How to watch and listen to The Beatles' last song Now and Then
Here’s where you can find the piece of musical history
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You may have heard of a band calledThe Beatles, who achieved the small feat of inventing modern pop music as we know it – and today the band has released its last-ever song,Now and Then.
The song’s release has been made possible thanks to the AI-powered ‘demixing’ software that director Peter Jackson and his team used to create the must-watch docuseriesThe Beatles: Get Backon Disney Plus.
And today we get to hear the result, five decades on from when John Lennon recorded the song’s vocals on tape in the 1970s. The song is streaming on most major music streaming services, and there are a couple of accompanying videos to watch, too.
A short, 12-minute documentary calledNow And Then – The Last Beatles Songis streaming right now, while the official music video for the song is being released on Disney Plus on November 3. Looking for all of the ways you can listen to and watch this piece of music history? We’ve got all the details here.
How to listen to Now and Then
The last ever song from The Beatles,Now and Then, was released worldwide today, Thursday November 2, across most major streaming services from 7am PDT / 10am EDT / 2pm GMT, which was 1am AEDT on Friday November 3 for those in Australia.
You can listen to the song now onSpotify,Apple Music,AmazonPrime Music andYouTube Musicor by going to thisUniversal Music Group pageand following the links. You can also now listen to the song onYouTube(below).
If you think listening to the song on physical media is a bit more fitting, you’ll also be able to buy the double A-side on CD, vinyl and cassette from Friday November 3.
The new song will be paired with The Beatles' first UK single from 1962,Love Me Do.Both songs have been mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos, withNow and Thencreated using the same ‘demixing’ technology that was used to separate the band’s vocals from the instrumental tracks forThe Beatles: Get Backdocumentary on Disney Plus.
How to watch the documentary
A short documentary about the making of the song is also available to stream right now onYouTubeandDisney Plus.
The 12-minute documentary,Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song(below) delves into the five-decade long journey towards the song’s release, and explains why it’s only been possible now thanks to recent advances in machine learning tech.
The problem was separating John Lennon’s vocal from the piano part he recorded on tape in the 1970s. This was solved thanks to the software system created by Peter Jackson’s team for the recentThe Beatles: Get Backdocumentary.
This ‘demixing’ tech allowed Paul McCartney and Ringo to record new parts to accompany Lennon’s vocals, with McCartney also adding a solo in the signature style of George Harrison.
How to watch the ‘Now and Then’ music video
Director Peter Jackson and his team haven’t just contributed the machine learning tech that was needed to createNow and Then; he’s also directed a music video, which will available to stream on Disney Plus on November 3.
It isn’t yet clear what form the music video will take, but Jackson has said: “We wanted the music video 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. I have genuine pride in what we made, and I’ll cherish that for years to come.”
If you haven’t already watched the Disney Plus docuseriesThe Beatles: Get Back, this new music video is a good opportunity to do so – it’s a fascinating, fly-on-the-wall peek inside the band’s final days makingLet It Be.
The Jackson-directed three-parter was pieced together from 60 hours of unseen footage and 150 hours of audio, much of which was cleaned up and separated using the same AI-assisted software used to createNow and Then.
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Mark is TechRadar’s Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he’s contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph’s Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London’s Square Mile.
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