Now And Then

Song facts

“Now and Then” (also known as “I Don’t Want to Lose You” or “Miss You“) is an unfinished song by John Lennon, recorded as a solo piano/vocal demo in 1977 at his home in the Dakota Building, New York City.

The Beatles considered the song as a potential third reunion single for their 1995 autobiographical documentary project “The Beatles Anthology“, following “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love“, but it was shelved until 2022 when Paul McCartney decided to complete it with the help of Ringo Starr and producer Giles Martin.

Using the demixing technology used by director Peter Jackson for his 2021 documentary “The Beatles: Get Back“, it was possible to extract John’s voice from the original demo. With new overdubs by Paul and Ringo, guitar tracks by George Harrison from the abandoned 1995 sessions, and some string overdubs, the track was finally released in November 2023.

The last words of John to Paul

In February 1981, a few months after the assassination of John Lennon, Paul McCartney was recording his new album, “Tug of War“, on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. He had invited several guests to appear on the album, including his idol, Carl Perkins. Perkins deeply appreciated the invitation and the few days spent there, and to show his gratitude, he wrote a song called “My Old Friend,” which contained the words “Now and Then,” echoing John’s last words to Paul, according to Linda McCartney. This may explain Paul’s long-standing insistence on releasing John’s “Now And Then.”

Well, it was something that I’ll never live long enough to forget. It happened in February of 1981 and as the world all knows, and never will forget, in December of 1980 when John Lennon was taken away from us, and so this was the following year, in February. I wrote the song about and for Paul McCartney. I did it because he was so kind to invite me down to this beautiful island of Montserrat with Stevie Wonder. Ringo was there, just had a wonderful time. […] I just wrote how I felt on the isle of Montserrat on every shell, forget a country boy with a guitar and a song you invited me, and you treated me like kin, and you’ve given me a reason to go on. So my old friend, think about me every now and then.

I sang it for Paul, at about 10:00 the next morning. I was scheduled to leave flying again in the little single engine aircraft to the island of Antigua where I was flying commercial back to Atlanta and on to Nashville and back to Jackson, where I live here. I sang it, he said “Carl, it’s beautiful… would you sing it again?” and I said. “Sure, man.” He said “wait just a minute,” and he got Linda in there, and they sat on the floor, I sat on his old Fender twin reverb amplifier, with a guitar, I did however notice a microphone over there. I didn’t pay that much attention to it, but George Martin recorded it and after I finished singing the song to Paul, he was crying, tears were rolling down his pretty cheeks, and they’re pretty to me just like they are to the rest of the world. I think he’s a very handsome boy and always did. He’s even handsomer when he’s crying.

And Linda said, “Carl, thank you so much.” I said, “Linda, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to make you cry.” She said, “But he’s crying and he needed to. He hasn’t been able to really break down since that happened to John.” I mean he stepped outside of the room, out by the pool, and he just had his handkerchief out, and he was going at it. And she put her arm around me and said, “But how did you know?” I said, “Know what, Linda? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” She said “There’s two people in the world that know what John Lennon said to Paul, the last thing he said to him. Me and Paul are the only two that know that, but now there’s three and one of you… you know it. I said, “Girl, you’re freaking me out! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She said the last words that John Lennon said to Paul in the hallway of the Dakota building were… he patted him on the shoulder, and said, ‘Think about me every now and then, old friend.’

And she said, here you are, that’s what you just sang, and how did you know? And I said I didn’t know it, gosh, I didn’t know it. But McCartney really feels that Lennon sent me that song, he really does.

Carl Perkins – from interview with Goldmine, 1996

Think about me every now and then, old friend.

