Give Me a Crash Course in ... the new Beatles song

Ob-La-Di..Obla-what? A new Beatles song? How is that possible, considering John Lennon died in 1980?

It’s all thanks to our machine overlords. Before Artificial Intelligence conquers humanity and sends us to toil in its sugar mines, it’s taking a moment to help Paul McCartney complete a new Beatles tune using an old John Lennon demo.

Is this another of those terrible AI songs that have been doing the rounds, like that fake Oasis one? Or the AI Weeknd/Drake duet that was almost as dystopian as an actual Weeknd/Drake duet?

No, Paul McCartney may have inflicted the Frog Song (aka We All Stand Together) on us, but he hasn’t yet sold his soul to the forces of darkness. The 80-year-old singer has revealed he has used software to “extricate” Lennon’s voice from an old cassette recording. Don’t be surprised by his savvy – he’s been on TikTok for three years, possibly longer than TikTok has existed.

A demo tape? How old-fashioned.

It is. After Lennon’s death, his widow, Yoko Ono, gave McCartney a collection of cassettes labelled “For Paul”.

I thought the Beatles all hated each other by the end?

They were famously not getting along when they split in April 1970. But they never entirely fell out, and by the late 70s, the prickly Lennon had started to reassess his relationship with McCartney.

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Do we know anything about the tune?

It is thought to be Now and Then, recorded on a “boombox” cassette player at the New York apartment outside of which Mark Chapman subsequently shot Lennon.

“Now and Then” does sound very Beatles.

The lyrics reportedly capture Lennon at his most vulnerable. “I know it’s true, it’s all because of you / And if I make it through, it’s all because of you,” he sings – sentiments that could be directed at Yoko Ono, Macca – or both.

McCartney is in his 80s – shouldn’t he be taking it easy?

The original generation of rock icons is on a mission to redefine what it is to be old. The Rolling Stones are still touring in their 70s and 80, while Bruce Springsteen, aged 73, recently played for three hours at the RDS in Dublin. It’s just 12 months since McCartney headlined Glastonbury. These artists have no intention of going anywhere in a hurry.

A Beatles song stitched together from the archives? Sounds familiar.

It isn’t the first time Lennon has serenaded us from the great beyond. It’s nearly 30 years since Free As A Bird, another “new” Beatles track, which again originated in a late 70s demo by Lennon. Working with producer Jeff Lynne (of ELO), the remaining Beatles – then all still alive – were able to enter the head space needed to finish it by telling themselves Lennon had merely absented the building or “gone for a cup of tea”.

Why didn’t they record Now and Then in 1995 if they had the demo?

They tried, but technological limitations got in the way. Jeff Lynne said: “The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we didn’t finish.”

How will this new attempt differ?

That remains to be seen. However, it’s worth pointing out that McCartney has been out front in championing AI. He was introduced to the technology while collaborating with Peter Jackson on the documentary Get Back.

Oh, the one on Disney + that lasts longer than the Beatles’ actual career?

It is epic. But one of the things Jackson and his dialogue editor Emile de la Rey did was use special AI to pick out the Beatles’ voices and screen out background noise. McCartney then took that tech and ran with it. Using isolated vocals, he “duetted” with Lennon on his tour last year.

It all sounds entirely straightforward and uncontroversial. Isn’t AI supposed to herald the end of the music industry?

There has been some anxiety over “deepfake” songs that purport to be by Oasis, Drake, etc. McCartney, though, seems at peace with it. “It’s kind of scary but exciting because it’s the future. We’ll just have to see where that leads”. Rest assured, wherever it takes us it won’t be half as horrifying as Macca’s spoken-word outro on The Girl Is Mine, his sanity-challenging 1982 duet with Michael Jackson.