Tom Dunne: It's a great day when we get to hear a new Beatles song
The Beatles in 1968: John Lennon, Ringo Starr. Paul McCartney, George Harrison. (Picture courtesy of Apple Corps)
When does The Beatles gift stop giving? They broke up 53 years ago. We are one year shy from being as far removed from that date now as they were then from the Battle of the Somme. And yet the gifts keep coming.
The last few years have been heaven-sent. There were the “proper” stereo mixes of Sgt Pepper and Revolver, Paul McCartney headlining Glastonbury at 80, and Peter Jackson’s miraculous retelling of the Let it Be sessions.
That three-part Disney+ series arrived in the deepest troughs of covid. We had little option but to watch it, nailed as we were to the couch. And yet somehow when I think back, I don’t recall the isolation or the 2km limit, I see only Billy Preston’s wonderful smiling face.
Get Back showed an unexpected side of the 1969-era Beatles. They were supposed to have hated each other by then, but there they were in glorious colour, laughing and goofing around, and making music.
There was Paul, unspeakably photogenic, occasionally gracing the piano with the opening lines of 'The Long and Winding Road' or 'Let it Be', while Mal Evans, a roadie by any other name, looked on and occasionally made – something which now seems imagined - actual song-writing suggestions.
And there was Yoko, the woman who, well you know the urban myth, sitting there as benign, gentle, and loving a figure as you’d hope your son might meet. And John, Paul’s only song-writing equal on Earth, sitting opposite him, looking into his eyes and asking, “What’ve you got?".
If that song-writing partnership had extended a bit longer, then John’s answer to that question from Paul would have been 'Now and Then'. And so, from Thursday, November 2nd, 2023, at 2pm GMT, we can, miraculously, hear how that would have turned out, if Paul, George and Ringo had then thrown an ear over it and put it into The Beatles' machine.
'Now and Then', The Beatles, last ever single, was released into the world as a double A-side, with 'Love Me Do', their debut from October 1962. What a tale those two tracks bookend.
For those who may be suspicious of its provenance, let me allay your fears. It is as much a Beatles song as anything else they have ever done. There were always songs that owed more to one Beatle than the others – 'Yesterday' to Paul, 'Julia' to John, 'Within You and Without Yo'u to George – and this is no different.
The important thing, then as now, was to give the song what it needed. And yes, it may have been conceived by John for inclusion for a solo album, but so what? How many Beatles songs written in later sessions that ended on Abbey Road weren’t similarly conceived?
It becomes a Beatles song when it is finished by the other Beatles, and 'Now and Then' is that in spades.
It was one of three songs written and recorded by John in the late 1970s and passed to Paul by Yoko on a cassette labelled “for Paul” after his death in 1980. Attempts were made to work on it, with Paul, George, and Ringo in 1995 for inclusion on the Anthology series, but it proved impossible.
The piano was too simply too loud and drowned out John’s voice. There was at the time no way to separate the two, and George, ever the reluctant Beatle, said this too should pass.
But the technology developed during the Get Back film was at last able to solve this. The piano was removed, and John’s voice, ethereal and wonderful, was free at last.
And so, you can hear a song conceived by and sung by John, with guitar parts from George, bass and backing vocals from Paul, drums and vocals from Ringo. The strings are via George Martin's son, and there are some other bits of magic I will leave you to discover yourself.
The video, by Peter Jackson, could not be more powerful, with previously unseen footage supplied by Pete Best. It is a perfect bookend to a career, the likes of which, we will never see again. It is a milestone.
Sadly, like Somme veterans in 1970, there are fewer and fewer original Beatles’ veterans about these days. There can’t be too many more of these days, days when we can once again marvel at our luck: at having shared our lives, with the greatest, most loved band of all time.
- Now and Then is released on Thursday, Nov 2. The Beatles’ 1962-1966 (‘The Red Album’) and 1967-1970 (‘The Blue Album’) collections’ 2023 edition releases are out Nov 10
