At last, here's a cover of Now And Then by The Beatles released in November last year.
As many fans know, this song was written by John Lennon and recorded as a demo in 1977 in his Dakota Apartment in New York, and was one of the songs given to Paul by Yoko on a cassette tape in 1994. The song was worked on by Paul, George & Ringo in 1995, but due to technical difficulties at the time (and George’s dissatisfaction with the song) it was shelved and never completed. Of course, only Free As A Bird & Real Love was worked on and completed, and that was released in 1995/1996 as singles and as part of The Beatles Anthology Series. (Now And Then should've technically been the third song to be featured on Anthology 3, just like Free As A Bird was featured on Anthology 1 and Real Love on Anthology 2)
That is until 25+ years later. With the help of AI, Peter Jackson who worked on and produced the Get Back documentary, was able to separate John’s voice from the original demo which made it easier for Paul & Ringo to work on the song again compared to in 1995 when the technology wasn’t available then to do the separation of the piano & John’s voice, which was the main problem they always had. When working on Free As A Bird & Real Love, Jeff Lynne who was the producer at the time could only do the best he could by bringing out John's voice as much as possible despite the piano being locked in on the same track which at times drowned out his voice and a loud humming cycle noise which Jeff Lynne just about removed from those, which is why on those songs John's voice sounds a bit buried and distant. Because as mentioned, the technology wasn't available at the time to do any separation. On Now And Then, it was even more difficult for him to bring out his voice and even harder to hear because the piano was a lot louder on the demo compared to on Real Love & Free As A Bird and the humming cycle noise was even harder to remove. This was one of the reasons why the sessions for the song were abandoned completely.
So on the new version, Paul & Ringo then added their instrumentation (Bass, Drums, Harmonies, Backing Vocals etc) alongside a strings section (Who had no idea they were recording for a new Beatles single!) and they also added in some of George’s guitar work and most notably his original slide guitar part that comes in at the end of the song from the abandoned 1995 sessions.
On first hearing of the song, the main thing I noticed was the ‘Bridge’ section from the original demo was not there (I don’t wanna lose you…) which I was a bit disappointed by as I was so used to hearing that from the demo. I thought that could’ve been a section Paul could’ve sunk his teeth into and made new lyrics for it and helped on the chord structure. But at the same time when you listen to the demo, John is almost kind of fumbling around and trying to see what chords work and just making up and feeling the words as he was going along. Not as complete as say the verses in Free As A Bird (Whatever happened to…) which although he hummed the melody on that demo, that certainly sounded more fleshed out and just needed words added to it which of course is what Paul & George did in those sessions.
Despite this, it’s not a major issue, I do love the slide section from Paul in the middle and the more I listen to the song overall the more I love it.
It’s such an emotional listen given the fact it’s taken a long time for the song to be eventually completed and Paul always hinted over the years he would finish it one day. The music video as well is fantastic and even more emotional to watch! The 12 minute documentary that was released is great too, to see how they separated John's voice and to hear it so crystal clear sent and still sends shivers down my spine.