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Nov 03, 2023 By Mark Redfern

The Beatles Share Peter Jackson-Directed Video for Their Last Song “Now and Then”New 2023 Editions of <i>1962-1966</i> (“The Red Album”) and <i>1967-1970</i> (“The Blue Album”) Due Out November 10 via Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe

Yesterday, The Beatles released what’s being described as their last song, “Now and Then.” Now, as promised, they have released a video for the song, directed by Peter Jackson (the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Beatles: Get Back) in his music video debut. It features footage of the remaining Beatles working on the song in both 1995 (when George Harrison was involved) and 2022, as well cheeky footage of younger versions of the band (including John Lennon) interacting with current versions of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Watch it below.

Peter Jackson issued the following lengthy press release statement on the making of the video:

“When Apple asked me to make the music video, I was very reluctant—I thought my next few months would be a hell of a lot more fun if that tricky task was somebody else’s problem, and I could be like any other Beatles fan, enjoying the night-before-Christmas anticipation as the release of a new Beatles song and music video approached—in 1995, l loved the childlike excitement I felt as the release of ‘Free as a Bird’ was inching closer.

“I could have that experience once again—all I had to do was say no to The Beatles.

“To be honest, just thinking about the responsibility of having to make a music video worthy of the last song The Beatles will ever release produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with. My lifelong love of The Beatles collided into a wall of sheer terror at the thought of letting everyone down. This created intense insecurity in me because I’d never made a music video before, and was not able to imagine how I could even begin to create one for a band that broke up over 50 years ago, had never actually performed the song, and had half of its members no longer with us.

“It was going to be far easier to do a runner.

“I just needed a little time to figure out a good reason for turning The Beatles down—so I never actually agreed to make the music video for ‘Now and Then’ (in fact I still haven’t to this day).

“I told Apple how the lack of suitable footage worried me. We’d need to use a lot of rare and unseen film, but there’s very little… Nothing at all seemed to exist showing Paul, George, and Ringo working on ‘Now and Then’ in 1995… There’s not much footage of John in the mid-’70s when he wrote the demo… I grizzled about the lack of unseen Beatles footage from the ’60s… And they didn’t even shoot any footage showing Paul and Ringo working on the song last year.

“A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core. There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used. Every shot of The Beatles needed to be genuine. By now I really had no idea how anyone could make a ‘Now and Then’ music video if they didn’t have decent footage to work with, and this was far from being a lame excuse. My fear and insecurity now had solid reasons why they should prevail and allow me to say no without looking too much like a chicken.

“I knew The Beatles don’t take no for an answer if their minds are set on something—but they didn’t even wait for me to say no. I found myself swept along as they quickly addressed my concerns. Paul and Ringo shot footage of themselves performing and sent that to me. Apple unearthed over 14 hours of long forgotten film shot during the 1995 recording sessions, including several hours of Paul, George, and Ringo working on ‘Now and Then,’ and gave all that to me. Sean [Ono Lennon] and Olivia [Harrison] found some great unseen home movie footage and sent that. To cap things off, a few precious seconds of The Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of The Beatles and never seen before, was kindly supplied by Pete Best.

“Watching this footage completely changed the situation—I could see how a music video could be made. Actually, I found it far easier if I thought of it as making a short movie, so that’s what I did… My lack of confidence with music videos didn’t matter anymore if I wasn’t making one.

“Even so, I still had no solid vision for what this short film should be—so I turned to the song for guidance.

“After we had separated John’s voice on the demo tape over a year ago, Giles [Martin] had produced an early mix of ‘Now and Then.’ This had been sent to me back in 2022. I loved it. Since then I must have listened to ‘Now and Then’ over 50 times, purely for pleasure.

“Now I started listening to it intently for different reasons. I was hoping that ideas or inspiration for the short film would somehow float up from the music. And that began to happen. As I kept listening, it felt like the song was creating ideas and images that started forming in my head—without any conscious effort from me.

“I teamed up with Jabez Olssen, my Get Back editor, to try and figure ways the new film footage could be used to support these wispy ideas. It was a very organic process, and we slowly started build little fragments, sliding pictures and music around in different ways until things began to click in.

“We wanted the short film to bring a few tears to the eye, but generating emotion using only archive footage is a tricky thing. Fortunately, the simple power of this beautiful song did a lot of the work for us, and we finished the first 30 or 40 secs of the film fairly quickly.

