(6-14-23) Former Beatle Paul McCartney announced yesterday that a new and final Beatles recording using artificial intelligence will be released later this year. McCartney used new artificial intelligence (AI) technology to “extricate” John Lennon’s voice from an old demo and complete a decades-old song.

McCartney told Radio 4’s Martha Kearney –

“He [Peter Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette.”

“We had John’s voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, ‘That’s the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar’.

“So when we came to to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI.

“Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway.”

BACKGROUND

John Lennon wrote “Now and Then” in the late 1970s. He recorded the unfinished piece of music in 1979 in a demo form at his home at the Dakota Building, New York City. The lyrics are typical of the apologetic love songs that Lennon wrote in the latter half of his career. For the most part the verses are nearly complete, though there are still a few lines that Lennon did not flesh out on the demo tape performance

NOW AND THEN | PIANO DEMO | JOHN LENNON

A Heart Play by John & Yoko Music

NOTE: This not the AI version, that will be released later this year.

https://youtu.be/MIZrdXm9UTQ

McCartney acquired the demo (above video) a year earlier from Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono. It was one of several songs on a cassette labelled “For Paul” that Lennon had made shortly before his death in 1980.