It’s official: The new Beatles single everyone was wondering about will be released, and will be the final one the band will ever release together.
What’s more: It’s Now and Then, the song pretty much everyone surmised would be the tune the remaining Beatles and the families of the others chose to release.
What you may remember is back in the 1990s, while George Harrison was still alive, he, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr took demo tapes from John Lennon and release Free As a Bird and Real Love as part of the Anthology documentary release that went along with a treasure trove of three double albums worth of studio outtakes.
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It was during that time that they worked on Now and Then, but they ultimately didn’t release it.
But with the technology used to make the much-applauded Get Back documentary, Lennon’s singing could be taken from the demo tape and made to sound better.
Here’s more from the Associated Press:
The survivors packed plenty into it. The new single contains guitar that Harrison had recorded nearly three decades ago, a new drum part by Starr, with McCartney’s bass, piano and a slide guitar solo he added as a tribute to Harrison, who died in 2001. McCartney and Starr sang backup.
McCartney also added a string arrangement written with the help of Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer George Martin.
We’ll get a film release on Wednesday when the song drops telling how this all came together. And then? That’s it from The Beatles. Their final track with what’s been a legendary, culture-defining career.