Song Stories: The Beatles: Now and Then

'Now and Then' is more than just a song; it's the final chapter in arguably the greatest story in music. A story in which four lads from Liverpool took on and took over the world, a story filled with chaos, tragedy, beauty, controversy, sadness, joy, friendship, and soundtracked by some of the greatest songs ever written. 

The song once again saw the band etch their name into history, breaking countless records and becoming their 18th UK Number One single. It also set new streaming milestones, becoming the fastest-selling single of 2023 and the fastest-selling vinyl of the century. The Beatles now also hold the record for the longest gap between a first and most recent Number One single from ‘From Me to You’ (1962) to ‘Now & Then’ (2023).

To celebrate their story, the band released it as a double A-side single with ‘Love Me Do’, their very first release. Together, the two songs act as perfect bookends to the band’s extraordinary history, one marking the beginning, and the other a poignant closing chapter.

The song was originally written by John Lennon in 1977, and demoed on a tape recorder at his home in the Dakota, New York. Lyrically, the song is an apologetic love song, common with what he was writing at that time. 

For the most part, the song was complete; however, there were a couple of lines that would be added at a later date.

In January 1994, the year Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his widow, Yoko Ono, gave Paul McCartney two cassette tapes she had previously mentioned to George Harrison. The tapes, which both had a note on them reading "For Paul", included home recordings of songs that Lennon had never completed and/or released commercially. 

On those tapes were 'Real Love', 'Free as a Bird', 'Now and Then' and 'Grow Old With Me'. 

'Grow Old With Me' was released in 1984 on the posthumous album 'Milk and Honey', and Ringo Starr would later release a version of the song in 2019.

'Real Love', 'Free as a Bird' and 'Now and Then', however, were set to be recorded by The Beatles for what would become their Anthology albums. Harrison, McCartney and Starr headed into the studio with Jeff Lynne and set about recording the song, using Lennon's Demo. 

George Martin turned down the invitation to produce the songs due to his hearing issues. It was Harrison who suggested Jeff Lynne, and after all had been agreed upon, work began at McCartney's studio in February 1994.

The original 1977 tape of Lennon singing the song was recorded on a mono cassette, with vocals and piano on the same track. They were impossible to separate with the technology at the time, so Lynne had to produce the track with voice and piano together, but commented that it was good for the integrity of the project, as Lennon was not only singing occasional lines, but also playing on the song.

Although Lennon had died in 1980, Starr said that the three remaining Beatles agreed they would pretend that Lennon had "gone for lunch" or had gone for a "cup of tea".

The sessions, for the most part, were successful. 'Free as a Bird' was released in 1995 as part of Anthology 1, marking the first new Beatles single in twenty-five years. Working at McCartney’s studio, the remaining three Beatles, Paul, George, and Ringo, used the demo tape as the foundation, layering new instrumentation and vocals over Lennon’s original piano and voice. Producer Jeff Lynne, a longtime friend of Harrison, helped guide the sessions, ensuring the sound remained unmistakably “Beatles” while blending in modern studio technology.

The result was both nostalgic and forward-looking. 'Free as a Bird' was accompanied by an ambitious music video filled with visual references to Beatles songs and history, captivating fans old and new. 

A year later, 'Real Love' was released as the lead single from Anthology 2. Like its predecessor, it was built around one of Lennon’s demos, but with a slightly brighter, poppier feel. The trio’s harmonies, combined with Jeff Lynne’s polished production, gave it a distinctive late-Beatles quality.

Released in March 1996, 'Real Love' was accompanied by a touching music video that intercut footage of the surviving members recording the song with archival clips of the band’s early years. The single reached the Top 10 in the UK and charted in several countries worldwide, reaffirming the enduring popularity of The Beatles even decades after their breakup. Critics praised its sincerity and the emotional weight of hearing Lennon’s voice alongside his bandmates once more, though some noted its cleaner, more modern production as a departure from the classic Beatles sound.

Both songs received relative success and critical acclaim. More importantly, though, they reintroduced The Beatles to a whole new generation.

It was planned that 'Now and Then' would be the lead track from 'Anthology 3'; however, the sessions were not successful. The backing track that they planned to use as an overdub did not work with the demo. It included acoustic guitars played by McCartney and Harrison, a rough drum track by Ringo Starr, an electric guitar by Harrison, and a bass and "a few synth [things]" played by McCartney.

