The Beatles' 'Now and Then': A glimpse of past greatness

It's not a grand finale. It's a wistful postscript.

Now and Then, released Thursday, is billed by its label, Apple Corps, as "the last Beatles song." It's a lost-love song reconstructed from a piano-and-vocal demo that John Lennon recorded in the late 1970s, well after the Beatles broke up. Yoko Ono brought it and other Lennon demos to the surviving Beatles in 1994.

Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr began building an arrangement around Lennon's recording in 1995, the year they released another posthumous song, Free as a Bird, on the compilation album Anthology 1, followed by Real Love on Anthology 2 in 1996. Now and Then is also, inevitably, a marketing tool. It's the previously unreleased material added to the expanded, remixed reissue of "The Beatles 1967-1970," which arrives Nov. 10 paired with an expanded, remixed version of "The Beatles 1962-1966." Those two compilations are better known as the Blue and Red albums.

Now and Then was the remaining song the Beatles had worked on together, but McCartney has said that Harrison grew frustrated and dismissed it as "[expletive] rubbish."

Sound quality was the main problem. Lennon's voice shared the recorded track with a murky-sounding piano. But in the 2020s, the software that Peter Jackson used to isolate instruments and voices from mono tracks for his 2021 "Get Back" documentary series could also extract and clarify Lennon's lead vocal. Back in the studio, McCartney and Starr completed "Now and Then" using tracks from 1995, new parts recorded in 2022, a new string-orchestra arrangement and -- from the Beatles' session archives -- backing vocals from Here, There and Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because: "oohs" and "ahs" in harmony.

For all the multitrack machinations, it's Lennon's open longing that carries Now and Then. He sings, "If I make it through, it's all because of you" to a partner, friend or lover who's gone away, perhaps forever. "Now and then I want you to be there for me/Always to return to me."

The melody is plaintive, in a minor key. The multi-decade arrangement starts straightforwardly, with steadfast piano, guitar and drums -- hinting at While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- and then vastly expands with orchestral strings. McCartney, who understands the Beatles' musical mechanics from deep within, replayed Lennon's piano parts, and for the bridge he overdubbed a slide-guitar solo like something Harrison might have played. The muscular string arrangement, no doubt deliberately, echoes songs like I Am the Walrus and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The finished track simplifies Lennon's emotional give-and-take; it edits out his misgivings about himself, where Lennon sang, "I don't wanna lose you, oh no no no/Abuse you or confuse you, oh no no no." The concluding vocal of "Now and Then" also feels more optimistic than the tolling chords at the end of Lennon's demo: "If I make it through, it's all because of you."

As in many Beatles songs, Now and Then has an unexpected closing flourish: a decisive, syncopated string phrase. And low in the mix, after a final shake of a tambourine, a voice says, "Good one!"

Like the other posthumous Beatles tracks, Now and Then leans into nostalgia. Its existence matters more than its quality. For anyone who grew up on or came to love the Beatles, there's an extra pang in hearing the full band's last work together, even as a digital assemblage.

In Free as a Bird and Real Love, Lennon sang about connection. But "Now and Then" copes with separation, one that has now been made final by mortality. The song can't compare to the music the four Beatles made together in the 1960s. All it can do is remind listeners of a synergy, musical and personal, that's now lost forever.