 that two octogenarian Beatles – with a little help from George Martin’s producer son and the kind of artificial intelligence you might find in a Terminator film – would come back with a #1 record in the year 2023, I might have thought you’d been venturing a little too literally into the psychedelic realm. But here we are. The reunion trilogy is complete, the unfinished business (as much for Paul as for the fans) is laid to rest, one sweet dream has come true. So was it worth the wait?  

The dreary cover of the single (left) – couldn’t they have come up with something better? At least the back cover shot (right) is nice

I think the first thing to say is how big a part the advances in technology have played in the end product. While producer Jeff Lynne did a sterling job (technically, at least) knitting together the cassette demos of ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ with 1990s Beatle contributions, and they still sound great to me, the limitations of those recordings are more apparent when you hear ‘Now and Then’. Freed completely from the piano, electrical buzz and other background noise locked into the original tape, John’s voice sounds remarkably clear and present – almost studio quality, in fact. This, in turn, gave Paul and Ringo room to put a more distinctive instrumental stamp on the track. There are a couple of nice bass guitar flourishes, while the drumming is looser, not hemmed in by the need to simply keep time behind the original piano chords; likewise, Paul was able to add a completely new, more fluid piano part which anchors the song in a totally natural way. While it’s a pity George isn’t more prominent, his chugging electric rhythm guitar does add some important extra texture (excuse the pun) and he is of course absolutely part of those harmony vocals from the ‘60s, used so deftly to add a recognisably Fab flavour to the track. Paul’s slide guitar solo, a nod to George’s preferred style, doesn’t really sound Harrison-esque at all (it reminds me slightly of the one in The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’), but is still very effective. And the addition of strings, arranged by Paul, Giles Martin and Ben Foster, was a masterful touch, raising the stakes and the lending the track more clout (though I can’t help feeling Martin Snr. would have added some horns behind the chorus, too). If you listened to the finished recording and didn’t know the backstory, you probably wouldn’t spot the joins.  

John, with Yoko, at the piano a couple of years after ‘Now and Then’ was first taped

However, all the layering of instruments in the world wouldn’t make much difference if the song wasn’t much good, and it’s here where magic of The Beatles comes into full force. When I first heard John’s demo back in the late-1990s, it seemed a little ponderous and uninspired to me, and I could kind of understand why George put an end to The Threetles’ attempts to breathe life into it (predictably, his lack of enthusiasm for the song – as cited by Paul on more than one occasion over the years – has now been reframed as frustration with the audio quality of the original cassette tape). But, whether through sheer bloody-mindedness or not, Paul was convinced there was something good there and, aided by today’s super computers, he has been fully vindicated. He could hear the inherent beauty in that skeletal demo and, in true Lennon/McCartney collaborative style, was able to bring it into full bloom with his pitch-perfect arrangement. And he really earns his corn on the chorus, beefing up the tune, tidying up the lyrics and joining John on lead vocal in a fashion which really hits the emotional bullseye. It’s the high point of the song for me, and just screams Beatles. To be fair, there were probably a number of factors which caused George to pull the plug back in 1995; had he still been around to hear technology (and a splash of McCartney genius) unlock the potential of the tune, I suspect he wouldn’t have been against finishing it off. 

The Threetles at work on the song in 1995

What has confounded some fans is the decision to excise the original ‘I don’t want to lose you’ middle section from John’s recording (indeed, when Yoko allowed the tune to be used in the disastrous, short-lived 2005 Broadway musical Lennon it was called ‘I Don’t Want To Lose You’). We don’t know whether this decision was taken back in 1995 when the surviving Fabs first worked on it, or whether Paul opted to cut it more recently (though we do know it was gone when Macca first presented it to Giles Martin last year). One can only speculate about the reasons behind the decision; they may have felt it would have made the song too long, or that it simply didn’t need another section. Or perhaps that the natural flow of the verse/chorus lyric would have interrupted, and the focus of the song lost. John’s demos from this time often include bits and pieces he later removed and dropped into another song altogether, and Paul could have felt it just didn’t fit. Editing one another’s work was always a key facet of the Lennon/McCartney partnership, and who are we to second-guess Macca’s creative judgement? Nonetheless, I think it’s a shame he didn’t find a way to keep at least an element of this passage. Yes, it rambles a little and John runs out of words by the end of it, but I’m sure Paul could’ve found a way to tighten it up and fill in any gaps as necessary. The tune and sentiment is so Lennon, and I think it is of a piece with the rest of the composition. It could have added even more depth to the finished version; it leads back into the chorus extremely well and may even have allowed a brief pause in the song, creating a bit more ebb and flow. Anyway, make your own mind up — have a listen to one of the fan-made ‘augmented’ versions which have appeared online in recent weeks or even this one, made long before The Beatles’ recording was dusted down and completed. 

