On November 2nd, the Beatles released their final single, ‘Now and Then‘. In the rock world, there is ongoing speculation that the song was performed using John Lennon’s AI-generated voice rather than his original recording. Ringo Starr addressed rumours about The Beatles’ final single in the latest AARP cover story. He said:
“There were terrible rumours that it wasn’t John, but AI, or whatever. Paul and I would not have done it. Last year, Paul called and said, ‘You remember that unfinished song of John’s, ‘Now and Then?’ Why don’t we work on it? He forwarded it to me, and I played the drums and sang. We had an excellent track with John singing and playing piano, and George playing rhythm guitar. It’s a lovely song, and a fitting way to finally close that door.”
In July, he spoke with People about their process. He said:
“This is absolutely John Lennon’s voice, taken as neatly as possible from a cassette. And that is all I can tell you!”
45 Years In The Making, ‘Now And Then’
The new single, ‘Now And Then‘, took 45 years to complete; John Lennon wrote the first notes in 1978, and the song was finally finished last year. It will be the final song attributed to Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, featuring all four Beatles.
In a recent People interview, Ringo Starr revealed that they had previously worked on the song. He said:
“We did that in the 1990s, George, Paul, and I, with the assistance of Jeff Lynne (the producer at the time), who extracted John’s voice from a cassette. I’m not sure which way he did it. Jeff is very… dialled in. And he had that job, and he was productive. When we completed those two tracks, then we got to the third one, we felt we’d done enough, and we worked on it for 10 minutes.”
The Beatles apparently didn’t work much on ‘Now and Then’ in the 90s.
Was AI Used In ‘Now and Then’?
During the production of The Beatles’ ‘Get Back‘ documentary, director Peter Jackson’s film company created software that enabled them to “de-mix” mixed recordings with overlapping sounds.
Unlike their later albums, the Beatles recorded the basic tracks of their album ‘Revolver‘ directly to tape, standing in a circle and playing together. This made it nearly impossible for future generations to differentiate and isolate the instruments and vocals. Last year, the band used this technology to create a new mix of their album Revolver. Giles Martin, the producer, clarified the issue in an interview with the BBC. He said:
“It has to learn what the sound of John Lennon’s guitar is, for instance, and the more information you can give it, the better it becomes.”
To answer the question, yes, artificial intelligence was used in the song, but not for John Lennon’s voice.
