I’ve been looking ahead to Thursday’s release of the Beatles’ “new” song “Now and Then” — the work John Lennon recorded in demo form during the late ‘70s that has now been turned into a full Fab Four collaboration.
I say this as someone who’s loved the group since my early childhood, which unfortunately coincided with their split in the early ‘70s. The first album I ever purchased was a Beatles compilation. One of my first trips to the movies was to see a double-bill of the “Let It Be” documentary and “Yellow Submarine.” And when Lennon was murdered in 1980, I was among those New Yorkers who stopped by his apartment building, the famed Dakota, to pay my respects.
This is the landmark group that recorded a string of crazily listenable and yet crazily innovative albums — “Revolver,” “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Abbey Road,” and the so-called “White Album,” among them. And those albums set a new standard not just for popular music, but for music, period.
The opportunity to revisit the song came as a result of the Peter Jackson “The Beatles: Get Back” docuseries, which tapped into the latest audio-restoration technology. Work could be done to restore Lennon’s part, while McCartney and Starr added new bits. As for Harrison, he contributed electric and acoustic guitar parts during the attempt to complete the song in the ‘90s.
Perhaps it’s just a stab at staying relevant, or as veteran music critic and author Steven Hyden told me, “The Beatles are in this fascinating place. They’re still one of the most popular rock bands in the world.”