The Beatles’ supposed final song, ‘Now and Then,’ is a wistful curiosity

Plus, tap dancing at the Tiny Desk, Priscilla Presley's story becomes a movie and more

View this email online Nov. 4, 2023 by Stephen Thompson A review of the track billed as The Beatles’ final song; plus, tap dancing at the Tiny Desk, Priscilla Presley gets the Sofia Coppola treatment and more. Credit: Bruce McBroom/© Apple Corps Ltd Let’s get the most obvious critique out of the way first: “Now and Then,” the song billed as The Beatles’ final single and released this week, can’t possibly live up to “Let It Be,” “Strawberry Fields Forever” or whatever happens to serve as your personal favorite Beatles song. The track began as a modest demo — just John Lennon, recording on a boombox at home in the late ’70s, with a TV on in the background — and it lives on as a modest demo that’s been blown out into a credible full-band production. The story of that production is as interesting as the song itself, if not more so. The band began the process of gussying up “Now and Then” back in the mid-’90s, during the sessions that completed the previous “last Beatles songs” — namely 1995’s “Free As a Bird” and 1996’s “Real Love.” George Harrison even recorded a guitar part for “Now and Then,” which is crucial, given that he died in 2001. The problem: Given the original tape quality, a persistent hiss and the TV in the background, Lennon’s demo just wasn’t showroom-ready. They couldn’t isolate his vocal and piano enough to polish them up to where they needed to be, so the song was shelved. That’s where artificial intelligence came into play. Using the same technology Peter Jackson used to restore the footage that formed his epic 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back, AI helped separate Lennon’s vocal, his piano and the extraneous background sounds and hisses that needed to be removed. For all the hand-wringing about The Beatles getting an assist from AI, this isn’t some zombie AI Lennon writing and performing a song from scratch. Still, “Now and Then” never surpasses what it was destined to be: a heartfelt, lovingly rendered curiosity. It’s easy to see how Lennon’s words would take on greater meaning for surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who surely look back on their departed friends with a mix of sadness and gratitude: “Now and then / I miss you / Oh, now and then / I want you to be there for me / Always to return to me.” As that excerpt suggests, however, there’s not a whole lot to “Now and Then,” lyrically speaking, other than generalized appreciation, nostalgia and deep wistfulness. It’s a cocktail of emotions that’s appropriate to The Beatles, circa 2023, when half its members have died far too soon and the other half are looking back on Lennon’s words through the vantage point of their early 80s. But there’s not much insight here, and Lennon’s vocal — buffed up as it is — surely wasn’t up to how he’d have wanted the finished song to sound. Which leaves us with four simple, improbably finished minutes of closure. “Now and Then” could never live up to the body of work that precedes it. But it could never diminish it, either. Best to let it be, then, and celebrate every Beatles moment we’ve got. Newsletter continues after sponsor message More to hear, read and watch If you want more details about how “Now and Then” was made, don’t miss World Cafe’s interview with Giles Martin (son of George Martin, the legendary Beatles producer), who worked on the track with Paul McCartney and Jeff Lynne. After breaking down the technology that made “Now and Then” possible, Giles Martin praised the song, saying, “It comes from heart and from the right place and [Paul's] desire to collaborate with John, even though he can't. And even the song itself is almost John's love letter to Paul in a way: 'Now and then, I miss you.' That's how it felt. It felt incredibly special doing it." Now that we’ve got our Beatles coverage out of the way, let’s get you back to the cutting edge of music discovery and note that… there’s a new movie about the courtship of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. Directed by Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette), Priscilla provides a moody counterpoint to Baz Luhrmann’s over-the-top Elvis, which spends less time on Priscilla than it does on the question of whether Elvis will perform “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” at his ’68 comeback special. Aisha Harris has a review of Priscilla, while Pop Culture Happy Hour chimes in with a roundtable discussion. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, an opera about the life of the slain civil-rights leader, was first performed in 1985. On Friday night, it opened at New York’s Metropolitan Opera for the first time. Reporting for Morning Edition, NPR’s Anastasia Tsioulcas has a story about the many ways the work feels as relevant as ever.  For the new episode of Alt.Latino, hosts Anamaria Artemisa Sayre and Felix Contreras headed out to KQED in San Francisco to meet listeners and conduct a live interview with the musician Marinero, whose Bay Area ties inform his music. The music release schedule generally slows down as the calendar year winds to a close. But New Music Friday still had a lot of great albums to choose from this week, as Robin Hilton presided over a distinguished panel to discuss music by Tkay Maidza, Sen Morimoto, Actress, Resavoir, Kevin Abstract and Hilary Woods. Tiny Desk I know what you’re thinking. “I, an enthusiast and aesthete, have seen it all at the Tiny Desk: marching bands, a jazz bagpiper, GWAR, Tom Jones, emo puppets and virtually every musical genre imaginable. You can’t surprise me.” But until this week, you’d never seen a feat of musical athleticism quite like this performance of Bach and Gershwin by pianist Conrad Tao and tap dancer Caleb Teicher. I promise. Also this week: The 50-year-old Indian jazz fusion band Shakti and the 23-year-old British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks round out our lineup. One More Thing November is Native American Heritage Month, which makes this a perfect time to soak up Kalyn Fay’s “Spotted Bird.” Watch Fay perform the song in the Cherokee language, recorded at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa for the public-radio show Live From Cain’s. Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? 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