Now and Then (Beatles song)

Lennon wrote "Now and Then" in the late 1970s. He recorded the unfinished piece of music in 1979 in a demo form at his home at the Dakota Building, 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.

In January 1994, Paul McCartney was given two tape cassettes by Lennon's widow Yoko Ono that included home recordings of songs Lennon 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 labeled “For Paul,” which Ono gave to McCartney in 1994, the year Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[7][3] "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 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."[8] An additional factor behind scrapping the song was a technical defect in the original recording. As with "Real Love", a 60-cycle 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 due to George Harrison's dislike of the song. McCartney later stated that Harrison called Lennon's demo recording "fucking rubbish".[9] McCartney told Q in 1997 that "George [Harrison] didn't like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn't do it."[10]

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."[11]

McCartney said in October 2021 that he still hoped to finish the track.[9] On 13 June 2023, he 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 in order 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". It is slated for release sometime later in 2023.[8] On the use of AI technology (more accurately, sound source separation technology), McCartney added in June 2023 that "nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings – a process which has gone on for years."[12]

On 25 October 2023, an image of a cassette tape with a copyright label listing "Yoko Ono Lennon, MPL Communications Ltd, G.H. Estate Ltd and Startling Music Ltd" as the owners was published on The Beatles' official website and Twitter account.[13] The following day the release date of 2 November 2023 was confirmed, with a new stereo remix of "Love Me Do" on the other side of the double A-side single.[5]

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[14] that McCartney was hoping to complete the song as a "Lennon–McCartney composition" by writing new verses, laying down a new drum track recorded by Ringo Starr,[15] and utilising archival recordings of Harrison's guitar work.

The only (official) available recording of the song is Lennon's original demo. In February 2009, the same version of Lennon's recording was released on a bootleg CD, taken from a different source, with none of the "buzz" which hampered the Beatles recording of the song in 1995.

• The Beatles Anthology
• The Beatles bootlegs

• Paul McCartney regrets not finishing third Beatles reunion song