That's it: The Beatles' Last Song is Out

The legendary foursome from Liverpool stopped working together 53 years ago. Since then, half of its members have already died, but here's an interesting fact: The Beatles have recently presented their last song. And what's most interesting is that it was performed by the full band.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said: "Don't let yourself die without experiencing this miracle of sleeping with someone you love." Today, Ukrainians say the same thing: "Don't let yourself die without seeing Putin at the Hague Tribunal" - but three generations of Beatle fans around the world have their own version of this aphorism: "Don't let yourself die until you've heard the last song by The Beatles". Well, it seems that the time has come when you can finally relax... "Now And Then" is the title of The Beatles' latest creation, and it has already garnered over 20 million views on YouTube. 

But how is it even possible to record a song as a quartet if only the duo of 81-year-old Paul McCartney and 83-year-old Ringo Starr has long been left?

In 1980, the first Beatle to die was John Lennon. He was killed by a certain Mark Chapman. The young man had read "Catcher in the Rye" and believed that Holden Caulfield, the fighter against the hypocrisy of the adult world, was himself. At the same time, Chapman found out that Lennon, one of the leaders of the hippie movement who advocated the abandonment of property, was actually enjoying the life of a millionaire with luxurious apartments, yachts and villas. Chapman decided to punish him. However, he later admitted that he just wanted to take Lennon's fame for himself. Anyway, one evening the killer took an autograph from his idol, and at night of the same day he waited for him and shot him.

George Harrison became the second Beatle to die - in 2001, after a long struggle, cancer took his life.

However, in the new song by The Beatles, we can hear both Harrison's authentic guitar and Lennon's real voice. This was made possible, oddly enough, by the director of "The Lord of the Rings", Peter Jackson. But first things first.

The fact is that after Lennon's death, his widow Yoko Ono found cassettes with demos at home. One of them was signed "For Paul" - it contained a draft of the song "Now And Then", recorded by Lennon on a boombox in his New York apartment. In the song, the lyrical protagonist, which is typical of Lennon's late career, seems to be apologising to an old friend:

Now and then

I miss you

Now and then

I want you to come back to me

Yoko Ono gave this tape to Paul McCartney, after which he tried to fix the song back in 1995 (together with Harrison and Ringo Starr). But then nothing happened - for several reasons.

Firstly, the recording contained a network hum from household appliances - given the development of technology in the mid-90s, it was impossible to cut it out properly. Secondly, the song itself was raw. It had a good chorus, but the verses needed more work and more work. And thirdly, George Harrison - despite initially agreeing to record his guitar for the song - eventually started convincing everyone that it wasn't worth it. "F***ing rubbish" - according to McCartney, this was the response Harrison gave to John Lennon's demo. After spending about half a day with "Now And Then", the band put the song in the back of the drawer.

The situation changed after the pandemic, when "Get Back", a documentary by Peter Jackson about how The Beatles created the legendary album "Let It Be", was released. Among other things, there are moments where experts teach artificial intelligence to recognise the Beatles' voices on old recordings and separate them from background noise, resulting in clear and high-quality sound. Seeing this and hearing the result, Paul McCartney recalled his long-held dream: to complete the work on "Now And Then" one day. Describing his collaboration with Peter Jackson, he said in an interview with the BBC:

"We had John's voice and the piano, and he managed to separate them with AI. They tell the computer, 'This is the voice, this is the guitar - take the guitar away...'"

According to McCartney, after the work of artificial intelligence, he received a recording of Lennon's voice of crystal clear quality. After listening to it, Ringo Starr admitted that he felt surreal - as if Lennon had somehow come to life and was in the same room with him.

A year ago, McCartney and Starr began working on the song again, adding their vocal parts, Harrison's guitar (recorded in 1995) and other instruments. And Giles Martin (the son of the "fifth Beatle" - the legendary producer of the four, George Martin) added backing vocals from the original songs "Here", "There And Everywhere", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Because". So, a portion of not only surrealism, but also nostalgia - in the last song of The Beatles satisfied all fans. Even those who were generally cool to the melodic and lyrical basis of Lennon's composition.

On 10 November, the new versions of the Red and Blue albums with The Beatles' greatest hits will be presented, complete with the single "Now And Then". In the meantime, you can watch a documentary about how this song was created:

Why are posthumous songs released?

For the descendants of the deceased musician's copyright, this is a good way to make money. Because people start to really appreciate something only when they lose it, albums by the dead often become commercially successful and take top spots on the charts.

For example, after Michael Jackson's death in 2009, the Sony record company rushed to sign a contract with his family members to release 7 posthumous albums. The studio paid his descendants a record-breaking $250 million for the right to use the previously unreleased materials of the "King of Pop".

Another musician who actively releases albums "from the other side" is the legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix. He left behind 1,500 hours of previously unreleased recordings, so as of today, the number of his posthumous releases far exceeds his lifetime discography. And on the occasion of the musician's 70th birthday in 2013, the album "People, Hell and Angels" was released, which became Hendrix's biggest commercial success since his death at the age of 27 after an overdose of sleeping pills.

Let's also mention "MTV Unplugged in New York", a posthumous album by Kurt Cobain with his band Nirvana. This is actually a recording of the musician's last performance, which took place on 18 November 1993. Six months later, Cobain committed suicide, which provoked a wave of Nirvana's worldwide popularity. Immediately after its release in the autumn of 1994, "MTV Unplugged in New York" took the first place on the Billboard 200 chart and then sold 5 million copies, outselling even "In Utero" (Nirvana's last studio album). This release even won a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Most posthumous albums are simply work-in-progress recordings that the musician did not have time (or did not want) to release during his or her lifetime. Of course, some artists don't like the idea that after their death, someone will not know what to do with their rough materials. That's why, for example, one of the most successful musicians of our time, 32-year-old Ed Sheeran, recently admitted that he was preparing a release while he was still alive, which would come out immediately after his death. According to him, he has already collected 5 songs, to which he plans to add 5 more, making sure that the whole disc is perfect.