The last words of John Lennon to Paul McCartney

1994-1995 recordings with The Beatles

In January 1994, during Paul McCartney’s visit to New York for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony, Yoko Ono, John’s widow, gave him two cassettes of John’s home recordings. One tape contained the songs “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” which were later completed and released. The other tape contained the songs “Grow Old with Me” and “Now and Then.” “Grow Old with Me” had already been released on the posthumous album “Milk and Honey” in 1984, so the Beatles decided to focus on “Now and Then.“

On March 20 and 21, 1995, the three surviving Beatles began working on “Now and Then” by recording a rough backing track. However, after only two days of recording, they stopped recording and scrapped plans for a third reunion single.

It was 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. It was sort of a bluesy sort of ballad, I suppose, in A minor. It was a very sweet song. I liked it a lot. Should it ever be completed it would probably end up as either ‘Now And Then’ or ‘Miss You’. I wished we could have finished it.

Jeff Lynne – 1995 – From Sunday Express, April 29, 2007

The song has been partly recorded in ‘embryonic form’ before it got put on the back burner, and that’s where it stayed. The song was never intended to be released.

Neil Aspinall – From “The Beatles Diary Volume2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001” by Keith Badman

I asked George, ‘What happened to the third song?’. And he was very critical. He was a real downer about it and said, ‘I wasn’t really interested.’ He said, ‘Apart from the quality, which was worse than the other two, I didn’t think it was much of a song.’ He made it clear he’d definitely called time on the whole thing. He said he didn’t want to end up just being John Lennon’s backing band.

Mark Cunningham, who was the technical musical consultant to the Beatles’ longtime press officer, Derek Taylor – From thedailybeast.com, November 1, 2023

It didn’t have a very good title, it needed a bit of reworking, but it had a beautiful verse and it had John singing it, [But] George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.

Paul McCartney – Interview for Q Magazine, November 2006

The Beatles have not finished any of the tracks they were reported to have been working on-’Now And Then’, often referred to as ‘Miss You’, ‘Grow Old With Me’ or [the McCartney-Harrison composition] ‘All For Love’.

Jeff Lynne – 1996 – From “The Beatles Diary Volume2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001” by Keith Badman

The song was largely shelved due to George Harrison’s dislike for it. Paul later stated that George had called John’s demo recording “f*cking rubbish.” In a 1997 interview with Q Magazine, Paul said, “George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.” An unnamed participant in the recording sessions told the Sunday Express, “George just didn’t want to rework it because it’s not a matter of putting some vocals, or a bit of bass and drums to finish it. With this, you have to really build the song.“

Another factor in scrapping the song was a technical defect in the original recording. Like “Real Love,” John’s demo recording had a 60-cycle mains hum throughout, but it was noticeably louder on “Now and Then,” making it much harder to remove.

Bootlegs and reports

Around 2006, press reports speculated that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr would release a complete version of “Now and Then” in the future. On April 29, 2007, the Sunday Express reported that the song might be released to coincide with the digital release of the Beatles catalog. Additional reports that year suggested that McCartney hoped to finish the song as a “Lennon–McCartney composition” by writing new verses, using an archival drum track recorded by Ringo, and incorporating George Harrison’s guitar work.

There are a couple of things which may surface at some point. You see, with the Beatles, there’s always a surprise somewhere along the line. We did ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, those two songs of John’s, and that was very exciting, very moving for me and very comfortable having his voice in my headphones in the studio again. And there was a third track, another song we had our eyes on called ‘Now And Then’.

l actually wanted to do it on Anthology 3, but we didn’t all agree. But things change and the thing is that it might not go away. There was only one of us who didn’t want to do it. lt would have meant a lot of hard work, the song would have needed a lot of re-writing and people would have had to be very patient with us. But there are these one or two things lurking in the bushes. The Beatles might just raise their ugly little heads again…

Paul McCartney – From Sunday Express, April 29, 2007

Those who’ve heard it say it’s like a bit of a verse and a chorus, very skeletal. George just didn’t want to rework it because it’s not a matter of putting some vocals, or a bit of bass and drums to finish it. With this, you have to really build the song. The genius of The Beatles was predicated upon Lennon and McCartney. What was normal in the early days at least was that John would come in with a fragment and Paul would turn it into a hit – or vice versa. This is exactly the same situation and it’s the one opportunity left for a Lennon/Mc­Cartney co-write. Paul was asked in the early Nineties when he started touring again, why he was doing it. They said that he was rich, he didn’t need this. But Paul said that he felt he had one great song left in him. He’s always been the most uncannily intuitive person and it looks like that song has finally arrived.

