Paul McCartney confirms The Beatles "final" song set for release with assistance of AI

13 June 2023, 12:55

Peter Jackson may've unlocked the door for more music from The Beatles to be heard. Picture: Getty

By Thomas Curtis-Horsfall

There's more music from The Beatles on the way.

The 20th century's most iconic band have ceased to exist since 1970 after a well-documented break-up which broke the hearts of music fans worldwide.

After their twelfth and final album Let It Be was released in May of that year, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr all went their separate ways.

But over the band's ten-year tenure, The Beatles were as prolific as they were influential, and wrote countless songs which never saw the light of day.

There's likely plenty of music in the vaults that fans can't wait to dust off and get their hands on.

Now in a recent interview, Paul McCartney has confirmed that "the final Beatles record" is set for release, with the help of artificial intelligence.

Sir Paul didn't confirm the name of the song, but it's believed to be a John Lennon composition from 1978 called 'Now And Then'.

Paul McCartney has revealed "the final Beatles record" is on its way. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images). Picture: Getty

The former Beatles legend explained that new artificial intelligence technology has been used to "extricate" Lennon's voice from an old demo which helped him complete the track.

"We just finished it up and it'll be released this year," he confirmed, much to the delight of music fans everywhere.

The breakthrough for unheard Beatles material to get a new lease of life was largely down to Peter Jackson and his work on the lauded documentary Get Back.

Dialogue editor Emile de la Ray programmed computers to recognise The Beatles' individual voices and separate them from background noises - as well as their instruments - to create "clean" audio.

This process was used for Sir Paul's "duet" with John Lennon on his recent tour and at Glastonbury Festival, as well as the new mixes of their 1966 classic Revolver.

"He [Jackson] was able to extricate John's voice from a ropey little bit of cassette," Sir Paul revealed in the new interview.

"We had John's voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine, 'That's the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar'.

"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."

The Beatles in 1967. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images). Picture: Getty

The rise of AI and how it'll impact music and creativity gave Sir Paul some cause for concern however.

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?"

"It's kind of scary but exciting, because it's the future. We'll just have to see where that leads."

This technology has now enabled Macca with the chance to finish off the song which was touted as their "reunion" song way back in 1995 when the band's living members were compiling their Anthology albums.

Paul had received a box of old demos labelled "For Paul" from Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, which were recorded in 1980 onto a boombox in his New York apartment.

Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne then cleaned up and produced the demos, which resulted in 'Real Love' and 'Free As A Bird' which were the band's final hits.

'Now And Then' was shelved at the time as George reportedly called the song "rubbish", but now it may finally make its way into the world.