The Beatles are releasing their last-ever song. On Friday, band members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr announced that they will release “Now and Then” on Nov. 2. The track was written and sung by the late John Lennon, developed and worked on by the late George Harrison, McCartney and Starr in the mid-’90s, and finished by the latter two men over four decades later.
The double A-side single pairs the last Beatles song with the first: the band’s 1962 debut U.K. single, “Love Me Do.” The release features original cover art by renowned artist Ed Ruscha.
The day after “Now and Then” is released, its accompanying music video will premiere.
In a statement to CNN, McCartney revealed that Lennon, who was killed in 1980, wrote and recorded the song in the late 1970s.
Hearing Lennon’s “crystal clear” voice on the track was “quite emotional,” McCartney said, with Starr adding, “[It] was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room, so it was very emotional for all of us. It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”
“We all play on it. It’s a genuine Beatles recording,” McCartney told the outlet. “In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”
In 2021, The Beatles: Get Back director Peter Jackson was commissioned to bring the song to life with the same AI restoration techniques used in the groundbreaking documentary, the outlet reports.
“Now and Then” features ’90s guitar recordings from Harrison, who died in 2001, as well as new instrumentation from McCartney and Starr, according to the outlet, who additionally reported that backing vocals from Beatles songs “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Because” were mixed into the final cut of the track.
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