Talking of lyrics, there has been a lot of speculation about what ‘Now and Then’ is about – fuelled by Giles Martin’s claim in several interviews that the song was some kind of love letter from John to Paul. Many have also seized on the oft-repeated story from Carl Perkins (as told to him by Linda) that the final words John ever said to Paul, in person, were “Think of me every now and then, old friend”, and the more elusive claim – rehashed in many recent news stories – that the tape featuring the original demo had ‘For Paul’ written on it. Dealing with the last point first, if that was the case, it is infinitely more probable that those words were written by Yoko, or one of her team, than John, not least because the tape featured three other songs compiled for The Threetles to work on as part of the Anthology project. I can certainly see no earthly reason why John would have set aside that one song (or indeed, any song) from that period to give to Paul, unless he possessed uncanny powers of premonition (ah, I hear you cry, but Paul’s tour band guitarist Brian Ray has said John wrote those words on the cassette, and surely Macca wouldn’t have let him think that if it wasn’t true, right? Well, let’s just say Paul’s never been one to let the facts get in the way of a good story). But could Lennon have been thinking of McCartney when he drafted those words? If they are ‘about’ anyone or anything, the verses seem to me most likely to relate to Yoko (as does the missing ‘I don’t want to lose you’ section), but when you get to the chorus, you do wonder why John would sing ‘now and then I miss you’ to the woman he was married to and living with. This was an unfinished song, remember, so it’s possible he was still playing with different feelings and moods as the lyric was taking shape, hopping from one to another; it’s more than possible that, had he returned to the tune later, he may have cannibalised its constituent parts to make different songs altogether. So he could well have been thinking of his old pal Paul, though it’s just as likely he was writing about, say, May Pang, his mid-70s lover who has always claimed John remained in touch with her after his reconciliation with Yoko. It’s fun to speculate but, unless hard evidence turns up, we’ll just never know.  

Paul reworking his bass part for the track in 2022

While some people are proclaiming it as a Beatles song about Beatles,  others have questioned whether it’s even a Fab Four record at all. In particular, I’ve read comments claiming it is more in keeping with a 1970s Lennon tune, or that it just doesn’t sound like “classic Beatles”. Putting aside the fact that repeating themselves was a total anathema to the band, which strand of “classic Beatles” should they have attempted to recreate, exactly? ‘She Loves You’? ‘For No One’? ‘Within You, Without You’? ‘I Am The Walrus’? ‘Rocky Raccoon’? ‘Revolution 9’? As for it resembling a John solo number, surely if the group was still together in the late-‘70s, this is the kind of song they would be producing. The Beatles never stood still, and would have no zero interest in trying to reproduce records they made ten years earlier. They would’ve been different people by then, though still recognisably the same artists. As George said about ‘Free As A Bird’ in 1995, “it sounds like them – but now.”  Of course, if you’re like me, all of the solo music is part of The Beatles’ canon anyway; even if you think otherwise, surely a Lennon song finished up by Paul McCartney, within input from George Harrison and Ringo Starr, is by definition a Fabs track? 

However you define it, it seems a majority of people who care about such things are just happy to have it. Unlike the mixed response which greeted ‘Free As A Bird’ – saddled as it was with the sky-high expectations of being “the first Beatles single in 25 years” – ‘Now and Then’ has probably benefited from being “the final Beatles song”, a special event which has ridden the latest wave of public interest generated by the Get Back film, the on-going remixed reissues of the band’s back catalogue and Paul’s return to the global concert stage. A piece of pop culture history (hell, social history) brought back to life. A poignant reminder that, while they still in fine fettle, the sands of time are also running out for Paul and Ringo, and a time is coming when there will be no more Beatles left. A chance for people of all generations to share in the joy of hearing a new Beatles song – some for the very first time, but all for the last time. The long delay in its completion and release has almost certainly worked in its favour; had it been put out as the third reunion single and lead-off track on Anthology Vol.3 in 1996, it would probably have been greeted with a collective shrug of the shoulders by the wider public, with the novelty and excitement of hearing new Beatles material having already worn off. As it is, I think people now appreciate it for the minor miracle it is – and, most importantly, just enjoy it as a song in its own right. Whether reading emotional online responses from first generation fans or fulsome reviews by music critiques, watching rapturous YouTube reactions from people who wouldn’t have been born even when the Anthology came out, or just having friends ask me about the song or tell me how much they like it, it’s all given me a heart-warming buzz. My boys have done it again! And the fact it was released on my birthday made for the best present I could ever have wished for.

