Would John Approve?

[chrislc]

Or George?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZN-__Dn638

Now and Then.

The conventional narrative seems to be that John would be thrilled. Ummm I don't think that's likely. He might think it's just Paul being Paul again. Was John, in 1979 - 1979! - writing a BEATLES song?

Maybe Yoko knows best, so it's done, but who knows for sure?

This AI stuff is not good. But the genie is out of the bottle.

[1finemrg]

Nov 2, 2023 10:24:46 GMT -5 chrislc said:

Or George?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZN-__Dn638

Now and Then.

The conventional narrative seems to be that John would be thrilled. Ummm I don't think that's likely. He might think it's just Paul being Paul again. Was John, in 1979 - 1979! - writing a BEATLES song?

Maybe Yoko knows best, so it's done, but who knows for sure?

This AI stuff is not good. But the genie is out of the bottle.

Heard it premiere on the local classic rock station at 9AM CST.

Thought it was pretty good, better than "Real Love". Liked "Free As A Bird" a little better.

[trekkielo]

Nov 2, 2023 10:24:46 GMT -5 chrislc said:

Or George?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZN-__Dn638

Now and Then.

The conventional narrative seems to be that John would be thrilled. Ummm I don't think that's likely. He might think it's just Paul being Paul again. Was John, in 1979 - 1979! - writing a BEATLES song?

Maybe Yoko knows best, so it's done, but who knows for sure?

This AI stuff is not good. But the genie is out of the bottle.

George didn't approve!

Lennon wrote "Now and Then" in the late 1970s. He recorded the unfinished piece of music sometime in 1977 as a demo at his home at The Dakota in New York City. The lyrics are typical of the apologetic love songs that Lennon wrote in the latter half of his career. For the most part the verses are nearly complete, though there are still a few lines that Lennon did not flesh out on the demo tape performance.

The Beatles' version

In January 1994, Paul McCartney was given two cassette tapes by Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, which included home recordings of songs which Lennon had never completed or released commercially. The songs on one of the tapes included the eventually completed and released "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love". The two other songs on the other tape were "Grow Old with Me" and "Now and Then", included on a cassette tape which Ono had mentioned to George Harrison and gave to McCartney in 1994, the year Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "Grow Old with Me" had already been released in 1984 on the posthumous album Milk and Honey, so the Beatles turned their attention to "Now and Then". In March 1995, the three surviving Beatles began to work on "Now and Then" by recording a rough backing track that was to be used as an overdub. However, after only two days of recording, all work on the song ceased and plans for a third reunion single were scrapped.

Producer Jeff Lynne reported that sessions for "Now and Then" 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." An additional factor behind scrapping the song was a technical defect in the original recording. As with "Real Love", a 60Hz mains hum can be heard throughout Lennon's demo recording. However, it was noticeably louder on '"Now and Then", making it much harder to remove.

The project was largely shelved because of George Harrison's dislike of the song due to its low-quality recording (technological improvement in 2023 allows for better segregation of Lennon's voice). McCartney later stated that Harrison called Lennon's demo recording "f**king rubbish". McCartney told Q magazine in 1997 that "George didn't like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn't do it."

During a Jeff Lynne documentary shown on BBC Four in 2012, Paul McCartney stated about the song: "And there was another one that we started working on, but George went off it... that one's still lingering around, so I'm going to nick in with Jeff and do it. Finish it, one of these days."

[lasvegaskid]

All I know is LVK approves!

[chrislc]

And another thing!

This song, much more than the first two, sounds like the Electric Light Beatles. I love ELO, but there's just something that feels wrong about this manipulation.

And John's voice does NOT sound authentic. It sounds artificial. It's too polished. Too Abbey Road. Too Paul.

[djjoe1960]

While it was interesting to hear Now & Then, it is , at best, IMO a song that would've been an album track on a John Lennon LP. While it is nice of the two remaining Beatles to finish off the song, I don't really consider the song an official 'Beatles' single. While John's vocal is much improved from the demo version I heard, there had to be a reason John did not return to finish it. The mostly interesting thing about Now & Then, as well as Real Love & Free As A Bird, is the music videos.

[chrislc]

Nov 6, 2023 7:25:49 GMT -5 djjoe1960 said:

While it was interesting to hear Now & Then, it is , at best, IMO a song that would've been an album track on a John Lennon LP. While it is nice of the two remaining Beatles to finish off the song, I don't really consider the song an official 'Beatles' single. While John's vocal is much improved from the demo version I heard, there had to be a reason John did not return to finish it. The mostly interesting thing about Now & Then, as well as Real Love & Free As A Bird, is the music videos.

Free As A Bird may be my favorite music video.

Here is what Vulture Com has to say about Now and Then, ranking it #211 out of #214 Beatles songs.

The only ones ranking lower are Little Child, Dig It, and, worst of all, Good Day Sunshine.

www.vulture.com/article/best-beatles-songs-ranked.html

211. “Now and Then” (2023)
The remaining Beatles and their heirs are of course allowed to market the group’s material as they wish, but the periodic “last Beatles song” campaigns (“Free As a Bird” in 1995, “Real Love” the year after, and now “Now and Then”) are not Beatles songs. They are muddy Lennon demo fragments from the 1970s that have been gussied up so they can be purveyed to help sell new Beatles paraphernalia. The sober assurances from all involved, from McCartney to Sean Ono Lennon, that John would have wanted this ring a bit hollow. And all the hype — filled with lots of early footage of the Beatles working together to make it seem like this is an actual Beatles project — comes across as strained.

The line on “Now and Then” is that it was considered back in the 1990s to help sell the Anthology releases, but the quality of the tape wouldn’t allow it. Now, McCartney is throwing around words like “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” to justify this particular excavation. The result are some trivial lyrics set against a haunting lilt of a melody in the chorus, with a lot of cobbling together of various Beatles-y instrumentation à la the Love project on top. Lennon’s voice is spectral and vulnerable. (But note how he cleverly repurposes the idiom “now and then.”) It would have been more respectful all the way around had this been simply billed as a Lennon solo project that McCartney & Co. brought back to life as a tribute to him. Docked 100 notches for going back to the well once too often.

[lasvegaskid]

Beatles have a top tenner!

www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/11/13/the-beatles-chart-their-first-hot-100-top-10-hit-in-america-in-nearly-28-years/