'New' Beatles track created with the help of AI: McCartney
June 13, 2023
Former Beatle Paul McCartney announced that an AI-aided "final Beatles record" featuring John Lennon will come out this year. He is also publishing a photo book, titled "Eyes of the Storm."
Resurrecting legends: The Beatles are making a comeback with the help of AIImage: TT/IMAGO
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"It was a demo that John [Lennon] had, and that we worked on, and we just finished it up," former Beatle Paul McCartney, who turns 81 next week, told the BBC, referring to an upcoming record he said would be released this year.
McCartney did not name the unreleased song, but according to the BBC it is likely to be a 1978 Lennon composition called "Now And Then."
Still performing: Paul McCartney announced a 'final Beatles record'Image: Joe Marino/newscom/picture alliance
The Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — split in 1970, with each going on to have solo careers. They never reunited or produced other records as a group afterwards. Lennon was shot dead in New York in 1980, at the age of 40, while Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001, aged 58. Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are still active as solo artists.
John Lennon's life in pictures
A look back at the life of the boy from Liverpool who went on to become one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century before his tragic death in 1980.
Image: AP Images/picture-alliance
A lot of Buddy Holly, too little school
Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool. Already as a child (pictured here with his mother Julia), Lennon was more interested in various musical instruments than in school. Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley were his idols. In 1956, Lennon founded the Black Jacks, renamed the band as The Quarrymen and recruited Paul McCartney and George Harrison. In 1960 they became The Beatles.
Image: RKA/MPI/Captital Pictures/picture-alliance
The Beatles
The success of the band was unprecedented. At concerts worldwide, their music was at times not even audible due to screaming fans. Lennon and McCartney were the band's main songwriters and fought their battles early on to impose their own ideas. It's only on the band's second album, "With the Beatles" (1963), that Harrison was first allowed to contribute a composition.
Image: PA Wire/picture-alliance
Dreams of a hippie commune
In 1967, at the height of their drug consumption, the band returned from a trip to Greece. Lennon had persuaded his band mates to purchase an island there to build a hippie commune. The band had always been good at coming up with big ideas while on the road, drummer Ringo Starr later said. But little came from it and the commune remained just a dream.
Image: Solo Syndication/Daily Mail/picture-alliance
All You Need Is Love
In the same year, the BBC commissioned The Beatles to compose a song for "Our World" which was broadcast worldwide. Soon after, the band found themselves in Abbey Road Studios with an orchestra ensemble alongside Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Marianne Faithfull and recorded "All You Need Is Love." For many, this was the peak of the band's musical career.
Image: United Archives/picture-alliance
Tensions flare
In 1966, Lennon met Japanese avant-garde artist Yoko Ono. In 1968, their joint experimental album "Two Virgins" was released. Lennon went on to play at concerts without his band. In 1969, the couple released "Wedding Album" and celebrated their union. The pair founded the Plastic Ono Band, and The Beatles fell even further apart. Their last album was "Abbey Road": Lennon later said he disliked it.
Image: Getty Images/Keystone/M. Webb
An ex-Beatle
Taken in 1971, this picture shows Lennon one year after the separation of The Beatles.
McCartney announced the dissolution of the band and preceded Lennon, who had informed the members of his decision. Although he described the feud with Lennon as "pretty hurtful," McCartney said that the band members never despised one another. Lennon went on to release his first solo hit, "Instant Karma."
Image: AP Images/picture-alliance
New York
In 1971, after The Beatles split, Lennon and Ono moved to New York. In the mid-1970s, John retired into private life and became a stay-at-home father, taking care of his second son. Lennon and Ono are shown here in August 1980 on their way to The Hit Factory recording studio, where they worked on "Double Fantasy," Lennon's first album after five years – and also his last.
Image: Steve Sands/AP/picture alliance
The last album
"Double Fantasy" was released on November 17, 1980. Lennon and Ono are seen kissing tenderly on the cover. Following Lennon's assassination outside his home three weeks later, the album climbed to number one on music charts, as did the single "Starting Over" and Lennon's earlier songs, including "Imagine."
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Track recorded a year before Lennon's death
Lennon recorded various tracks for McCartney a year before his death. The demos were on a cassette given to him by Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, in 1994.
Two of the songs, "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love," were cleaned up by musician and Beatles producer Jeff Lynne, and released in 1995 and 1996. An attempt was also made to do the same with "Now And Then" but the project was abandoned because of background noise on the demo.
'The Beatles: Get Back': Filmmaker Peter Jackson worked with unused footage to make the nearly 8-hour documentaryImage: Apple Corps Ltd
McCartney, who had previously mentioned that he wanted to finish the song, said AI had given him a new chance to do so. He discovered the potential of the technology by working with filmmaker Peter Jackson on the 2021 documentary series, "The Beatles: Get Back," in which AI was used to separate Lennon's voice and a piano. "They tell the machine, 'That's the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar,'" McCartney explained.
"So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles' record, it was a demo that John had (and) we were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do. So it gives you some sort of leeway."
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AI potentially harmful to musicians
McCartney has experimented with AI before. Last year, he performed a two-hour set at the Glastonbury festival in England, playing Beatles' classics to a 100,000-strong crowd. The set included a virtual duet with Lennon of the song "I've Got a Feeling," from the Beatles' last album, "Let It Be."
In 2022, Paul McCartney performed at the UK's Glastonbury festival in a virtual duet with the late John LennonImage: Joel C Ryan/picture alliance
Last month, British singer Sting warned that "defending our human capital against AI" would be a major battle for musicians in the coming years.
And, indeed, the use of AI in music is the subject of debate in the industry, with some denouncing copyright abuses and others praising its prowess.
The music streaming app Deezer recently announced it will be launching a tool to detect and tag songs with AI-generated vocal clones in a bid to protect the revenues of the real artists. Artificial Intelligence tools have recently allowed people to recreate the sound of famous artist vocals, from The Beatles to Oasis.
McCartney, however, embraces the use of new technologies. It was "kind of scary but exciting because it's the future," he said. "We'll just have to see where that leads."
The photo exhibition 'Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm' features more than 250 photographs from the early days of the BeatlesImage: Paul McCartney/Verlag C.H.Beck/dpa
A new photo book and exhibition for Paul McCartney
After the Beatles, singer-songwriter McCartney went on to have hits with his band Wings, but also dabbled in painting and photography as well as animal rights campaigning in the past decades.
The exhibition — "Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm" — part of the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery in London after a three-year refurbishment, opens June 28.
John Lennon as photographed by Paul McCartney in 1964Image: Paul McCartney/Verlag C.H.Beck/dpa
It features more than 250 unseen images that McCartney took with his Pentax camera between November 1963 and February 1964,when Beatlemania began to sweep the globe.
The companion book to the exhibition was released on June 13.
A new book of Paul McCartney's photos has been releasedImage: Norton & Company
The photos show McCartney's personal perspective of the frenzy of Beatlemania, when the band would constantly be surrounded by high-pitched screaming fans. "Millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget for the rest of my life," wrote McCartney in the foreword of the book, adding that he experienced it all from the "eyes of the storm" — thus the title.
