'Now and Then,' Beatles at the last: Keep that one. Mark it. Fab | MARK HUGHES COBB
"Keep that one. Mark it: Fab."
The 12:24 documentary about newest-last Beatles song, "Now and Then," begins with footage from "A Hard Day's Night," "Yellow Submarine," the concert atop Apple Corps, promo film for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," with varying audio under, including John's " ... I hope we've passed the audition," and concluding with Paul's remarks above, after catching his breath following a particularly incendiary, chaotic, beltin' from below take on "Helter Skelter."
"Now and Then," with its B-side remix of first single "Love Me Do," will be added to new editions of the collections originally released in 1973 as "1962-1966" and "1967-1970" — aka red album and blue album ― due Friday.
Chances of a reunion ― something legions sighed for, cried for, since 1970, when news broke the Fab Four had shattered apart ― died Dec. 8, 1980, outside The Dakota. Three of the lads from Liverpool completed "I Me Mine," the last track for "Let it Be," without John, who'd already left, in 1970. To further confuse things, "Abbey Road" was their last studio album cut together, following messy "Let It Be" sessions.
In Peter Jackson's masterful collage (from 60 hours of video, 150 of audio) released in 2021 as "The Beatles: Get Back," you can experience what EVERY BAND EVER has gone through in late stages: aimless noodling over three different keys, as each player tries to force others to listen; tedium leading to tempers; sag moments when everyone suffers the weight of failiure; and occasionally, a magical return to form.
Through the '70s, the boys worked on each other's solo work, often absent Paul, who'd pushed hardest, trying to assume a paternal-managerial role after the 1967 overdose death of Brian Epstein. Ringo remained the pivot, the one they all agreed on: All the Beatles contributed to his platinum-selling 1973 "Ringo," though separately.
It took John's murder to get them back. George rewrote a song for their brother, titled "All Those Years Ago." Ringo played, Paul sang, the video jerked tears, and that was the last, until they came together to work on "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love." In '94, Yoko had given Paul a cassette tape with four songs recorded at home in '77, the two above plus "Grow Old with Me," found on the posthumous 1984 "Milk and Honey," and a rough "Now and Then."
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Even with producer Jeff Lynne, they couldn't fix "Now and Then," due to tech issues: a 60-hertz hum that also marred "Real Love," but on "Now and Then," roared heavier; harder to remove.
" ... John was sort of hidden, in a way," Ringo says on the short. In '95, "We didn't have the technology to do the separation," Paul says. While working with the surviving Beatles — George died Nov. 29, 2001 ― on "Get Back," Jackson introduced them to audio software called Mal, for machine audio learning.
On the short, you can hear John's isolated vocals, eerily clean, achingly youthful ― he was just 37 ― redolent with reverb. Paul and Ringo improved on bass and drum tracks they'd added in '95, then layered in strings, re-cut harmonies, and apparently drew on archival backing tracks from "Eleanor Rigby," "Here, There and Everywhere" from 1966, and "Because," from 1969. As icing Paul added a slide guitar solo the way George would have done it, and yes, Paul is an excellent mimic, in addition to everything else he excels at, which seems to be pretty much all under the sun, save perhaps break-dancing, big-game hunting (he's a devout vegan) and sumo wrestling.
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One misnomer, spattering everywhere, is attributing this tech breakthough to AI. Sorry folks, I did have a busy October, between Kentuck, an OLLI talk, the Chukker Weekender and such, but I must have missed the singularity, the point where computers became sentient.
Hey, remember the '90s when everyone would soon be living and dying in virtual reality, despite the near-impossiblity of re-creating sensations anything like those of our bodies?
Remember how that never happened, and barring direct inputs jacking into the parietal lobe, never will? How the best we've come up with is clumsy, headache-inducing goggles with sketchy sound? Let me know when "the computers" tackle smell, much less taste and touch.
Until this higher tech sits up, cracks its knuckles and opines "Their early stuff was better," in a beer-stained T-shirt over Monday's drawers, it's still A, but probably never I.
Cool tech. CT.
In the film, Sean Ono Lennon says: "My dad would have loved that, because he was never shy to experiment with recording technology. I think it's really beautiful."
More: Documentary short on the making of "Then and Now"
Paul produced the "Now and Then" sessions with the assistance of Giles Martin, son of fifth Beatle-genius producer George Martin. Giles is also behind new mixes for the red and blue collections coming out Friday.
"With the strings, I thought I might as well rip off my dad — which I did do," Martin said, in an interview with Variety. "My dad was an amazing string arranger. If I’m gonna rip off my dad, you might as well do it for the last Beatles song."
Jackson has initimated there could be another song or two, something isolate-able Ringo and Paul could layer on.
“It’s fanboy stuff but certainly conceivable," Jackson said, adding he was thrilled to hear "Now and Then." "... With the world in the state it is, we need the Beatles to appear again, as if a flying saucer has touched down and they’ve got off and are providing us with their one last song to cheer us up.”
Mark Hughes Cobb is the editor of Tusk. Reach him at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Cool tech brings missed voices back from long ago | MARK HUGHES COBB
