By Aimee Bulger
Staff Writer
The Beatles released their final song after over 50 years, titled “Now and Then” on Nov. 2.
The song is a bittersweet ballad of missing someone you love, but knowing they are never far from your heart. The song’s producers used artificial intelligence technology to create this song and allow for all four members to be featured.
This beautiful song is not only impressive due to the band being broken up for quite some time, but also because there are only two living members remaining. John Lennon was murdered in 1980 by a man claiming to be a fan, and George Harrsion passed away after a fight with lung cancer in 2001. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are both still alive.
McCartney, Harrison and Starr originally attempted to record “Now and Then” during the 90s, according to The Verge. The four reunited to work on previously written, but newly recorded songs that would soon appear on the Beatles Anthology Album series. This series includes four albums and 10 hours of music.
Lennon had left behind several demos, recorded shortly before his murder, that were used to produce his vocals on these songs post-mortem. These demos included “Free as a Bird,” “Real Love” and “Now and Then.”
The first two were successfully produced by layering musical components and more vocals with Lennon’s, which allowed for them to be released with the Anthropology albums. However, there were technical issues facing “Now and Then” that could not be fixed with the technology of the time, so the band members decided to leave the song behind.
“In John’s demo tape, the piano was a little hard to hear. And in those days, of course, we didn’t have the technology to do the separation,” McCartney said in a mini-documentary about the song.
In 2023, however, McCartney and Starr decided to revisit the song. “It took almost a quarter of a century for us to wait until the right moment to tackle ‘Now and Then’ again,” McCartney said.
The inspiration came from Peter Jackson and his “Get Back” documentary, in which his team was able to “split all the different components into separate tracks based on machine learning,” according to The Verge.
“We can take a performance from Get Back, separate John and George, and then have Paul and Ringo add a chorus or harmonies,” Jackson told The Sunday Times.
With the help of this AI technology, Lennon’s voice and aspects of Harrison’s guitar playing are featured on this brand new track. All four Beatles were able to contribute to the making of this beautiful song, allowing for fans to have one final goodbye to the full band.
The production of this song not only provided the public with a new song from one of the most renowned bands of all time, but also has opened up a world of possibilities for AI in music, giving artists and producers many more opportunities to create their artwork.
The use of AI seen in this song is not the only way the tech has changed the music industry; it has also changed the way songs can be edited, mixed and mastered. Apps such as Landr, Cryo Mix and iZotope’s Neutron that are AI-driven have the ability to analyze tracks, balance audio levels and remove noise, according to The Conversation.
AI has also begun to be trained in understanding song composition. According to the Musicians Institute, the software behind AI-generated music is able to create custom songs based on mood, preferences and biometric data from the user.
With AI, more and more songs can be created, edited and added to in the future, especially as this technology progresses over time.
