(London) “Clear as crystal”, the voice of John Lennon resonates in a new and “final” Beatles song released Thursday thanks to a helping hand from artificial intelligence, 53 years after the separation of the legendary Liverpool group .
“It’s probably the last Beatles song, and we all play to it, it’s a real Beatles recording,” Paul McCartney, 81, said in a short video posted online Wednesday evening, which traces the genesis of Now and Thena piece full of melancholy, mixing piano, strings and guitar solo.
On the group’s online store, where the title is available as desired, certain media offered for pre-order, vinyl or cassette, were already out of stock even before its release.
The title came from a demo recorded in the 1970s by John Lennon in his New York apartment. After his assassination in 1980, his widow Yoko Ono handed over the tape, with vocals and piano, to the other members of the group in 1994.
The techniques then available did not make it possible to extract John Lennon’s voice with sufficient quality, the piece remained in the boxes.
“John’s Voice”
PHOTO JIJI PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon performing in Tokyo in 1966
Everything changed with the documentary series Get Backproduced in 2021 by Peter Jackson.
The director of the trilogy Lord of the Rings had extracted Lennon’s voice from a cassette by separating it from the piano, aided by new technologies using artificial intelligence.
“We ended up with John’s voice, crystal clear,” explained Paul McCartney, in a press release announcing the release of the title.
Added to the original demo were electric and acoustic guitar recordings by George Harrison from 1995, who died in 2001. The song was completed last year in Los Angeles studios, combining Ringo Starr’s drums, piano and Paul McCartney’s bass, and the vocals of both living Beatles.
“ Now And Then “is the last Beatles song, written and sung by John Lennon, developed and worked on by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and finally completed by Paul and Ringo more than four decades later,” summarizes the presentation of the track.
“It was very emotional for all of us. It’s like John was among us,” said Ringo Starr, 83.
Among the first criticisms, that of Washington Postwho judges the song “perfectly good”, “which is not enough”.
“Merveilleuse” applauded Richard Mills, professor of Pop Culture at St Mary’s University in Twickenham and absolute Beatles fan, in a statement to the British channel Sky News.
PHOTO ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison arrive at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York in 1964.
In April 1970, six months after the album’s release Abbey Road and one month before that of Let it be, the Beatles announced their separation. The ten years of collaboration between Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr resulted in 14 best-selling albums, nearly a billion records sold and several films.
“It’s all true”
Despite the death of Lennon in 1980 and that of Harrison in 2001, “Beatlemania” remains alive throughout the world and the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence (AI) have already inspired attempts by fans to bring them together, or to revisit the latest works of Paul McCartney with his youthful voice.
After an interview with the BBC last June in which he revealed the preparation of Now and Then, McCartney had stressed that nothing had been “created artificially or synthetically, everything is true”. “We cleaned up some recordings,” he insisted.
The existence of the model was known and Paul McCartney had made no secret of wanting to give the piece a new life. But he had always explained that the project did not succeed due to the opposition of George Harrison who did not like it.
After Now and Thenthe two compilations red 1962-1966 and blue 1967-1970 will be reissued in an expanded version on November 10.