The Beatles' "Now and Then"

The resurrective, technological manipulations of the Beatles via their ‘last song,’ “Now and Then,” might soon stimulate thought-provoking, ethical argument about the inhering identity of a rock band. How much material can you strip from the sailboat before it’s no longer a sailboat per se? Must you keep the sails? Can you dispense with the pulpit? What about the rudder? Are the Beatles, whom no one would claim exist in their original form (because of their official break-up in 1970 and the deaths of members John Lennon and George Harrison) still the Beatles, and are they still the Beatles in, or as, this one-off single?

All four Beatles contributed to the effort; there are no Beatles who didn’t; the kicker, of course being that Lennon and Harrison had no living contributions to this project spearheaded by remaining living Beatle Paul McCartney and agreed to by also-living drummer Ringo Starr. John and George’s contributions—the former’s being vital, the latter’s being less so—appear only through the medium of 21st-century recording technology. They did not personally serve up their musical parts in a live environment; their existing musical parts, recorded live decades ago, were served up second-handedly on tape by others, most notably and successfully by director Peter Jackson and producer Giles Martin[1].

What to think, then? For me, thought can just take a back seat. Apart from hearing and intellectually/aesthetically approving the upgraded difference in audio quality between Lennon’s voice on “Free as a Bird”/“Real Love” and “Now and Then” (his presence, now, is much more stirring!), I’m quite content to sit back and enjoy the song for what it is, a light, lovely tune with a moving, mournful touch of melancholy. It’s a song that can sit contentedly beside those first two Anthology-Beatles tracks; it’s a song that, in a world of things not working out, of endings remaining open, sadly ragged, incomplete, can be considered a more-than-just musical ending, a collective bow from the best rock group of all time, whether we want to say ‘individually’ or ‘together’. Ghostly or not.

[1] Harrison did in fact work on an attempt at the song, along with the other three, during the 1994 “Anthology” sessions, but the attempt remained an attempt, scotched largely by Harrison himself. Some of his guitar work from those gatherings are included in “Now and Then.” A homemade cassette from Yoko Ono provided John’s piano and vocals.