SONG FOR THE MOMENT: THE BEATLES - 'NOW AND THEN'

4/5

Come Together. 

"I know it's true/It's all because of you/And if I make it through It's all because of you." The lovely refrain from John Lennon was given to Sir Paul McCartney by Yoko Ono years ago. It was just John playing around, with a tumble dryer and the air conditioning providing backing vocals. But Paul thought they really had something. They did. And so, the first Beatles song since they 'Let It Be' was born.

After losing Lennon to a cruel and cowardly gunman outside the same 70s New York City Dakota building these words were put to cassette in, the Fab Four no more wanted to make one last jam with John for the record. So George Harrison and Ringo Starr made for Macca's studio in the countryside and went to work until the "job was done, son." These 1995 sessions with Starr's drumming and Harrison's guitar were put up a cupboard, under studio safe lock and key. It was always intended to be a bookend to their career like the new mix of 'Love Me Do' on this new single B-side. Bringing them back together 'Now and Then', from the mop tops to the grey and wrinkled vinyls of age. This 'Real Love' was set to be released as 'Free As A Bird', it just needed more time in the nest's twine, to be tooled and tweaked with. But then they lost beloved George.

During the planet's pandemic, we were able to 'Get Back' to the way things were then thanks to 'Lord Of The Rings' director Peter Jackson's incredible and inspired documentary. The 468-minute magnum opus of a last dance, showing that we could happily watch John, Paul, George and Ringo fart around in the studio for the rest of their lives and never get sick of them. So a new song based on a demo, some studio sessions and extra work from Ringo and Paul (who recently collaborated on Starr's 'Rewind Forward' EP this month with the McCartney penned 'Feeling The Sunlight')? Of course, we would be quids in. Even if this war against A.I. has us thinking that software will take over the world like that terminating Skynet. Besides, this is a one-off, and "the last song", "maybe". And it's nothing artificial, just their pure musical intelligence. It's not like they're going to start making posthumous albums and hologram shows like the estate of the late, great Tupac Shakur...we hope. And it's not like John wouldn't have liked it. The Beatles always experienced with different sounds and new techniques like the psychedelics of their 'Yellow Submarine'. It's like Jack Nicholson's character said in Martin Scorsese's 'The Departed', "I'm an artist. You give me a f#####g tuba, I'll get you something out of it."

Get on board, because the tech Jackson used to restore The Beatles to 'Get Back' has been able to draw those old Lennon vocals out...although we miss the applications of the electrical appliances. What results is a subtle, but beautiful swan song set to a moving music video bringing the band back together, albeit at times a little cheaply and cornily. But of course, we can forgive that. A 12-minute documentary joins the video on the Mickey Mouse streaming service Disney + for the fans to get their fill like those Paul conversations with super-producer Rick Rubin. If you thought seeing a young Macca dance to a Beck assisted remix on 'McCartney III', then you ain't heard anything yet. Three decades later, now is the time to remember what it was like back then. "And now and then/If we must start again/Well, we will know for sure/That I will love you." A letter to you from dear John. Getting back and by with a little help from his friends. TIM DAVID HARVEY.