A still of the reunited Fabs from Peter Jackson’s video for the song

That’s not to say they got every element of the project right. The cover of the single was dreadful, shockingly dull and lacklustre for such an important record. I’d have preferred the cassette tape image which was used to trail its release, the back cover image of George’s clock or, even better, one of John’s drawings like the one used for ‘Free As A Bird’. Or any number of other designs put together by fans online. I’d also question the wisdom of placing the song at the end of the new, remixed and expanded (and now somewhat erroneously titled) 1967-70 compilation album, a somewhat awkward and clumsy attempt to monetise its release to the max, while the accompanying video – while overall an emotional and enjoyable one – is not without its flaws (I’ll discuss these points in future posts). But the song itself? Even without the “missing” bridge section, I don’t think we could have asked for anything better. A friend of mine, who is more of a music lover than an ardent Fabs fan, summed it up well when he said it was so obviously made with love and care, in a way that can only enhance, not detract from, the group’s legacy; the very opposite of the nostalgia-baiting cash-grab it could have been. The very fact it exists at all is a wonder, but the fact it is so good is simply ridiculous. Is it among the top tier of Beatles songs? No. How could it be? But is it worthy of the band’s catalogue, and a fitting note to go out on? Absolutely. We now have one more song to treasure, one which – together with ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ – forms a beautiful coda to the greatest pop music story ever told. 

In one respect, it doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s John singing to Paul; even Paul’s dogged determination to complete it and reconnect with his beloved bandmates one last time can be seen as just a subplot for us fans to get misty-eyed over. As with all their tunes, it’s less about what the authors meant and more about what the listener takes from the song. Taken on those terms, even without the loaded backstory that comes with it, ‘Now and Then’ can mean something to anyone who has lost someone – parent, child, friend, lover – and longs to see them again. How “then” always informs the “now”, for all of us. But the band is so ingrained in our culture, our collective consciousness, that it’s impossible to forget the backstory entirely. Irrespective of the technology which allowed it to happen, and the happenstance that this was one of the songs Yoko put on the tape for the surviving Fabs back in the 1990s, the fact of the matter is that a yearning, wistful tune sketched out by John at his apartment overlooking Central Park one day in 1970s New York was completed by his best friend and musical soulmate more than four decades later, embodying all the hope, humanity, emotional resonance and deep connection to one another that made The Beatles what they were. Maybe, on some kind of cosmic level, it’s their way of saying: don’t worry folks, there’s always a way to get back homewards. Those loved ones are never really gone, they live on within you and without you. Or maybe it’s just a nice little song. Who knows? Whatever you think, it’s the perfect way for The Beatles to wave goodbye, and yet lodge themselves even deeper in our hearts forever more.

‘Now and Then’ – a final gift from The Beatles

Just when I was starting to become somewhat disillusioned with the dearth of interesting new Beatles-related releases on the horizon, Christmas came early this month with Paul’s bombshell announcement that a “new” Beatles song had been completed and was being prepped for release later this year. Wow. Though it hasn’t been confirmed, the track is believed to be ‘Now and Then’, a late-1970s Lennon demo briefly worked on by the surviving Fabs in the mid-1990s as part of the Anthology project but ultimately discarded for one reason or another (which I’ll get into later). Apparently, the wonders of artificial intelligence (AI) technology have resolved any technical issues surrounding the quality of John’s vocal and, voila, Macca has fulfilled his long-standing wish to create a “final” Beatles song with contributions from all four members. The detail is still sketchy, but his comments have predictably sparked a firestorm of debate online. Should two Beatles be able to release a new track without the say-so of their absent bandmates? Does it even constitute a Beatles recording in the circumstances, never mind one good enough to carry the label of being their final presentation to the world? What form will the release take – will it be part of a bigger package, and are we now scraping the bottom of the barrel? I’ll be honest – for me, this is the holy grail of Beatles releases, one I’ve been waiting/hoping for over half my life, and I can’t fucking wait. But there is a lot to unpick here, so let’s get into it.

