All that remained for me to do was to listen to the final single a good dozen times, shed an emotional tear while watching Peter Jackson's stunning accompanying video, and then order my thoughts for your benefit and mine.
Written and demo'd to tape by John Lennon in 1977, it wasn't a song he considered worthy of a place on the last two albums he recorded ('Double Fantasy ' and 'Milk And Honey '). Years after his death "Now And Then " was handed over by Yoko Ono on a cassette tape that also included demos of "Free As A Bird ", "Real Love " and "Grow Old With Me ", (the last of which had made it onto 'Milk And Honey '). The plan of the three surviving Beatles was to work all the unreleased Lennon demos into fully-fledged Beatles songs to accompany their 1995 'Anthology ' retrospective, one song per each of the three parts of the project. In the end the recording quality of the "Now And Then " demo was deemed unusable, though George Harrison was also quite scathing about the song.
Nearly thirty years later, with huge advances in software sophistication, and George Harrison no longer with us, bless him, to object, Paul McCartney has picked up the final part of the trilogy again, written a few new words, created a better bass part and a slide guitar break in the style of Harrison to add to his and Harrison's 1995 acoustic guitar parts and Ringo has re-worked the drums, all on top of a much clearer rendition of Lennon's piano and vocals, plus there are strings orchestrated by Giles Martin (son of the Beatles' famous producer). So it's a Beatles record because all four appear on it, and it's better than "Free As A Bird " and "Real Love " to these ears, a pleasant rock ballad but nothing brilliant, not like real Beatles records were when half of them were not in their eighties and two of them weren't dead. For McCartney it's probably closure of sorts after all the post-Beatle acrimony between himself and John. That's it really, an epilogue or epitaph or eulogy for the twilight of the Gods, the very best popular music ensemble of all time, one that helped shape our culture and our lives for the better - and we still have all that music. And it has been a nostalgic couple of days. Just watching the official music video that accompanies the release is a moving experience: Now And Then Music Video
The Beatles blazed for the decade that was the 1960s and for me, their true goodbye was, fittingly enough, "The End ", captured in seven takes at EMI Studio Two in July 1969, the final proper song on the final proper Beatles' LP 'Abbey Road '. They knew it, even if we were reluctant to take the hint.
I'm not providing a new poem this week. I'm still gestating 'Before And After Beatles', I'm afraid. In lieu here are links to five of my previous Saturday blogs devoted to the best group ever. Click on the bold titles to activate. You're welcome.đŸ˜ŠBeatlemania Was Born In Blackpool (from December 2014): Beatlemania
Revolver - Tomorrow Never Knows (from August 2016): Revolver ReduxRed Letter Day (from February 2017): When I'm Sixty-Four
Lonely Hearts (from June 2017): Phoenix Like
Take Three Birds (from October 2021): Norwegian WoodI'll leave you with a quote from Paul McCartney that will be echoed by millions, myself included: "How lucky was I to have those men in my life."
Thanks for reading, S ;-) Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
