Switched on Pop - The Beatles: "Now and Then" and Forever

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

When Paul McCartney announced that he and Ringo Starr had produced a new Beatles song with the aid of AI, many music pundits were skeptical. Was this new song be another gimmick like the fake Drake hit "Heart on My Sleeve"? No. Instead, the Beatles simply used AI voice separation technology to repair a well-worn John Lennon demo tape.  Back in the '90s, Yoko Ono gave shared a collection of unfinished John Lennon demos with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison (who died in 2001) as part of a final recording session that resulted in the singles "Free As a Bird" and "Real Love." However, the third song, “Now And Then" was marred by hissing and humming, and the piano was overly loud. Harrison called it rubbish, and after a few hours of tracking a rough song they left it on the cutting room floor.  But now in 2023, using film maker Peter Jackson’s latest restoration technology created for his "Get Back" documentary, the Beatles were able to create one last song together, though in three different eras. Lennon tracked his vocals in the '70s, Harrison's parts were lifted from the '90s sessions, and McCartney and Starr added their parts in 2022. The band is filled out by a string arrangement by Giles Martin (Beatles cataloger and son of the late Beatles producer George Martin) and Ben Foster, in addition to reused backing vocals from earlier Beatles tracks.  So, did the Beatles successfully bring this worn-out recording back to life? Does this AI song sound like Beatles, let alone human? Find out on Switched On Pop. SONGS DISCUSSED The Beatles - Now And Then The Beatles - Free As A Bird The Beatles - Real Love The Beatles - Taxman The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps The Beatles - Two Of Us The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby The Beatles - Because The Beatles - Here, There And Everywhere The Beatles - The End The Beatles - Penny Lane The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows The Beatles - In My Life The Beatles - You Won't See Me The Beatles - When I'm Sixty Four The Beatles - Hello, Goodbye The Beatles - Blackbird The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention Spotify. It has arrived the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Carolina Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolvente, toffee caramelized and tonka-tosted. A combination that seduce

from the first instant and he has aweller. Good Girl Jasmine Absolute, hypnotica, irresistible. Discover it now, and let you involve for susentia. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist,

Nate Sloane. Where are you reporting from? From Liverpool. Cool. Appropriately so. I live a puddly an accent, Charlie. I feel like, Nate, we've gotten into a habit of making spontaneous last-minute recordings. Just today, as of this recording, the Beatles have released their final song.

The Beatles. I'm going to challenge you to keep that going the rest of this episode. I like doing it because it keeps you on your toes, Charlie. I like seeing you get flustered. Okay, a lot of people got flustered when this song was announced by Paul McCartney, few months back because Segway, Charlie. Okay, okay, I'll stop. I'll stop. It's too hard.

McCartney announced that AI had been used in the creation of a new Beatles song and a bunch of sensationalist headlines suggested the Beatles for making AI music. So, what I want to look at today with you, Nate,

is the last Beatles song, some sort of late in life AI gimmick? Or is this a true Beatles recording? And if so, how does it make us feel? Let's take a listen to the final Beatles song now and then. Let's do it surely. Okay, that was the last one, I promise.

I got that out of my system. So now and then is the third post-breakup Beatles song to be released. It's also the third posthumous Beatles recording since John Lennon was murdered in 1980. And it's the first since George Harrison died in 2001. And it all goes back to the 1990s. Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, had a number of cassette recordings that John had done, some demos that he had recorded. And she gave them to the Beatles who were still alive. And they took those recordings to make two new songs.

First, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison put out the song Free as a Bird that was based off of a demo of John Lennon's from 1977. And they released the song in 1995 as part of the Beatles Anthology One documentary and album. Then just a year later, the remaining Beatles took yet another John Lennon song, Real Love, a song he recorded a number of times, but never released, and added their voices to it, played along to it, as part of their anthology too. I think we all assumed that would be the final Beatles recordings. George Harrison died in 2001, yet here we are. We have a third and final post-Beatles breakup song now and then.

Yeah, Charlie, at this point, you would think they've probably gotten everything out of the warehouse at Apple Studios. And yet here's yet another song. Like, where did this come from? And how was it re-released into the world? It actually was part of those original cassette tapes that Yoko Ono had given to the Beatles in the 90s. This song, it's a demo that Lennon had made at home in the Dakota in New York City. Yet, it had a number of problems. The recording overly emphasizes the piano and has this nasty buzzing in the background.

Piano was a little hard to hear. And in those days, of course, we didn't have the technology to do the separation. This cassette was in pretty rough shape. And the Beatles in those Free as a Bird, Real Love studio sessions back in the 90s, had tried to do something to it for like an afternoon or so. But George Harrison called the recording rubbish, and they tossed it. They didn't continue with the song. Until just a few years ago, the Beatles partnered up with the filmmaker Peter Jackson to put out their get-back documentary,

where Jackson revived a whole bunch of really shoddy footage and sound and made this three-part epic documentary, looking at the Beatles, Let It Be sessions. And to make it, Jackson and his team made new artificial intelligence, audio separation technologies that could very accurately pull the Beatles' voices from these distant, bad recordings from the documentary. Paul McCartney thinks, well, we have this old recording of John that was unrecoverable. Maybe with these new tools, we could bring it back to life. They said, this is a sound of John's voice. A few seconds later, oh, well, however long it took.

And there it was, John's voice, crystal clear. And know it's true. It's all because of you. And so Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, the two remaining Beatles, get together, and use this material to finish the sessions that have been started originally in the 90s. We get John Lennon on vocals. Paul McCartney also sings. He adds bass, sly guitar,

piano and harpsichord. Ringo Starr sings and plays drums. George Harrison had actually tracked guitars back in the 90s and they include those in the session. So Harrison is also in there. They also recruit Giles Martin, the son of late Beatles producer George Martin to add a string arrangement also made by Ben Foster. And so with basically the original team, we get a whole new Beatles song. Why don't we listen closely section by section and see how it holds up? Let's do it. Intro. One, two.

This is clearly a Beatles recording to me. What do you think? Well, it's definitely a Beatles recording when you hear that one, two, three, four. Mm-hmm. You hear that voice. I don't know if that's Paul's voice or John's voice from the original tape. That immediately puts you back in that world of this Liverpoolian quartet. You're specifically referencing the beginning of Taxman off of Revolver, right?

One, two, three, four. One, two. That's where I've heard it before. Yes, that was what I was specifically referencing without realizing it. I think it even has some purposeful meaning. Like, you don't have to leave the count in there, but here it is. One two. That sounds like Paul's voice.

I think you're right. That's not a one, two, three, four count. It's just a one, two, trail off. We have just two remaining Beatles. Oh, what? Damn, Chuck. Going conspiratorial on you here. instead of one, two, three, four, here we are all together now.

Oh my gosh. Just one, two. That's poignant. One, two. If I were the record producer, that's why I would leave it in. Okay. And then the musical material. Here's where I'm like, I don't know, are piano chords played every quarter note of

Beatelalian gesture? I'm not sure about that. Well, I don't have quarter notes, but I do have this. That's while my guitar gently weeps. And I do hear a similarity. There's like some acoustic guitar in the background playing eighth note strumming pattern chung and chunggung chunga there's a piano line up front but let me amend what i said earlier charlie it's not playing chord notes it's playing whole notes but yeah i don't know just sounds like a

generic intro they're also in the background some very faint strings but yeah okay the intro is basic it's not saying too much it is establishing that we're in a minor key yes things are dark but you're not sounding move yet so let's keep going into the verse yeah Okay, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not like blown away so far, to be frank. I use the word generic, you know, to describe the intro. The lyrics seem kind of generic as well. Am I being too hard here? Sure, that's fine.

Yeah. I mean, hearing John Lennon's voice, that's an uncanny experience. Yeah, it's loud and clear, pristine. I've probably heard every note he's sung, and to hear something new from him is like, it's a little supernatural, otherworldly. Yeah. It's powerful. like that vocal timbre, but the unique way he phrases a melody. I love like that kind of surprising

rhythmic syncopation on it's all because of you. It's like, oh, that's like not only John Lennon's voice, but like that's the kind of unique way that he'll sing a melody as well. Yeah, I want to talk about that moment too, because Lennon does something I really like when he ends the phrase. Just beautiful suspension that he creates adds a little bit of dissonance to the sound. He's playing then second. Yeah. I find it sweet that they give the opening verse just to John Lennon. It's actually right there when he sings, it's all because of you, that Paul comes in.

And it's kind of like they're merging again. Makes me think of like their duets and like two of us. That's powerful because the lyrics, you know, saying now and then, and then we literally have like John's voice then, and Paul. voice now. There's a lot of resonance here that I think is cool, sort of extra musical resonance with the arc of the band that is powerful to listen to. Yeah, to have this demo recording that's been sitting around in a vault for years and to realize, you know, as the Beatles are at a more advanced age and reflecting probably more and more on their legacy, to realize maybe

this is a nice little closing right here. It's a very simple lyric. And yet it's capable of saying a whole lot more. Let's see what they do with it in the chorus. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I feel like we are in Beatles territory. It gets all of my Beatles nostalgia going when they move into the chorus. How about you? Yeah, I have a feeling, if I know you, Charlie, that you will have identified what that little bill leading into the chorus reminds me of, doon, doon, do, do you. I have been going through so many Beatles recordings and I cannot figure out what it is. That's funny.