Unknown source – From Sunday Express, April 29, 2007

Over the next few years, there was much speculation that the track would be released. Additionally, many bootlegged versions of John’s original demo and attempts to improve it were released.

New reports on the internet say the song was finished by Paul McCartney over a year ago. There were a number of Sessions by McCartney over a two or three year period. former Beatle engineers Ken Scott and Eddie Klein have both said in no uncertain terms the song is finished and sounds very Beatley. All four Beatles are on the track according to Klein and Scott. Klein actually engineered the sessions when McCartney embellished and finished the song. Still there seems to be some sort of official cover up denying the public the right to know about the finished recording.

From The Beatles Bible – In the comment section, 2010.

In particular, a fan-made version of the song, created by “Iamaphoney”, was released in 2007, amid rumours that Paul McCartney had contributed to the mix. However, a 2017 statement by the creator of the video clarified that there was no connection between Paul and the fan-made version.

There is speculation Paul is somehow linked to iamaphoney. Some things really seem to point in that direction. One thing is the amount of money/effort put into the project. But more obviously, the stuff has never been taken down for copyright reasons.

From The Beatles Bible – In the comment section,2019.

The cooperations between iamaphoney and Paul McCartney never existed. iamaphoney is an independent org and has no financial supporters. iamaphoney has no connections to Apple or MPL.

From The cooperations between… – TheRottenApple Series | Facebook

In the 2012 documentary “Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne and ELO“, Paul McCartney declared:

And there was another one we started working on, but George went off it. We were like, ‘No George, this is John’. He said, ‘It’s still rubbish’. ‘Ok, then’. So that one is still lingering around. I’m gonna nick it with Jeff and do it. Finish it, one of these days.

Paul McCartney – Interview for “Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne & ELO” documentary, 2012

2022 – MAL de-mixing technology makes it possible to rework John’s demo

From 2018 to 2021, Peter Jackson worked on the “The Beatles: Get Back” docuseries. As part of this effort, his studio WingNut Films Productions Ltd developed MAL, a de-mixing technology that can separate a track combining various sounds into different tracks. Jackson’s sound team (led by Emile de la Rey) also used MAL to remix the “Revolver” album in 2022 and to create an isolated vocal track from John Lennon on the song “I’ve Got A Feeling,” which Paul McCartney used on his 2022/2023 “Got Back” tour.

Seeing what MAL could do, McCartney sent the tape of “Now And Then” to Jackson’s team, who returned three tracks: John’s vocal, the piano, and everything else in the room. This made it possible to finally work on the song.

With the technology that Peter Jackson and his team had worked out during the Get Back movie, he’d been able to separate off certain instruments and voices. We thought, “Well, we’d better send John’s voice to them off the original cassette.

They said this is the sound of John’s voice [Paul imitates computer noise]. A few seconds later or however long it took, and there it was: John’s voice, crystal clear. So in the mix, we could lift John’s voice without lifting the piano, which had always been one of the problems. Now we could mix it and make a proper record of it. I pulled it out, had a listen to it, and thought, ‘Oh, I could actually do the bass a bit better. So why don’t I start there?

Paul McCartney – From documentary “Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song“, 2003

It was Paul’s initiative to finish the song, as is the case with most Beatles things — even with my dad back in those days. Paul dipped in on his tour when he wanted to use John’s singing [onstage]. He worked with Peter Jackson for that. And then he sent Peter the tape [of “Now and Then”], which Peter worked on. Paul also started working on the track and played me what he had. Then we talked about it and that’s how I got involved.

Giles Martin – From The Beatles Announce New Song ‘Now and Then’ (Exclusive) (people.com), October 26, 2023

When filmmaker Peter Jackson put together the docuseries The Beatles: Get Back in 2021, his WingNut Films company developed a proprietary stem-separation technology, MAL, to demix the raw documentary footage’s mono audio into usable, multi-stem recordings, allowing hitherto unheard voices and sounds buried in the raw tapes to be clear and audible in the film’s final mix. With that project completed, Jackson and his audio team, led by Emile de la Ray, were enlisted to apply MAL to the garbled cassette audio of Lennon playing “Now and Then.” The team sent back three stems—the piano, everything else in the room, and Lennon’s vocal, which had been extracted as a strong, solid voice with nary a trace of the ghostly wavering so prevalent in “Free Like A Bird” and “Real Love.”

From Building The Last Beatles Song – Mixonline, October 26, 2023

In 2022, Paul McCartney convinced Ringo Starr and producer Giles Martin, who had remixed the Beatles catalog in recent years, to work on “Now and Then.” In addition to John’s vocals, the song includes electric and acoustic guitar recorded by George in 1995, a new drum part from Ringo, and bass, guitar, and piano from Paul, which matches John’s original playing. Paul also added a slide guitar solo inspired by George, and he and Ringo also contributed backing vocals to the chorus. Some string overdubs were also added, as well as backing vocals from the original recordings of “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Because.”

In 2022, McCartney and Starr began working on completing the song with the help of Giles Martin, the go-to immersive mixer for Beatles projects in recent years, not to mention son of Beatles’ producer George Martin. There was plenty of material to work with—in addition to the newly retrieved stems, there were various acoustic and electric guitar parts by Harrison available from the 1990s session. Building on those foundational elements, Starr played a new drum part while McCartney augmented things further with bass, guitar, piano, electric harpsichord and shaker, as well as a Harrison-esque slide guitar solo.

Heightening the song’s inherent drama, an urgent string arrangement for the track, written by McCartney, Martin and Ben Foster, was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles—it was, in fact, the very last session before the entire Capitol Tower, including the studios, was shut down for two years of extensive renovations and structural repairs. Needing to imbue the song with the Beatles’ trademark harmonies, McCartney and Starr provided new BVs. Those were also augmented with backing vocals taken from the original recordings of “Here, There And Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Because,” though the pieces were not used in a way that draws attention to their having been lifted from elsewhere.

From Building The Last Beatles Song – Mixonline, October 26, 2023

To be completely honest, I was more frightened doing this track than I had been doing remix projects, because you have to respect John and George. They aren’t with us now, but they play on the track. Your job is to help make this track as good as it can be. It was really interesting when we were doing the strings, I sat with Paul and he said, ‘Listen to George’s rhythm. We need to respect George’s rhythm guitar, because he’s playing a certain thing. We need to make sure the strings pick up on that.’ Paul’s very good at making sure that there’s cohesion between everyone’s ideas. He’s very good at actually going, ‘What was everyone trying to say here and let’s make sure it’s all together.’

Giles Martin – From The Beatles Announce New Song ‘Now and Then’ (Exclusive) (people.com), October 26, 2023

I added some backing vocals from other Beatles tracks to create some coherence and to make sure that it sounds like the Beatles. […] When I [first] talked to Paul about it, he was uncomfortable because that is reconstitution. But there was a mission. George and John are not here. I couldn’t get the classic three-part harmony — George, Paul and John singing together. There’s a sound to it. So you go, ‘Well, they would probably be putting oohs and ahhs here…Let’s just find ones in the same key and use those.’

Giles Martin – From The Beatles Announce New Song ‘Now and Then’ (Exclusive) (people.com), October 26, 2023

What’s your understanding of the extent of the work the Beatles put into “Now and Then” back in 1995, before they aborted it?