One of the bootlegs which has appeared documenting the 1990s reunion sessions

The history of ‘Now and Then’ is a tangled, and quite intriguing, one. Originally recorded by John as a piano demo in the late 1970s, it never aired on the otherwise exhaustive exploration of his personal archive on US radio from 1988-92, The Lost Lennon Tapes. Nonetheless, it was one of unfinished songs Yoko handed over to Paul, George and Ringo to work on and transform into ‘new’ Beatles tracks for the Anthology project of the mid-1990s. Two of these – ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ – were completed, and led off the first two volumes of The Beatles Anthology archive collections, but ‘Now and Then’ was abandoned and the final Anthology set appeared in the autumn of 1996 without a third reunion song.

I remember the feeling of huge disappointment when Apple announced this. There was no talk of ‘Now and Then’ officially at the time, but it was an open secret the three former Fabs (a.k.a. The Threetles) had been working on other songs. It was strongly rumoured that ‘Grow Old With Me’, a gorgeous tune that appeared in demo form on John’s posthumous Milk and Honey album in 1984, was on the tape Yoko had given them, and there were also whispers of a brand new McCartney-Harrison original, ‘All For Love’, which really set pulses racing. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these two numbers have ever been confirmed as Threetles works-in-progress (indeed, before recording a version of it for his 2019 album What’s My Name, Ringo claimed never to have heard ‘Grow Old With Me’), but talk of an unfinished third track was verified by Paul himself in 1997, while promoting that year’s Flaming Pie album. “George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it,” he told Q magazine (interestingly, in another interview, he didn’t rule out that the song might be released one day). There were also reports that the quality of the original demo also posed major technical issues for the trio and producer Jeff Lynne. This became evident when the original Lennon version leaked out onto the bootleg market around this time. When a friend played me John’s demo recording in 1999, the loud buzz which accompanied it was definitely a problem. And while the tune itself was quite haunting, it also seemed a little ponderous and skeletal. Though their decision remained massively frustrating, I could kind of understand why the Fabs had passed on it.

John’s demo version of the song (considerably improved from the version The Threetles had to work with)

Fast forward ten years or so, and Paul was reported to have said he remained interested in finishing the track off – something he reiterated when appearing on a BBC documentary about Jeff Lynne, Mr Blue Sky, in 2012. Despite again saying that George “went off it” (and, indeed, thought it was “fucking rubbish”), he added: “That one’s still lingering around…I’m going to nick in with Jeff and do it, finish it, one of these days.” Coincidentally or not, a new version of the Lennon demo began circulating online at around the same time, without the buzz and in much better audio quality. It was so good that fans began adding their own backing to it in an attempt to guestimate what a modern-day Beatles recording would have sounded like. One rendition, in particular, was stunning – not only allying John’s vocal with tasteful piano, guitar, bass and drum parts (and weaving in authentic harmonies here and there), it also revealed the song itself to be much more substantial than the original threadbare demo had indicated (and also belying Lynne’s assertion that “the song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses.”) It demonstrated the art of the possible in fine style, even without the extra creative juice actual real Beatles could bring to the table.

Paul, Ringo and Jeff Lynne talk about the 1990s Beatles reunion sessions. Macca discusses ‘Now and Then’ at 07:55.

Despite all this, I was still very surprised to hear it was still on Paul’s radar as recently as 2021, when he mentioned his interest in returning to ‘Now and Then’ in an interview with The New Yorker in the lead-up to the airing of Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back documentary series. Still, after my excitement subsided, realism set in (or so I thought). Wasn’t it a little late in the day to be doing this, I reasoned? After all, it will soon be 30 years (gulp) since those Threetles sessions. And could he really do it when, by his own admission, George had so firmly rejected the possibility of releasing it? Yet here we are: with AI giving us a nice, clean Lennon vocal to enhance the 1990s Threetles backing tracks (and who knows what other embellishments Paul has added since), and the whole Beatles family on board with the project, a farewell Fab Four song will soon be with us.

