John and Shari: New AI assisted Beatles song is a ‘beautiful thing’

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On The John Curley and Shari Elliker Show, host John Curley talked to his friend and “Forever Beatles Freak” Mike West about the new song, and frankly, he is a fan.

“I love it. I mean, the demo was actually released in bootleg fashion many years ago,” West said. “So many Beatle freaks have heard it illegally, but the technology that was used to separate John’s voice from the piano, it’s just breathtaking. It’s just amazing.”

The song was written by the band in the 70s and given to Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono. The demo was also used to construct the songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” but due to technical problems, “Now and Then” couldn’t be completed. Now all that has changed with the introduction of AI in the mix.

Using AI, the last remaining bandmates, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, were able to rerecord their portion of the song and add the separate audio of Lennon’s vocals and George Harrisons’ guitar from a recording from the 90s.

When the song was first announced in June, McCartney described artificial intelligence technology as “kind of scary but exciting,” adding: “We will just have to see where that leads.”

“The rumors were that we just made it up,” Ringo Starr told The Associated Press of Lennon’s contributions to the forthcoming track in September. “Like we would do that anyway.”