Tag: Paul McCartney

Taylor Gets “Imma Let You Finish’d” Again With Accusation of Her Being Unworthy for Time Person of the Year

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Once again, Taylor Swift has dominated the conversation and, once again, a large part of that conversation is whether or not she “deserves” something. In this instance, being Time’s Person of the Year, a still respected and aspired to cover in a world where print journalism (and most other forms of print) has effectively gone the way of the dodo. The ones calling out the tone deafness of her appearance on the 2023 cover (for perspective, fellow “influencers” shortlisted for the latest edition included Barbie and Vladimir Putin—yes, you read that right) are not just her usual detractors, though. They also happen to be Swifties themselves…arguing that, instead, the masses should be seeing Palestinian journalists on the cover.

This was highlighted recently by the hit-or-miss stylings of Saint Hoax, who extracted a number of comments from fans that included such sentiments as, “Big Taylor Swift fan and she’s absolutely had one of the biggest years of her entire career but hey actually maybe there are ongoing world events that could’ve been highlighted with this piece” and “As a Swiftie I’m incredibly proud of her but the real heroes are the journalists documenting the genocide happening in Palestine.” To get slightly meta, the comments about the comments themselves were more divided, with one user agreeing, “Taylor and Beyoncé: nothing more than money machines this year. The world is falling apart and they haven’t said a single thing,” while another said, “Oooomggg stop trying to take this away from her. A young woman makes it to ‘Person of the Year’ on Time magazine and what about these other people who are more deserving?? I’m not even a Swiftie but this is perverse.” Then there was the glib assessment, “Sounds about White.”

While the hype and praise around Swift has often made this listener repeat the Heath Ledger as Patrick Verona phrase, “What is it with this chick? She have beer-flavored nipples or something?” it does seem telling that, for the second most obvious time, her proverbial “trophy” is being denigrated/taken away. In fact, in the article itself she alludes to the years-long beef with Ye that started back at the 2009 VMAs when he was still Kanye West. And yes, it also involved fellow 2023 touring powerhouse (complete with theatrical release of said tour) Beyoncé. On that front, one supposes it’s comforting that the cast of characters in the mainstream hasn’t changed too much (mainly because Gen Z has produced a paucity of “stars”). And Swift wants to remind people of that by rehashing some well-marinated beef that started in 2016 (years after everyone thought it had all “calmed down” between Swift and West). With a little song called “Famous,” wherein the erstwhile West asserts, “I made that bitch famous.” The implication being that, thanks to his hijacking of her acceptance speech for Best Female Video of the Year at the VMAs, Swift’s star began to shine a lot brighter afterward. Barring the fact that this is one of the key examples that speaks to West’s narcissism, it’s a flat-out fallacy. No one got Swift to her position except for Swift (and, to reiterate, winning the birth lottery by being born to affluent parents willing to support what many other progenitors would balk at as a pipe dream).

Being that Swift is something of the queen of dredging up old material these days (what with rerecording all her previously released albums from Big Machine), it makes sense that she has an innate ability to catalog and recall every “era” of her life. And this was the era that spawned her Reputation phase, one that embraced being the “bad guy” à la Billie Eilish before the latter even really entered the collective consciousness (but insisted before Taylor on “Anti-Hero,” “I’m the problem“). Of course, there was nothing all that “bad” in what Kim Kardashian (then known, foolishly, as Kim Kardashian West) manipulated the media and the masses into thinking: that Swift had consented to Ye rapping, “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/Why?/I made that bitch famous.” When the song came out, however, Swift reacted negatively, rightfully condemning the reference to her as misogynistic and unsanctioned. This prompted Kim K to release select portions of the phone conversation Ye had with Swift about the song that made it seem like she whole-heartedly approved. Never mind that no one bothered to ask her how she felt about the accompanying video, which was even more crass as it paraded naked wax figures (that look just like “the real thing”) of Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, George W. Bush (of all people), Donald Trump, Anna Wintour, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Ray J, Amber Rose, Caitlyn Jenner and Bill Cosby (again, weird choice) lying in bed together.

With Kardashian’s damning “evidence,” Swift was fed to the media and internet dogs, branded with that damning word again: “calculated.” And, newly, “snake.” This betrayal and backlash is a moment in her life that is called out again and again in the Time article as a reason for why she is where she is now after the heartache of that treachery. For, despite the “pain” of being painted as the villain, Lansky notes, “Getting to this place of harmony with her past took work; there’s a dramatic irony, she explains, to the success of the tour. ‘It’s not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this happening were two horrendous things that happened to me,’ Swift says, and this is where the story takes a turn. ‘The first was getting canceled within an inch of my life and sanity,’ she says plainly. ‘The second was having my life’s work taken away from me by someone who hates me.’” Cue the lyric from Reputation’s “End Game” that goes, “I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me.”

