Did you ever think we’d be listening to a brand-new Beatles song in the 21st century? “Now And Then,” billed as the last-ever collaboration between Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, has been a long time coming. Nevertheless, it feels like a minor miracle to be getting “new” music from the band decades after the members went their separate ways and long after the deaths of Lennon and Harrison. The song was officially released on Thursday, and it’s sure to evoke nostalgia in Beatles fans everywhere.
It’s certainly not Lennon’s most intricate lyrical work, though the sentiment is well suited to what will be the group’s final collaboration. “Now and then I miss you/Oh, now and then/I want you to be there for me/Always to return to me,” Lennon and McCartney sing together, the warble of McCartney’s 81-year-old vocal harmonizing over the Lennon’s, preserved in the amber of his late 30s.
A music video for the track, directed by Peter Jackson, will be released on Friday. On Wednesday, the group released a 12-minute short film explaining the genesis of “Now And Then,” from Lennon’s original recording in the ’70s to the Anthology recording sessions in the ’90s to the the 2020s, when Jackson’s team pioneered new technology that allowed them to isolate Lennon’s vocals off of the grainy demo track.
McCartney knew in his heart that Lennon would have wanted him to finish the song, he says in the doc; given the work that went into “Now And Then” over the course of decades, the release does feel less like a cynical revival of a long-defunct group than a final act of closure in finally completing the project. “My God, how lucky was I to have those men in my life, and to work with those men so intimately, and to come up with such a body of music,” McCartney reflects. “To still be working on Beatles music in 2023, wow.”
“Now And Then” obviously isn’t going to hold up to The Beatles’ best work, but it does feel like a fitting denouement for one of the most beloved and influential musical acts of the 20th century (and beyond). “Obviously, it hasn’t been, but it sounds like John’s written it for Paul now, in a very emotional way,” the song’s producer Giles Martin (son of The Beatles original producer, George Martin) recently told Rolling Stone. “It’s a bittersweet song, which is very John. But with a combination of happiness and regret.”