I wasn’t there, so I’m just going to speculate. What Paul played me — what we worked on together — was kind of after he’d looked at the material they did together.

Far be it from me to argue with a Beatle: there were some things that I thought we should change from that recording. There were a few synth [things], which I thought, once we decided to put strings on it, [weren’t necessary].

You know, the key thing is that George is playing on it. Therefore, it is, by definition, a Beatles song, because all four of them are on it. People ask me, “Why is this the last Beatles song?” Well, there’s not another song. There won’t; there can’t be another song where all four Beatles are playing on it.

So, there were bits and pieces that were used and not used. I don’t think they spent a lot of time working on it, but essentially, what we kept was George — and obviously, John’s vocal, which then we looked at.

Listening, I was thinking, Thank god that George tracked a rhythm guitar part and harmony vocal back then. Or else, this couldn’t happen. Or, if it happened, you and your team would never hear the end of it.

What was interesting was, we did the string arrangement. I sat down with Paul in L.A., and there are lots of chugs and “Eleanor Rigby” kinds of ripoffs in the string arrangement.

And what essentially happened was, Paul spent a lot of time listening to what George was playing on the guitar, and it really changed the arrangement. It’s in service to the guitar; it doesn’t go against George’s playing. They were completely respectful of the other Beatles, and made sure it was a collaboration, and it was all four of them.

As Yoko said to me, “John is just a voice now.” And I think it sounds like the Beatles, “Now and Then.”

Giles Martin – From GRAMMY.com, October 26, 2023

2023 release

On June 13, 2023, during a promotional interview for his photography book “1964: Eyes Of The Storm,” with BBC Radio 4’s Martha Kearney, Paul McCartney revealed that a new Beatles song would be released before the end of the year, utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

What do you think about efforts that are being made through technology, through artificial intelligence, to recreate the early Beatles, making your voice sound younger [and] bringing those voices back from the grave?

Well, it’s a very interesting thing, you know. It’s something we’re all sort of tackling at the moment and trying to deal with. What does it mean, you know? I don’t hear that much because I’m not on the internet that much. But people say to me, “Oh, yeah, there’s a track where John’s singing one of my songs.” And it isn’t, it’s just AI, you know. So all of that is kind of scary, but exciting because it’s the future.

We were able to use that kind of thing when Peter Jackson did the film Get Back where it was us making the Let It Be album, and he was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette where it had John’s voice and a piano. He can separate them with AI. They tell the machine “That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.” And he did that, so it has great uses.

So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record — it was a demo that John had, that we worked on and we just finished it up and it’ll be released this year — we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI, so that then we could mix the record as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway. So there’s a good side to it and then a scary side, and we’ll just have to see where that leads.

Paul McCartney – Radio interview for BBC Radio 4, June 13, 2023

Paul’s comments were misinterpreted, with many believing that AI would be used to fake John’s voice. Ringo Starr and Sean Lennon both clarified that the technology would only be used to isolate John’s voice from the demo tape and remove noise.

Tony Rosamilia: Why is Paul McCartney turning John Lennon into an AI model for an “unreleased” song based on demo tapes?? Are you OK with this? Did you reach out??

Seán Ono Lennon: That is not happening. All we did was clean the noise from the vocal track. People are completely misunderstanding what occurred. There have always been ways of ‘de-noising’ tracks but AI just does it better because it learns what the vocal is and is able to very precisely remove everything that is not the vocal.

Anne-Marie: I’ve no interest in a “fake” Beatles song

I think people are deeply misunderstanding this story. The AI did nothing but clean the noise off my dad’s vocal track. That’s all. Nothing else. The song was a demo dad had recorded and the other Beatles finished it off. Exactly like “Free AsA Bird”, only the original vocal was a bit dirtier on this one so they cleaned up the noise with AI. There’s nothing fake about it. It is a new recording made by all four Beatles. My dad’s voice is exactly as he recorded it minus the noise.

