POP/ROCK

The Beatles, "Now and Then"

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

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

Sound quality was the main problem as 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.

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 and then vastly expands with orchestral strings. McCartney 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 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.

JON PARELES, New York Times

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