Of course, there are some who believe this shouldn’t be happening at all. That it won’t really be ‘The Beatles’, because the four didn’t record it together and two of them aren’t here to give their approval. Those same naysayers are usually the same people who don’t consider ‘Free as a Bird’ or ‘Real Love’ to be part of the band’s ‘official’ canon. I’ve always found this view strange. Whether or not you like them, or think they are worthy of The Beatles’ name is one thing, but claiming they are not Beatles songs defies logic in my view. They were written by a Beatle (‘Free as a Bird’ is actually credited to all four, with finishing touches added by Paul, George and Ringo), feature all four Beatles and were approved and released by all three surviving Beatles, plus Yoko. Ah, I hear some say, but John would never have sanctioned their release. Well, I would hazard a guess that the four people John was closest to in his adult life would have a better idea of what he would’ve approved of than complete strangers who never met him. But they’re not part of that 1962-70 EMI catalogue, I hear others cry. So, does that mean all the pre-EMI, pre-Ringo songs released on Anthology Vol. 1 are not Beatles songs either? Nor the BBC radio sessions material? Who exactly is deciding what is ‘canon’ and what isn’t? Shouldn’t that be up to, er, The Beatles? Yes, other dissenting voices cry, but John isn’t really on these songs, they were effectively performing as a trio. Right. So, by that token, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ isn’t a Beatles song. Nor ‘I Me Mine’, or ‘For No One, or ‘Because’, or ‘Back in the USSR’. And I dread to think how these people will react when someone breaks it to them that tunes like ‘Yesterday’, ‘Julia’ and ‘Blackbird’ feature just a single Beatle. Clearly such tracks are seriously lacking in the authenticity stakes.

The undoubted elephant in the room with ‘Now and Then’, however, is George – more specifically, the degree of his approval and his participation. By Paul’s own admission, it was Harrison who brought the curtain down first time around, branding the track “fucking rubbish”. Paul has also said how George felt some of John’s songwriting towards the end of his life wasn’t up to scratch. Even with Macca’s renowned talent for revising history, it’s going to be interesting to see how he circumvents that one when the promotional bandwagon for the recording kicks into gear later this year. That said, George wasn’t against reworking John’s unfinished songs, as his spirited playing and singing on the two tunes that were released demonstrates. And the fact that he called a halt to work on ‘Now and Then’ shows how fiercely protective he was of The Beatles’ legacy, refusing to put anything out under their banner which he felt was sub-standard. What’s not clear, though, is whether he didn’t feel the song itself was strong enough, that the technical problems couldn’t be surmounted, or that The Threetles’ attempts to transform it into a fully-realised, viable recording were just not coming together. It could even have been a combination of all three. What we can reasonably surmise, however, is that the version about to be released today is considerably cleaned up, and most likely improved, from the one the Fabs worked on all those years ago. So George may have more amenable to its release were he around today; certainly, I don’t think Olivia and Dhani Harrison would’ve given their blessing to anything he would’ve been opposed to.

Paul and George pictured during the ‘Threetles’ reunion sessions at Macca’s Sussex studio, 1995

Which brings us to, how much Harrison playing (and possibly singing) will feature on the final record? Indeed, how much work did all three Fabs put into it during those reunion sessions before calling it a day? Lynne is on record as saying the band spent just “one day — one afternoon, really—messing with it. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn’t finish.” Yet some other sources claim the Threetles had several stabs at the song over the course of 1994/95, before giving up the ghost. Either way, it’s fair to assume George could’ve laid down a guitar riff, or a few licks, at the very least. He was always very careful and precise in mapping out his parts, so I doubt there would’ve been any half-arsed jamming involved which would in any way sully his memory. He might even have taken a pass at a solo or two. Paul and Ringo could easily have polished up their performances in the years since, of course, but what’s really key is whether McCartney and Harrison recorded any vocal lines – particularly the kind of dazzling harmonies which adorned ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’. I really hope so, particularly bearing in mind the deterioration in Macca’s voice over recent times. He can still sing, of course, but no amount of studio sweetening could cover up the difference in his vocal prowess between, er, now and then. Other questions abound. Has Jeff Lynne produced the new recording, or did Paul and Ringo turn to George Martin’s son Giles, overlord of all the recent Beatles archive remixes? Have they kept it simple or did they add some strings and/brass to give it a bit more of a lavish, late-era Beatles feel? Will it have a ‘classic rock’ arrangement, or will they try to inject a more contemporary vibe? Will Paul (perhaps with George) have written any new sections to flesh out the original demo? Mouthwatering stuff to consider, and we don’t have long to wait.

