From Loudersound.
News you likely didn’t have on your 2023 bingo card: a brand new single from The Beatles is coming next week. Written and sung by John Lennon and featuring contributions from George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr – McCartney and Starr worked together to finish the song for release this year – Now And Then will be released Thursday November 2, and is being advertised as the final ‘new’ Beatles song ever. It will be paired on release with the band’s classic 1962 debut UK single, Love Me Do.
A 12-minute documentary, Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song, written and directed by Oliver Murray, will also accompany the single’s release, and will premiere on Wednesday November 1, with commentary from Paul, Ringo, George, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s son Sean and Peter Jackson, who produced and directed critically lauded 2021 doc The Beatles: Get Back.
Now And Then‘s gestation began in the late 70s when John Lennon wrote and recorded a bare bones, piano-led demo of the track at his home in New York. Two decades later, his widow Yoko Ono gave the demo to Lennon’s former Beatles bandmates, who worked on the song but were unable to fulfil its potential for a full release.
In the last couple of years, McCartney and Starr – with some help from Peter Jackson and his team – have been able to utilise modern technology to resume work on the song, adding new instrumental and vocal parts and readying it for release.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” says McCartney of hearing Lennon’s voice properly lifted from the original Now And Then demo for the first time. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. 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.”
“It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room so it was very emotional for all of us,” adds Starr. “It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”
“Back in 1995, after several days in the studio working on the track, George felt the technical issues with the demo were insurmountable and concluded that it was not possible to finish the track to a high enough standard,” says George Harrison’s widow, Olivia. “If he were here today, [their son] Dhani and I know he would have whole-heartedly joined Paul and Ringo in completing the recording of Now And Then.”
“It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that Dad had been gone,” says Sean Ono Lennon. “It’s the last song my dad, Paul, George and Ringo got to make together. It’s like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be.”
The release of Now And Then will precede a snazzy new reissue of the Beatles’ ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ albums (AKA 1962–1966 and 1967-1970), their two most famous compilations. Both reissues will land on November 10.
Now And Then can be pre-saved at streaming services, while a number of physical variants will be made available, including light blue and clear vinyl 7″ singles, and a black vinyl 12″, while The Beatles’ stores will carry exclusive alternatives.
A trailer has also been filmed to mark the news of the release.
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- The Beatles - Free As A Bird - EX - UK - 7" vinyl - £45.00, $56.70, €54.45 (New Item) (arrived 21-Feb-2025 17:26)on February 22, 2025 at 3:59 am
THE BEATLES Free As A Bird (1995 UK limited edition injection moulded 7" vinyl single, also including Christmas Time (Is Here Again), housed in a glossy flipback picture sleeve. The sleeve has some light ringwear and the the vinyl has minimalsigns of play, overall an Excellent example R6422)
- The Beatles - The Beatles In Mono - Sealed - UK - cd album box set - £395.00, $497.70, €477.95 (New Item) (arrived 21-Feb-2025 17:00)on February 22, 2025 at 3:59 am
THE BEATLES The Beatles In Mono (Sealed 2009 UK limited edition 13-CD album set manufactured in Japan. The 1960's represented a time of great advances in music recording & reproduction. During the period that The Beatles were recording [1962-1969] the primary format wasMono - the installed base of mono players was massive with stereo the preserve of hi-fi fanatics & some easy listening and classical purists. In fact, Mono was so important that the Beatles themselves [once theyhad started to take aninterestin the physical production of their music] attended only the Mono mastering sessions. The stereo mastering was often done separately & sometimes quite a bit later without their involvement. So for many, the Mono masters are considered to be the pinnacle of audio reproduction of The Beatles - this is how they were meant to sound at the time given the importance of the single channel medium. From 'Please Please Me' to 'The White Album', all the original mixes are represented here in full, glorious mono! 'Past Masters' has been recreated as Mono masters to reflect this period, duplicating the 'Past Masters' tracklisting with the exception of tracks that only ever appeared in stereo. As an added bonus, five tracks [never previously released in mono] are included. These are 'Only A Northern Song', 'All Together Now', 'Hey Bulldog' & 'It's All Too Much' [from the 'Yellow Submarine' project] plus 'Across The Universe'. These were originally scheduled for release on a 1969 EP. There is a fantastic essay in the Mono Masters booklet that explains in detail the history of these recordings & goes some way to highlight just why these versions are so eagerly anticipated. With the collector in mind, both 'Help!' & 'Rubber Soul' now contain the original 1965 stereo mixes on CD for the first time, since Sir George Martin had actually remixed these for their CD debut in 1987 rendering these original mixes unavailable. Apart from the first four albums ['Please Please Me' to 'Beatles For Sale'] which have been available in mono on CD since 1987, the remaining titles are making their CD debut in this format plus the Mono Masters set has received the remastering treatment by a dedicated team of engineers at Abbey Road studios. All the albums [apart from Mono Masters] come in LP-style packaging reduced in exquisite detail to CD-sized format, with everything from the recreation of the vinyl label to the paper inner sleeve replete with original text. The jackets are exact reproductions of the original UK vinyl releases & have been manufactured in Japan, to the very highest quality and attention to detail)
- The Beatles - Happy Christmas Beatle People! - Sealed - UK - 7" box set - £174.99, $220.49, €211.74 (New Item) (arrived 21-Feb-2025 17:00)on February 22, 2025 at 3:59 am
THE BEATLES Happy Christmas Beatle People! (2017 UK limited edition boxset comprising the Fab Four's original festive messages, which were issued every year to the fan club on flexi-disc and now come pressed on SEVEN factory sealed 7"s,complete with a sixteen page booklet with recording notes and reproductions of the fan club's National Newsletters, in a special picture box)
- The Beatles - The Beatles (In Stereo) + Slipcase - UK - cd album box set - £175.00, $220.50, €211.75 (New Item) (arrived 21-Feb-2025 17:00)on February 22, 2025 at 3:59 am
THE BEATLES The Beatles (In Stereo) (2009 UK limited edition box set containing all thirteen original albums [from 'Please Please Me' to 'Let It Be' & the 'Past Masters' which has been remastered and repackaged as a double CD. Each original album comes with a bonus enhanced video for the 'Making Of' using exclusive original footage from the Beatles' own archive & other rare footage, with voice-over by The Beatles themselves and George Martin. These have also been collated onto a bonus NTSC DVD unique to this set. Housed in a high quality box with magnetic fastening, with each album in triple panel card package using conservation grade FSC paper and complete with a set of historical notes on each album to accompany recording notes on the actual process of making the records at the time. The packaging shows just a little light wear mostly to the corners, and all discs appear in an 'as new' condition!)
- The Beatles - Live! At The Star-Club In Hamburg - EX - UK - 2-LP vinyl set - £20.00, $25.20, €24.20 (New Item) (arrived 21-Feb-2025 17:00)on February 22, 2025 at 3:59 am
THE BEATLES Live! At The Star-Club In Hamburg, Germany 1962 (1977 UK 26-track double vinyl LP featuring a collection of live tracks historically recorded by Ted 'King Size' Taylor when the band were, according to John Lennon many years later,at their performing peak as a live band. By some minor miracle, it was also a night in which Ringo was deputising for Pete Best on the drum stool. The gatefold picture sleeve has a little shelfwear/light scuffing whilst the vinyl shows only light signs of play)
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