The Beatles: ‘Now And Then’ and in the end, the love you make

The other day I woke up, fell out of bed, and listened to a new Beatles song. 

“Now And Then” is being billed as the “last Beatles song,” and with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr now well into their 80s, it probably is the final time we can say that. Resurrected from John Lennon’s demos circa 1977 and mixed with some George Harrison 1990s guitar thanks to some very fancy technology, here we have all four Beatles, two long gone, together again in a Frankenstein miracle of technology and persistence.

But is it any good? We live in a world of boundless hype and unnecessary reboots, constantly perched on the edge of expected disappointment, and yet, “Now And Then” is a beautiful, fragile thing that I can’t quite get out of my head. 

Of course, it’s the Beatles, so the song has been swamped with an avalanche of merchandise, fiery hot takes and analyses just like this one. All the to-do threatens to overwhelm what is at its heart a delicate, sweet little song. 

Like two other Lennon demos “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love” that were revived for the 1995 Beatles Anthology series, it’s Lennon during his domestic hiatus, writing simple, basic lyrics about home and happiness with none of the surrealist whimsy or angry edge that marked his top Beatles works. So it’s flimsy, sure.

And yet, and yet, I can’t listen to it without feeling a swell of emotion. The Beatles ultimately have always made me happy whether it’s the spunky energy of “Love Me Do” or the psychedelic swirl of “I Am The Walrus.” A Beatles song makes me glad to be here in this world, whether it’s a pop song, a sad song or an awfully sappy song (sorry, “Let It Be.”) 

The lonesome piano chords that kick off “Now And Then” give the song an elegiac feel, and Lennon’s ghostly voice is mournfully hushed. It could be a dirge, and I’m sure some folks see it that way, but I look at it as a fond farewell. 

To hear Paul’s 81-year-old voice kicking in to harmonise with Lennon, dead now for more years than he was alive, is to feel the endless pull of time itself. 

Sir Peter Jackson’s video for the song is faintly ridiculous at first, with macabre mixing of young John and George into footage of aged Paul and Ringo, old and young Beatles capering about, but it’s also a little charming and silly, as Beatlemania always was.

 “And if I make it through,” John sings, and you know, in the end, we all hope for that, don’t we? We keep the people that leave us with us, as long as we’re here. Paul has made a love letter to the past, out of the fragments of his dead friends’ leavings, and sure, it’s big business and all, but it’s also the Beatles. I cannot surrender my love of the Beatles to the binary “like/dislike” button and algorithm. I’m simply grateful for whatever we get. 

At the end of Jackson’s video we see those young, gorgeous Beatles on stage taking a bow, then slowly fading from the scene. You’ve got to have a hard heart not to feel something then. One day far too soon for any of us, there will be no more Beatles.

“Now And Then” is raw sentiment and lacking the mad fire of invention that made the Beatles change the world, true, but I kind of love it all the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah.