Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In advance of Thursday’s release of the recently completed “Now and Then,” which is being billed as the final new track that will ever be finished and released under the Beatles‘ name, fans are hearing portions of the song — and more of the story behind it — in a 12-minute mini-documentary, “Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song,” that premiered on Disney+ Wednesday afternoon.
The doc includes footage from the 1995 recording session in which Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison first had a quickly aborted go at adding parts to a John Lennon demo that had been supplied to them for Yoko Ono.
It also includes clips of McCartney and Starr recording new bass and drums parts for the song last year, after McCartney decided it could be finished after all, plus footage of an orchestral session that took place at Capitol Studios under McCartney and co-producer Giles Martin‘s guidance.
Most tantalizingly, it includes snippets of Lennon’s lead vocal, originally put down on a muddy cassette at home in the late 1970s — now cleaned up, using Peter Jackson’s audio separation technology, and sounding like Lennon is standing at a microphone in a high-end modern recording studio.
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