However, after several days of recording, all work on the song ceased. Producer Jeff Lynne reported that sessions for 'Now and Then' actually consisted only of "one day – one afternoon, really – messing with it. The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn't finish". Additional factors behind scrapping the song were that the piano Lennon was playing on during his demo recording was noisy, which kept drowning out Lennon's vocals, as well as a technical defect in the original recording.

Harrison disliked the song due to the quality of its recording. McCartney later stated that Harrison called Lennon's demo recording "fucking rubbish". 

Throughout 2005 and 2006, press reports speculated that McCartney and Starr would release a complete version of the song in the future. Reports circulated in 2007 that McCartney was hoping to complete the song as a "Lennon–McCartney composition" by writing new verses, utilising archival recordings of backing vocals and guitar work from Harrison (who had died in 2001), nd laying down a new drum track recorded by Starr.

Nothing happened in those years, but McCartney still had a desire to finish the song. In 2021, there was a breakthrough. For the 2021 documentary series The Beatles: Get Back, director Peter Jackson's production company WingNut Films isolated instruments, vocals, and individual conversations utilising its audio restoration technology over four years. This same technology was then used for the 2022 remix of the 1966 album 'Revolver', based directly on four-track master tapes.

Using a digital copy of the original tape provided by Sean Lennon, WingNut set about working on 'Now and Then'; they wanted to separate Lennon's vocal from the piano. It worked. 

This was then passed on to the two remaining Beatles, McCartney and Starr. McCartney recorded bass guitar, a slide guitar solo in the style of Harrison as a tribute to him, electric harpsichord, backing vocals, and piano in the style of Lennon's demo in his home studio in East Sussex, while Starr later recorded a finalised drum track and backing vocals in his home studio in Los Angeles. Additionally, Harrison's guitar parts (both acoustic and electric) from the 1995 sessions were inserted into the song.

The restoration was followed by the addition of a string section written by McCartney, Giles Martin (the son of Beatles' former producer and longtime collaborator George Martin), and Ben Foster, recorded at Capitol Studios. The piece was given the decoy name of "Give & Take" to avoid leaks from the musicians and recorded in late April 2022. 

Finally, McCartney and Martin added portions of original vocal recordings of 'Here, There and Everywhere', 'Eleanor Rigby' (both from Revolver), and 'Because' (from the 1969 album Abbey Road) into the new song, following the methods used for the 2006 remix album 'Love'.

On 13 June 2023, McCartney told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that he had "just finished" work on extracting Lennon's voice from an old demo of the latter's to complete the song, using (in his words) artificial intelligence. Dubbing the project "the final Beatles record", he did not name the song; however, BBC News reported it was likely that the song is 'Now and Then'.

The song was the perfect act of closure for the band; the response 'Real Love' and 'Free as a Bird' received in the mid-90s was quite muted compared with what The Beatles were used to.  It was the height of Britpop, the Beatles’ stock higher – and their influence on current music more obvious – than at any point since their split. And yet 'Free as a Bird' – clearly released with the intention of bagging the Christmas No 1 spot, as the Beatles regularly did in the 60s – couldn’t dislodge Michael Jackson’s Earth Song from the top: by its second week in the charts, it was being outsold not just by Jackson, but Boyzone’s cover of Cat Stevens’ Father and Son.

Real Love, meanwhile, managed a couple of weeks in the Top 10 before disappearing (by week two, Boyzone were outselling that as well).

'Now and Then' was a commerical hit, but it's arguably the best of the three songs, it packs a more emotional punch, and although Lennon was probably writing about Ono rather than McCartney with the lines “Now and then I miss you / Now and then I want you to be there for me.” there's still something quite moving when they sing in tandem. This is a song about The Beatles. 

There’s something similarly moving about the sound of a very Harrison-esque slide guitar solo being played by McCartney, who apparently baulked at Harrison’s slide guitar additions to the mid-90s sessions as too reminiscent of his 1971 solo hit 'My Sweet Lord'. That was precisely the kind of older brother-ish judgement that always rankled with Harrison: there’s something rather touching about McCartney paying tribute as if in shrugging concession that he might have been wrong.

It brings an end to The Beatles' story, and gives the two remaining band members their full stop.