Maybe it's just a sort of general Beatlesism then that we're hearing. Let's hear it one more time. Feels like something off at the second half of Abby Road. It's a little bit like how they get into like the funky part of she's so heavy. I don't know, man. No. Okay, someone listening will tell us. Someone's going to find it.

It definitely feels like a reference to the past. I actually am getting these more meta-musical connections to earlier Beatles recordings. Charlie, are you having some digestive issues? And that's why you need metamusical? Metamusical, brought to you by Professor Sloan. Where's that dad joke alarm that we talked about in the last episode? Because we need to... Okay.

Allow me to continue, if you don't mind. Go ahead. Okay, I'll continue right after the break. MES in Shopify.S. Barra Records. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting

predominantly Democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places

from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border.

They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up, instead of the top down, That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. We get a modulation. Yeah. The whole song moves from this minor key. We're in a minor.

And we, what an unusual thing. We modulate down a whole step to G major. That's pretty funky. I don't know many songs that modulate down, but the Beatles are known to do so. Yeah, they do. Like Penny Lane, maybe. I'm the bank You never wears a mind

Totally different kind of vibe That song But I do like in Now and then The shift from This very strong minor To a more uplifting major With a lyric though

Which is still self-reflective Kind of forlorn I mean that's sweet Creative partners Expressing missing each other Across the boundaries Of time and life and death Okay Charlie wait

Let's listen to them singing in harmony again Okay actually went next level And I took this song and I split the stems with an AI. So a song made by AI, split by AI. I've isolated the vocals. Wait, you AI did the AI? Yes, yes, yes, here it is.

Oh, now. And then I can distinctly hear not just Paul McCartney singing in his voice today. I also hear those brilliant, bright group vocals on the Oz. that sound like Beatles' recordings of the past, and I actually think that they are Beatles' recordings from the past. Hmm. Same more. Well, check this out.

In the bridge, they sing these ooze and oars in isolation, and they sound very familiar to me. A bunch of ooze. I can hear distinct sounds of reversing and manipulating that material. Now, the AI stems are not perfect. So there could be some artifacting from the work I've done here, but it sounds like those ooze like going back and forth on a tape. Okay.

I think they're originally drawn from the ooze and here they are in everywhere. If you were to take those in fragments and repitch them. I mean, Charlie, I love when you get forensic up in here, but I don't know. I don't feel like we could say definitively that they have indeed grabbed the background vocals. from here there and everywhere. Okay, so you're not convinced on the ooze. Let me give it the Oz. Okay, let's give it to the Oz.

Here's the Oz on now and then, isolated from the new recording. Now give me here, there, and everywhere again? No, let me give you because. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the version from love. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

You might be on to something. That's why they call you the Wizard of Oz. And then they had to do some of that, like, backwards, stretching out to make it fit. it with the new now and then recording. Interesting. Interesting. This is for me a real sonic signifier of the Beatles. You know, at the very beginning, we heard them count one, two, a reference maybe to Taxman off of Revolver, an album where they got really into using tape found sound, inspired by music concrete, perhaps, the French

tape esoteric music world. Inspired by Yoko Ono, too, Charles. Oh, yeah, of course, right. Big influence on that sound as well. Her experience in the fluxus movement. Right, right, right. And so those experimental sounds that we heard, those backward sounds on Tomorrow Never Knows, for example, it's kind of as if they have done the same thing here, but recycling their own material, which is appropriate because they are recycling old material. They're taking a cassette, which is old and finding ways to add themselves back into it. It makes me think the song, as it opens with a simple piano, feels kind of basic, and yet the production techniques they're using here really do harken back to some of their more psychedelic,

and experimental past. And I think we really get that vibe most intensely in the bridge slash guitar solo of now and then. Yeah, this moment seems to connect to a lot of sonic hallmarks of the Beatles. We've got this kind of psychedelic process, guitar solo. A solo that Paul McCartney did on a slide guitar,

trying to do his best impersonation of how George would have played it, actually. We hear constantly, shifting harmonies that make you feel like there's no tonal center. We're on a journey. And then there's these lush string orchestrations that sound like something George Martin would have arranged for the band in one of their original 1960s recording sessions. Yeah, absolutely.

It also, at the end of the bridge, does the Hallmark Beatles thing that you could probably find in two dozen other songs. Was that a minor four chord, Charlie? That is the most beautiful cadence in the world. A move from the major four to the minor four. That minor four chord. I mean, we hear that in so many Beatles songs. It's a staple. It's in my life.

You won't see me. It's in Blackbird. Bird. Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All those songs, by the way, I think, also have a sadder underbelly. They're all very reflective kind of works. And when I hear that minor four chord, it just my heart melts. Yeah, I feel like this song has sort of gathered steam for me as we've listened to it.