That drama came first when Kardashian initially released the edited conversation Swift had with West and, second, when the complete recording was leaked in 2020 (a year when people had plenty of extra time to analyze such things). So it is that Swift can look back now and candidly say, “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar. That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.” Yet they say what makes a successful person—a hero, even—is someone who doesn’t stay knocked down (though, this is the sort of cheeseball line that, as usual, totally overlooks the many benefits of privilege). Having been part of the fame game for so long at this point, and weathering the many so-called controversies of it (though never anything even remotely as interesting as dancing in front of burning crosses or getting pleasured amid gender-fluid patrons in a The Night Porter-inspired hotel), Swift has learned to take the bad with the good. What choice does she have, after all, if she wants to remain in the spotlight? Which she very patently does.

As she tells Time, “Nothing is permanent. So I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before.” This, to be clear, is her subjective response to being discredited, and has little bearing on the actual album sales that occurred after Kardashian and West attempted to disparage her reputation. Lansky remarks on this as well, coming to the conclusion that if Swift felt canceled, then it’s valid. Life being so much more about feelings than objectivity these days.

And what Swift feels now is that her “response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.” She then adds, in a moment of pettiness that can’t help but overtake her, “But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies. Trash takes itself out every single time.” More direct shade against not just West and Kardashian (still somehow raking in her millions as “a girl with no talent”), but also Scooter Braun.

As for those who call Swift’s decision to talk trash about that trash in what is theoretically a “classy article,” well, it’s obvious why she would more than “casually” “hint” at the feud that ignited the material on Reputation: she’s about to rerelease that album next, and it’s always good to prime the masses for the narrative that was going on during the period in Swift’s life when an album was initially unleashed. And she’s, needless to say, very much ready to take back that narrative (you know, the “one that [she] never asked to be a part of, since 2009”). It being one of the only examples of a time when she wasn’t totally in control of it. Of rerecording this album, Swift muses, “The upcoming vault tracks for Reputation will be ‘fire.’ The rerecordings project feels like a mythical quest to her. ‘I’m collecting horcruxes. I’m collecting infinity stones. Gandalf’s voice is in my head every time I put out a new one. For me, it is a movie now.” As it has been for everyone else watching the drama unfold all along. Just as they’re watching a repeat of what West did to Swift at the VMAs by witnessing the internet insist that someone else (multiple someone elses) is more deserving of what she was honored with. Clearly, in this context, the “competitor” is literally in another playing field. Nay, battlefield. Making it difficult for anyone who doesn’t want to offend to argue that Swift being attacked for accepting her place on the cover has nothing to do with Palestine.

To be even more direct, in America, no one gives as much of a fuck about Palestinian journalists as they do about Taylor Swift. And that’s just the cruel, pure honesty that has ruffled so many feathers. In this regard, the editors of Time actually did do their part to assess “the individual who most shaped the headlines over the previous twelve months, for better or for worse.” Considering the latest Israel-Palestine conflict didn’t even pop off until October, that alone gives Swift a more competitive edge for the cover, as she’s been making headlines from day one of 2023, most notably when the world was “shocked” to learn of her breakup with Joe Alwyn and then appalled by her decision to go for Matty Healy as a rebound. Is it bleak and unfortunate that celebrity culture is more influential and headline-shaping than the everyperson risking their lives to report on unspeakable atrocities? Of course. Is it new? No. Is it worth diminishing Swift’s record-breaking accomplishments in 2023? Not really. Unless one is fond of the symmetry that brings us back to the very moment that Swift says sparked it all for her to work harder, better, faster, stronger (a song Kanye has sampled, yes): being publicly shamed and told that someone else should have gotten her recognition. Recognition that, at this juncture, is almost comical in its absurd reverence. Case in point, at another moment in the article, Lansky pronounces, “As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell.”

All of these are extremely grandiose, over-the-top comparisons that give Swift a lot more credit than she’s due (ironically, the crux of the argument for why Palestinian journalists should be on the cover instead). Not because she hasn’t “earned her stripes” (even if it’s not as challenging to do so when, again, you have emotionally and financially supportive parents), but because, well, she’s just so vanilla compared to the aforementioned legends she’s being compared to. Even so, maybe it’s time that some people should just “let Taylor finish.” Like she said (despite being fined multiple times for not taking trash out), “Trash takes itself out every time.” Or, in this case, hyper-overrated pop stars doomed to “age out” of popularity do (at least when they’re a woman). Something Swift herself has openly admitted to waiting for, thus taking advantage of the spotlight while the world is fully committed to letting her bask in it. Genocide be damned.

