Paul McCartney says new Beatles song felt like 'reunion' with John Lennon
Sir Paul McCartney has shared his joy at feeling like he was reuniting with John Lennon while working on the Beatles' new song, Now And Then.
The track, described as the last Beatles song, was sourced from a Lennon demo and finished by Sir Paul and Sir Ringo Starr decades after the original recording. Speaking to BBC Radio 1, Sir Paul said: "Before John died he was working on some songs and Yoko (Ono, Lennon's wife) spoke to George Harrison and said 'I've got a cassette with some John songs on that he never got to finish. Would you be interested in finishing them off?' So we thought about it and we thought 'Yeah, it would be great', 'cause in a way we would be working with John again, which we thought we would never be able to do."
Sir Paul McCartney says he felt as though he had reunited with John Lennon for the Beatles lastest song (Getty Images)"We worked and finished two of the songs but we didn't get around to finishing the third one, and the third one is called Now And Then. So it was knocking around for a long time and I kept thinking 'There's something here, you know, we should finish this'."
"I ended up talking to Ringo and we asked him if he fancied putting the drums on again and then I thought 'Well, I could up the bass a bit', so I put the bass on again. We already had George playing guitar and we had John on vocal it was kind of magical doing it. So we ended up making it into a real record, and that's what's being released."
He added: "When we were in the studio we had John's voice in our ears, so you could imagine he was just in the next room in a vocal booth or something, and we were just working with him again so it was joyful. It was really lovely, you know, because we hadn't experienced that for a long time obviously and then suddenly here we were, working with ol' Johnny."
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Paul spoke about the Beatles' first single since 1995 (Getty Images)
John was assassinated on December 8, 1980 (PA Archive/PA Images)Sir Paul said he hopes the track gives fans "a loving feeling", adding: "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 keyword for people to take away from it, 'emotion'." Director Peter Jackson's 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back used audio restoration technology that allowed for vocals, music and conversations by the band to be isolated.
Sir Paul McCartney has shared how the innovative technology used to create The Beatles' new song aligns with the band's experimental approach. He said: "When there was something a little bit offbeat, technological things... I mean like the first time we heard a tape go backwards by mistake we went 'Oh what's that?', and we wanted to put that on our record, whereas other people would just go 'Oh, come on, get the tape on the right way and let's get on with it'."
"But we always grabbed little things like that so Peter Jackson, he's organised it so it's magic. It's very special for me to be singing with John again." The song was released at 2pm on November 2 as a double A-side with the band's 1962 debut single Love Me Do, and cover art by US artist Ed Ruscha. The music video will debut on November 3.
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to [email protected]
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