Fans have been waiting for it for several months. There she is. This is probably the very last Beatles song.
At 3 p.m. sharp, these are specific people, the Beatles released their latest song. Now and Then. A technological feat to bring the quartet officially separated again on April 10, 1970. The voice of Jonh Lennon was recorded in the 1970s in his New York apartment. Added to the original demo were electric and acoustic guitar recordings by George Harrison from 1995, before his death in 2001. The song was completed last year in Los Angeles studios, blending drums from Ringo Starr, the piano and bass of Paul McCartney, and the vocals of the two living Beatles.
Artificial intelligence serving Beatles nostalgia
Listening, on the official Beatles channel, to a title that seems to come from the past. A melancholy ballad, and we imagine Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney in the studio following Lennon’s voice, somewhat resurrected by technology. It will be “the final Beatles song” , Macca promised, but who knows what treasures the magnetic tapes forgotten in the studios still hold. Listen.
Reactions shared in the Anglo-Saxon media
Among the first criticisms collected by AFP, across the Atlantic, the Washington Post judge the song “perfectly good”. While nuanced: “Which is not enough.”
Variety welcomes a finale “bittersweet” to the career of the group, which despite everything represents a “unexpected pleasure”.
On the other hand, the magazine Rolling Stone greet “a masterpiece”, “a real Beatles song” Who “adds one more classic to the world’s greatest musical love story”. “It’s the brilliant final statement that the Fab Four – and their fans – deserve.”, enthuses Rob Sheffield. “Now and Then could have been mediocre, cutesy or over-the-top, but instead it is a painful and intimate adult confession. You can understand why Paul never forgot this song over the years and why he couldn’t put it down. You can also hear why he knew it had to be a Beatles song and how right he was to continue his crazy quest to the end.”
Across the Channel, the Guardian estimate that Now and Then “will never supplant Strawberry Fields Forever Or A Day in the Life in the hearts of Beatles fans, but it’s a better song than Free as a Bird Or Real Love”, John Lennon’s two previous posthumous recordings covered and completed by the Beatles.
THE Telegraph sees a “a tender but bleak attempt to rediscover the magic (…) of the greatest group in the history of pop, reunited beyond death”. “Now and Then sounds more like ‘late Lennon’ than a moment in the Beatles’ career.” and is in any case not “the buried gem that fans around the world hope for”, continues the newspaper.
In a “verdict” online, the British music magazine Mojo is much more positive than its generalist colleagues. After a reminder of the restoration and development process that allowed the song to see the light of day, he seems pleasantly surprised by the result: “A reverse-engineered compromise, skeptics might suggest. And yet the most surprising thing about Now And Then, revived and restored, is how much he really resembles the Beatles. There where Free as a Bird And Real Love, under the direction of Jeff Lynne (Electric Light Orchestra), veered perhaps too close to ELO while Lennon’s ghostly tones drifted eerily from beyondNow And Then is simpler and more impactful, beautifully expanding on the dreamy grace of Lennon’s original demo. And best of all, John’s voice is back: front and center and eerily up close.”
On the academic side, Richard Mills, professor of Pop Culture at St Mary’s University in Twickenham and absolute Beatles fan, found the song “wonderful”in a statement to the British channel Sky News.