The Beatles are set to release one final song.
Sir Paul McCartney announced that AI was used to create one more song using extrications of John Lennon’s voice from an old demo, according to BBC.
Sir Paul McCartney tells @BBCr4today that the remaining Beatles have used AI to “extricate” John Lennon’s voice from an old demo, allowing them to finish the song.https://t.co/OZTJoMDC3d
— BBC News Entertainment (@BBCNewsEnts) June 13, 2023
“We just finished it up and it’ll be released this year,” McCartney told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
McCartney did not disclose the song’s title, but it is believed to be a 1978 Lennon demo called “Now And Then.” The unreleased song was recorded as a possible third single for The Beatles Anthology project, but the band abandoned the demo.
Yoko Ono, Lennon’s widow, gave McCartney the demo last year on a cassette full of songs titled “For Paul.” Lennon made this cassette shortly before he was shot dead in 1980.
The tracks from “For Paul” fall into the lofi genre. They were recorded onto a boombox as Lennon played piano in his New York apartment. (RELATED: Former Bassist Of ‘The Beatles’ Dies At 81)
Producer Jeff Lynne completed and released two unfinished tracks in 1995 and 1996, “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love.” These were the first new released from The Beatles in 25 years at the time.
After attempting to record “Now And Then” at the time, the session ended before completion.
“It was one day — one afternoon, really — messing with it,” Lynne said. “The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn’t finish.”
McCartney claimed bandmate George Harrison did not like “Now And Then.”
“George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it,” McCartney said.
In the version to be released this year, AI separated Lennon’s voice and piano from the original recording. McCartney is excited by the new technology, but expressed concern as well.
“I’m not on the internet that much [but] people will say to me, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a track where John’s singing one of my songs’, and it’s just AI, you know,” McCartney said. “It’s kind of scary but exciting, because it’s the future. We’ll just have to see where that leads.”