The Fabs with Jeff Lynne in 1994. Is it the buzz on the ‘Now and Then’ demo hurting their ears, or Jeff’s trademark drum sound?

Then there is the question of what form the song’s release will take. Surely they won’t just put it out as a standalone track to stream or download. As with the two Abba comeback songs in 2021, that would most probably result in a blaze of publicity and a flurry of interest for a few days, followed by a so-so chart placing and a collective shrugging of the shoulders as the world moves quickly on to the next showbiz sensation. To be fair, that will almost certainly happen anyway, but I would imagine Apple will want to monetise the song as much as possible, most likely by using it to spearhead a bigger Beatles release. I can’t see them sticking it on a remixed version of Rubber Soul, or something like that. I did wonder if they might use it to promote a long-overdue remaster of the Anthology albums, and add it onto Volume 3 as originally planned back in 1996, but well-placed sources say this isn’t the case. There is the possibility of a new, fourth Anthology collection, I suppose, rounding up other unreleased Beatles material, but with the ongoing series of expanded, deluxe versions of their studio albums mopping up all those odds and ends, I don’t see the point in that. There is always the grim possibility of another greatest hits album, expanding the mega-successful 1 compilation by adding the likes of ‘Please Please’ Me’, Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’, plus ‘Now and Then’. More tantalising is the prospect of a Threetles EP, placing the new song alongside ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ in one package. The latter songs were remixed in 2015 for the 1+ DVD collection of Fabs promo films, but these versions remain unavailable on CD or streaming/download sites. Who knows, perhaps Apple have employed AI to freshen up John’s vocal on those numbers, too?

What I would dearly love to see, but sadly cannot envisage happening, is for ‘Now and Then’ to be released in some form alongside recordings of Paul, George (on acoustic guitars) and Ringo playing together at Harrison’s Friar Park home in the summer of 1994. Brief (but glorious) snippets of this session were included on the Anthology DVD set’s bonus disc in 2003, but we know they performed much more, mainly rock ‘n’ roll oldies and early Lennon-McCartney originals from their pre-fame days (the clip on the DVD where a grinning George leads Paul into ‘Thinking of Linking’, a half-forgotten tune penned by a teenage Macca, is just sublime). Such a release, echoing their skiffle beginnings as The Quarrymen, would be the perfect way to bookend their career. And we’ve already been given a taster, so why not let us enjoy the whole thing? Alas, John’s absence from the proceedings is likely to put a block on this, despite the aforementioned long history of The Beatles recording as a trio. Or maybe Apple is holding that back for another project in 20 years time, when there’ll be no Beatles left to create new product (and, sadly, not many of us current fans left around to care either way). It would be such a shame to leave this in the can, though, and ‘Now and Then’ offers an ideal opportunity to get it out. There must also be plenty of unused interview footage of the three of them together from that time, and there’s surely mileage in a book documenting the whole Anthology/Threetles period (Paul has said he kept a diary through the sessions for ‘Free as a Bird’, for example). We can but dream.

Paul, George and Ringo playing together at Friar Park, 1994. Apple, please put this out!

Whatever happens, the release of ‘Now and Then’ is a wonderful final gift from the band, one I’d pretty much given up on ever getting. Yes, there will be some (incredibly, Beatles fans among them) saying this is sacrilege, that they should just “let it be”, that it’s a self-promoting cash grab by Paul, and so on. But unlike in 1995, when the snide put-downs of the two reunion songs had me gnashing my teeth, these days I really couldn’t care less. Seriously, how can this one song – even if it isn’t very good – really besmirch The Beatles’ peerless legacy? More likely, it will bring immense joy for millions of people around the world who will get to savour one last Fab Four tune. And I don’t know about you, but I find the idea of McCartney completing a Lennon song more than 40 years after John started it quite beautiful, and perfectly Beatles. Certainly, it seems like an itch Paul’s been wanting to scratch ever since the Fabs worked on the demo back in the 1990s. This may or may not have something to do with Carl Perkins’ claim (apparently relayed to him by Linda McCartney soon after Lennon’s death in 1981) that the last words John said to Paul, face to face, were: “Think about me every now and then, old friend.” Either way, this new recording seems to have given Paul some sort of closure, and I reckon it will likely do the same for many more of us, too. Bring it on!