Carolyn Porco: Sean … Hey! In this upcoming new Beatles’ record, what role does George play and how?

Hey Carolyn…I shouldn’t speak too much on this yet but I’ll just say the track turned out beautifully and I think everyone will be very happy.

Sean Lennon – From Twitter, June 17, 2023

It’s not down to AI. It’s not like we’re pretending anything. That is actually John’s voice, Paul’s voice and bass playing, George on rhythm guitar and me on drums. And the two things that are new are Paul’s bass and me on drums. … I really worked at it just months ago here. And it works. It’s a beautiful song. You know, for all the madness going on around it, it’s still a beautiful track. And our last track.

Why revive it now?

I don’t know. Paul must’ve had a slow day. He says, ‘You know that track we did? Do you want to work on that?’ I drummed on it and I sang on it. It is moving, because the four of us are there, and there won’t be ever again.

Ringo Starr – From Variety, July 7, 2023

There’s been so much talk and sort of excitement around this final Beatles recording, and a lot of confusion as well.

Well, there’s no confusion. The confusion is that “free as a bird” was on the same tape and Jeff Lynne, and a friend of his, lifted John. Now we have another way. Peter Jackson in New Zealand said he had a machine called Mal – after Mal Evans – and it can lift stuff out of a track and out of the tape, so it’s been lifted that way now. But it’s still four boys on that song and, you know, that is John. I mean the rumors were like we just made it up. Like we would do that… I mean, for me and Paul probably, it would be pointless if it wasn’t him, you know. This is the last track ever that you’ll get the four Beatles on it: John, Paul, George and Ringo. And, you know, it’s interesting because Paul did the solo and because we had done two songs of John’s off, when it came to this one, we thought – George mainly thought – well, two is enough. But we had listened to it and he’d put a bit of guitar rhythm on it. And I re-drummed because I didn’t really drum to it, I just sort of kept the beat. And Paul did it and, you know, it came out of the blue from Paul last year – “you know that song, why don’t we work on it? How do you feel about that?” I said “great, let’s put it together”. So we had all the parts but now we have John in a much better place. When I heard it, it’s John, you know what I mean, it’s not messing. So that’s all I can tell you, I hope you enjoy it.

Can you tell me if it’s coming out this year?

I can’t, because it should have been out already. So it’s coming out when they decide it’s coming out. I’ve done my part!

Ringo Starr – From Ringo Starr talks EPs, ‘Get Back’ and that final Beatles song | AP extended interview – YouTube, September 28, 2023

“There’s no AI here. There’s a vocal extraction. Everything else is completely played live.” He doesn’t even employ the standard studio practice of adjusting Starr’s drumming to a computerized time keeper. “We kept it the way they would have played,” Martin explains. “Here’s the thing about the Beatles — they had a heartbeat to them. There were four hearts that would beat as one in different rhythms, and it’s really important to retain that. There’s a fragility to this record, which needs to be there. The fragility is the human part. If you try and iron out everything, you end up with a very bland experience. The key to this production was not to add anything that takes away from the humanity of it.”

Giles Martin – From The Beatles Announce New Song ‘Now and Then’ (Exclusive) (people.com), October 26, 2023

I do feel as though ‘Now and Then’ is a love letter to Paul written by John. I mean, I’ve never really asked Paul about it, and I’m not sure whether Paul would say, ‘Oh, that’s definitely it,’ because he wouldn’t want to second guess John. But that’s the sense I get. And I get the feeling that’s why Paul was so determined to finish it.

Giles Martin – From The Beatles Announce New Song ‘Now and Then’ (Exclusive) (people.com), October 26, 2023

“Now And Then” was eventually announced on October 26, 2023, and released on November 2, 2023.

Last updated on November 3, 2023

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