Artificial intelligence has brought the vocals of legendary performer and antiwar activist John Lennon back with the Beatles for “Now and Then.”
There was one member of the Beatles who never shied away from political protest: John Lennon.
He was passionately against the Vietnam War, but also wary of protestors using violence, as he declared in the song “Revolution”:
“You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world… But when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out, in?”
He held weeklong bed-ins for peace with Yoko, in Amsterdam and Montreal. In his signature song “Imagine,” he challenged the world to move past war:
Paul McCartney had political views, but he rarely interjected them into songs, and very subtle – “Blackbird,” for instance, was an allegory about America’s civil rights struggles.
I bring this up, as you probably know, because the last Beatles song is being released today, based on Lennon’s lyrics and piano.
And with a boost from artificial intelligence.
“Now and Then” was recorded by Lennon on a cassette a few years before his life was tragically cut short in 1980. The tape was labeled “For Paul.” Yoko Ono sent it to McCartney in 1994. The three surviving Beatles were able to record and release two songs based on the cassette, “Real Love” (which I thought was terrific) and “Free As a Bird.”
They tried on the third song, but the quality was just too low.
