The Nowhere Fans

Now And Then. Yeah, you read it correctly. Now And Then was announced today as the Beatles very last new track as a band. Can you believe that?

Now And Then was home recorded by John Lennon in 1979 and, years later, in 1994 Yoko Ono gave to Paul McCartney two tapes containing this song in particular together with other some other that we all know and love, such as Free As A Bird. Soon the Beatles reunited for the famous Anthology and worked on the songs. Unfortunately (or fortunately, thinking that now we are getting a more technological version of it and that was definitely less frustrating and more fun to work with) when they started to work on Now And Then there were creative disagreements within the band. The trio then democratically decided not to continue the project of the song, George’s main let down being the low quality of John’s home record.

After years of only dreaming with the moment that Now And Then would be brought to life, it was back in June of this year that Paul let out during an interview that the remaining Beatles worked on the track with the help of Alternative Intelligence, similar to the one that was used on the recent Beatles documentary Get Back and also to the one that was used to make possible for Paul to sing with John onstage again during the concerts of the GOT BACK tour. Immediately and excitedly the fans assumed it was Now And Then, knowing it is the last track from John’s tape that was not finished during the Anthology project in the 90s.

For our surprise, the official announcement didn’t happen as soon as we’d have liked it to. Even Ringo Starr joined our impatience when last month he declared he didn’t even know if the song would still be released this year because it was supposed to be out already. It actually was delayed for so long that the fans started to wonder if it really was Now And Then, but the clues were everywhere around us: the copyright of the song was changed and the demos were deleted from social medias and YouTube; there was no sign of Now And Then anywhere anymore!

Yesterday we were all amazed by a mysterious (but not so much) movement around what surely was the first step of a big event, that happening after long months of pure anxious wait. And this was how they told us:

Leading us to a mailing list that shares with us a countdown, the announcement of our so wait and dear Now And Then was clear and to happen soon, now sooner than we could have dreamed.

During interviews throughout the years, it was obvious that Paul kept Now And Then as a promise not only to the public but also to himself: he’d finish that song one day. And the promise finally came to fruition!

John made a very strong point during his final years that he didn’t have any secrets songs hidden or kept to himself, everything that he liked and considered completed was out, so it’s evident that the tracks from the tape that were given to the Beatles in 1995 were songs that John considered unfinished or ones that he simply didn’t have the inspiration to complete. This is obviously the reason why he trusted his dear friend Paul – having the “For Paul” description on the tapes – to put in those songs, lyrics and melodies, what he himself didn’t or couldn’t himself. The excitement goes beyond the final product of the song, but also to be able to see and hear the final touches that were put to the lyrics and how they were put.

John’s original lyrics can be described as bittersweet, exposing his vulnerabilities and hopes for a future with a person he misses dearly, or a moment of the past, a past lifetime, that he misses regularly. The lyrics make clear how important the person he’s singing it to is, and while travelling through his own revelations of the self, he is trying to convince himself and the other person that no matter what happened before, love was all he felt towards them, wishing that it would be enough. He also shows a conformist understanding that this person – or people in general, based on his trauma – would leave him and there was nothing else for him to do; he had given his all to try and make them stay.

We are excited to see how Paul is going to connect his writing with John’s this time, and to see if he is going to bring a new face, a new interpretation – a word or two allowing it a lyric to mean something else completely – and a new resolution of the melody to the song. In a more certain perceptive though, if the lyrics used are the very same from sketch he did during the Anthology project we can already tell that he didn’t go far from the path John was taking, but surprises can happen too.

It is always good to reinforce that even though they used AI to in the new song, they are not creating John’s voice nor George’s guitar out of the blue. George’s parts were taken from the attempts they did during the Anthology. For John’s parts, they only isolated the vocals and enhanced them, something they did before on some of the tracks from the Gimme Some Truth ultimate mix. And it’s safe to say that it was so well done and the quality was so brilliantly improved to the point that nobody realized while just listening to it that AI was involved in that, it really being just a finer version of the well know tracks.

Again for Now And Then they found a way to respect John and make his work modern, relevant, intriguing and alive. Sean Ono Lennon, Paul McCartney himself and Ringo Starr made a point of calming everybody down on social media, all of them directly and indirectly affirming that they would never do such thing as use an artificial John, and as Ringo beautifully put it, it be completely pointless to each and every one of them if it wasn’t really John.

So, also trying to calm the afflict fans down, we share and remember here the fact that over the last few years there were some experimental demos improved by the fans and the results were pretty good, impressive even and they all had the clear interference of newer technologies. So it is not impossible! It is not impossible to have a great result, respecting John, George, the families and the passionate fans.

We trust John’s family and friends to do what’s respectful, right and what will also be grand finale and a moving tribute. And if even fans were able to do beautiful things with the track, undoubtedly the Apple’s more technological, musical and special tools will give us a version of it that is going to be way better and more surprising. John’s own record has its fascinating charm and should not be forgotten, but Now And Then Beatles Version is not only John’s voice in a wonderful quality and his piano, it is also Paul’s vocals and bass, Ringo’s drums and George’s guitar. It is the Beatles! The Beatles playing together once again, 60 years after they triumphant start. We are truly feeling we are not going to be let down in any way.

It couldn’t be more beautiful and more meaningful for Now And Then to be the one to finish it all, for Now And Then to be John’s final collaboration with the Beatles, for Now And Then to be the one to remind us that, even though it is the very last track, the dream is not over and never will it be while our love for the band inhabits our own dreams and the soundtracks of our lives.

Now And Then is a part of John’s soul given to the Beatles, they arrived at the toppermost of the poppermost.

It is the warm hug the fans need.

The final love letter from the Beatles to John.

The last tribute from the Beatles to the Beatles.

We hope November 2nd arrives in a blink of an eye!