A new music video has been released for “Now and Then”—the final song by the Beatles. The visual was directed by Peter Jackson, the filmmaker behind the Beatles: Get Back documentary series, which chronicled the band writing and recording in-studio ahead of the group’s last album, Let It Be. The humorous clip features never-before-seen archival footage of the Beatles. Check it out below.
In a press statement, Jackson, who’d never previously directed a music video, discussed his initial reluctance to join the project. “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,” he said. “In 1995, l loved the childlike excitement I felt as the release of ‘Free as a Bird’ was inching closer.”
Jackson went on to say that he was concerned about “the lack of unseen Beatles footage from the ’60s,” not to mention documentation of the Beatles performing a song they hadn’t released during their tenure as a group. “A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core,” he insisted. “There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used.”
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr responded by shooting footage of themselves playing the song, while Apple Corps Ltd. unearthed over 14 hours of unseen film footage from 1995, when McCartney, Starr, and George Harrison first attempted to record “Now and Then.” Additional unseen clips were handed over to Jackson, including the earliest known footage of the Beatles, performing in leather suits. “I have genuine pride in what we made, and I’ll cherish that for years to come,” Jackson said. Find Peter Jackson’s full statement below.
“Now and Then” was released on Thursday (November 2). The song was written and sung by John Lennon, who recorded the track as a demo on his home piano in 1978. In 1994, Yoko Ono gave the demo to McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, along with Lennon’s demos for “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” Working with producer Jeff Lynne, the remaining three Beatles recorded new parts for a version of “Now and Then” in 1995, but they were unable to separate Lennon’s vocals from the piano on his original demo.
McCartney and Starr revisited the project more recently after working with Jackson on Get Back. Jackson and his sound team devised a method to isolate Lennon’s vocal on the original tape with the help of AI, enabling McCartney and Starr to finish the song, once and for all.