Because when you came out of the gate with that intro, I was like, okay, not that excited, to be honest. But then as the song has sort of unraveled more and we've heard it develop and you've given me some like insight into some of the behind the scenes creation of it and how it indexes. to the history of the band and the president of the band, I'm like, this is powerful for me. Truthfully, does it enter, like, the holy canon of my favorite Beatles songs? I'm not sure. Yeah.

I'll have to spend some more time, we'll have to keep listening. But, you know, at the end of the day, there could be a reason why they left this one on the cutting room floor, so to speak. Actually, they, yeah, did leave some material on the cutting room floor. They left out a much darker set of verses that Lenin wrote, I think would have altered the feeling of remembrance in the song.

But that's neither here, there, nor everywhere. They've taken the material that best reflects the ending of the band and experimented with it. Which isn't to say there's nothing that we shouldn't have done this grand musical experiment, and I'm not mad about having it in the world. But I just don't know yet that it stands toe to toe with some of their best material, frankly. Okay, that's totally fair. I think it actually fits really. well into this sort of trio of post-Beatel songs.

Free as a Bird, Real Love, Now and Then. They all come originally from these sessions in the 90s, and I think that they do form a cohesive project. Like, Free as a Bird has the same acoustic strum guitar, that slide from George Harrison, the pianos and drums. John clearly sounding like he's coming from afar on a cassette, sort of a resurrected vocal. It's very much like now and then.

And then with real love, I think you get that same vibe. The constant strumming guitar, the piano providing the same kind of rhythmic interest. It feels like the exact same band from the same sessions. And now and then, I think, fits in as almost like a little EP of three songs that they could have released together. You know, the Beatles, I often think of for their later material being an album-oriented group, and yet they constantly release singles and B-sides and additional material.

Some of their biggest songs were never properly on an album, like Hey Jude. And so I think that for me, this song fits a bit more into that lineage, and it's hard to compare to maybe some of the greatest songs or the best album arcs, like the ending of Abbey Road. You know, the song, the end, goes out with such a bang and it's such a wonderful recording to be the final Beatles song. This is now the new final Beatles song and ends on a really different kind of note. It's much more solemn. And probably, you know, it's for the fans.

It's for having a seance with a group that will never get together again, ever record and feel this connection and their connection to each other. So I find it quite moving. man, you got me, Charlie. Turns out I love the song. I don't know what I was talking about earlier. That's fine. I don't know if it's just the sort of historical lens that you place on it for me. But man, now I find this very moving.

And I hear what you're saying about this sort of continuum of like posthumous releases and how they all fit together and create this narrative that sort of extends the lifespan of the band and gives us a chance to reflect on how they change the sound of pop music. and now I'm getting in my feelings a little bit. As they're trying to do, they want to put us in our feelings. It's hard to listen to a group that is an institution. And for me, this song helps me sort of listen past the Beatles and actually hear their relationship.

It's hard for me to hear the ending because here we are at the end on a minor chord. Shifts the meaning of the ending of the band from the jovial fab four going out on a, bang to a solemn reflection on a group that will never play together again. But for this last time, they were able to summon their collective voices for a somber send-off. And I just feel fortunate to get to witness the end of one of music's greatest creative collaborations with one final song. Well said, Charlie, you've done it again.

Switched on Pop is produced by Charlie Hart. And Rihanna Cruz is the, no, that's horrible. And let's see, we've got Rihanna Cruz, producer. We've got Bill Lance engineering this week. Jolie Myers, Editor, Iris Gottlieb, Illustrations, Abbey Bar, Community Management, Neshach Kerwa, executive producer. We're part of Fox Media Podcast Network, a production of Vulture. You can find all of our episodes on Switchdownpop.com, and you can talk to us on social media at Switchdownpop. I genuinely would like to know how you're all feeling about one last Beatles track.

I know that Nate and I both grew up listening to the Beatles catalog extensively. I think Nate you've read nearly every book I've written about them. I, for a time, got very deep into the Paula's Dead conspiracy. So it's hard to listen to this objectively. I really love this final song. I want to hear how you all felt about it. So you can find us at Switch on Pop. We're going to be back next week looking at what went on last summer.

in the world of country music. I feel like I didn't quite get it, and I finally have the answer. So we'll be back next Tuesday. Charlie, before we go. Yeah. Is this really AI? I don't know if that's the right term to use here.

That's the term they used. I know, but is it really, it's just a computer program. It's not artificial intelligence. This is a separate podcast, but kind of annoyed with everything being called AI. Let's call the Vergecast. I agree. Okay. Software.

Okay. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, okay, that was fun. See you next week, Charles. Oh, and thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.