“Having done that, we jumped straight to the ending and tried to craft something that could adequately sum up the enormity of The Beatles’ legacy—in the last few seconds of their final recording. This proved to be impossible. Their contribution to the world is too immense, and their wondrous gift of music has become part of our DNA and now defies description.

“I realized we needed the imagination of every viewer to do what we couldn’t, and have each viewer create their own personal moment of farewell to The Beatles—but we had to gently steer everyone to that place. I had some vague ideas, but didn’t really know how to achieve this.

“Fortunately, Dhani Harrison happened to be visiting NZ at this time. I discussed the ending with him, and described one vague idea I’d been toying with. His eyes immediately filled with tears—so that is the way we went.

“Jabez and I now began thinking about the middle section. We could actually watch the beginning and end now, and quickly realized our initial plan of having similar emotional power continue through this middle section would be completely wrong. That was not who The Beatles were. At their core they were irreverent and funny, and the middle section should capture that spirit. We needed to laugh at The Beatles, and laugh with them. They were always sending themselves up—and the more seriously other people took them, the more they would clown around.

“Luckily we found a collection of unseen outtakes in the vault, where The Beatles are relaxed, funny and rather candid. These become the spine of our middle section, and we wove the humor into some footage shot in 2023. The result is pretty nutty and provided the video with much needed balance between the sad and the funny.

“It was finally finished after WētāFX completed a few simple, but tricky VFX shots.

“To be honest, while we hope we’ve given The Beatles a suitable final farewell, that’s something you’ll need to decide for yourselves when it’s finally released—only a few days from now.

“Having got to the end, I’m very happy I’m not waiting for the release of somebody else’s ‘Now and Then’ music video. I have genuine pride in what we made, and I’ll cherish that for years to come. A huge thanks to Apple Corps and the Fabs for giving me all the support I needed—and not allowing me to wriggle away.”

The Beatles also recently shared an Oliver Murray-directed 12-minute documentary about the making of the song, Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song. It features commentary from McCartney, Starr, Harrison, Sean Ono Lennon, and Jackson.

“Now and Then” was announced last week, when they also announced new 2023 editions of 1962-1966 (aka “The Red Album”) and 1967-1970 (aka “The Blue Album”), which will feature the new song and are due out November 10 via Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe.

“Now and Then” started with a rough demo John Lennon recorded in 1978 at his home in New York City. After his tragic murder in 1980, the recording sat unheard until 1994 when his widow Yoko Ono gave it to the remaining Beatles (Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) when they were working on The Beatles Anthology project. While that project did produce two new Beatles songs based on Lennon’s demos—“Free As a Bird” and “Real Love”—it was decided that the recording quality of the “Now and Then” demo was too rough to make it work. Still, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr did record new parts for the song with producer Jeff Lynne.

Harrison died in 2001. Fast forward to 2021, and director Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back docuseries used WingNut Films’ MAL audio technology to clean up some of the audio from the original footage, which also led to a new 2022 mix of Revolver. In 2022 this A.I. technology was used on Lennon’s “Now and Then” demo, with McCartney and Starr teaming up to work on the song. The final track includes Lennon’s vocals, Harrison’s acoustic guitar part recorded in the ’90s, a new drum part from Starr, and bass, guitar and piano from McCartney, matched to Lennon’s original playing. McCartney also added a slide guitar solo that was inspired by Harrison. McCartney and Starr also recorded new backing vocals for the chorus. Then McCartney teamed up with Giles Martin and Ben Foster to write and record a string part, recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. McCartney and Martin produced the song and also subtly added in backing vocals from “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Because.” Spike Stent mixed “Now and Then.”

McCartney had this to say in a press release: “There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear. It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”

Starr says: “It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room, so it was very emotional for all of us. It was like John was there, you know. It’s far out.”

Olivia Harrison, George’s widow, says: “Back in 1995, after several days in the studio working on the track, George felt the technical issues with the demo were insurmountable and concluded that it was not possible to finish the track to a high enough standard. If he were here today, [our son] Dhani and I know he would have whole-heartedly joined Paul and Ringo in completing the recording of ‘Now and Then.’”

Sean Ono Lennon, John’s son, says: “It was incredibly touching to hear them working together after all the years that Dad had been gone. It’s the last song my dad, Paul, George and Ringo got to make together. It’s like a time capsule and all feels very meant to be.”

“Now and Then” has been released as a double A-side single, paired, fittingly, with their first ever UK single, “Love Me Do.”

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