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Genna Rivieccio

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December 11, 2023
Technology Proves to Be the Hero Rather Than the Villain in Music When It Comes to The Beatles’ “Now and Then”

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As talk of AI being the biggest threat to humanity (apart from climate change) since the invention of the atom bomb (also still a threat by the way), one very human aspect of life that’s been made more vulnerable than anything of late is music. More specifically, the wielding of AI to “make” artists sing any song a person wants them to. Hence, AI versions of Britney Spears singing Madonna or Lana Del Rey singing Nancy Sinatra or Billie Eilish singing Olivia Rodrigo, and so on and so forth. And yet, amongst all the negativity about the detrimental effects of this type of technology, a lone positive story to emerge is a resuscitated demo that John Lennon wrote in the late 70s called “Now and Then.” In the mid-90s, the other three living Beatles decided to turn Lennon’s demos into Beatles “reunion” songs for a project called The Beatles Anthology. Unfortunately, at the time, the technology wasn’t available to bring “Now and Then” up to par with the other previously unreleased singles that were included on the album, namely “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love.” And yes, funnily enough, the movie Now and Then came out in 1995 just like The Beatles Anthology.

Luckily, in the wake of Peter Jackson making the documentary for Get Back, he and his team had developed a software system for separating/parsing out audio that they used throughout production. One that, at last, enabled the separation of John’s vocals from the piano on his demo, which was plagued with the cursed 60-Hz mains hum (one far louder than what the remaining trio found on “Real Love,” which had a similar, but more salvageable 60-Hz problem). And, since George Harrison was the one who had written “Now and Then” off as “fucking rubbish” during the first go-around of trying to make it into “something,” there wasn’t much effort put forth in trying to find a method, however fallible, to better the single. As Paul McCartney would then tell Q Magazine (RIP) in 1997, “George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.” But, clearly, that was for the best, as more time had to pass so that technology could catch up with the needs of “Now and Then” and its rough-hewn state. Plus, now that George has been out of the picture since 2001 (having died of lung cancer after surviving a brutal knife attack in 1999), a democracy of two is much easier to work with, and Ringo Starr has never been one to turn down a few extra bob. All of that said, the final product of “Now and Then” is nothing short of gut-wrenching. Particularly when paired with the accompanying music video (also directed by Jackson), awash with equal parts archival footage and what some would call a “nefarious” use of technology in that it revives John and George as, let’s call them, holograms. Younger versions of themselves that perform alongside Paul and Ringo for an effect that’s both eerie and poetic. And an effect that, of course, highlights the “now and then” theme through a contrast of Beatles at different ages.

Alas, Lennon will never be known beyond the age of forty (perhaps something he would call a blessing, likely poking fun at how Paul looks as an “elder” from on high). He is frozen in time just before that tipping point between “middle age” and outright “agedness.” Something about that lends an additional melancholy to the timbre of the song, imagining him writing it in the Dakota in 1977, when he would have been thirty-seven years old…and still relatively fresh from his “Lost Weekend” (from 1973-1974) with May Pang in Los Angeles. Hence, “Now and Then,” framed within its “in real time” context is yet another clear mea culpa directed at Yoko Ono. He couldn’t have known how the wisdom and lament of his words (even then at still such a tender age) would transmogrify in the future, one in which, had he lived, he would have been eighty-three years old.

Although the lyrics were once aimed at being grateful for the salvation Lennon attributed to Yoko’s love, when taken into context as a project that was revived by the last living Beatles, it becomes a song about being appreciative/eternally tied to his bandmates. Thus, lyrics like, “I know it’s true/It’s all because of you/And if I make it through/It’s all because of you” transcend into Lennon’s grand thank you to the band for not only the success they shared together, but its continued ability to reanimate in new and unexpected ways. With Lennon now “making it through” once more because McCartney and Starr have willed it to be so. Indeed, in the official statement regarding the single, it is mentioned, “This remarkable story of musical archaeology reflects The Beatles’ endless creative curiosity and shared fascination with technology.” At least when it came to music and its manipulation. After all, The Beatles were always willing to tinker with their sound, usually courtesy of George Martin—which is how albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and Yellow Submarine came to fruition as the band was more prone to experimentation after their “teen heartthrob years” of the early to mid-60s.

In the present context, The Beatles’ openness to experimentation has extended into AI technology, perhaps with more willingness than many of the younger musicians (apart from Grimes) that have expressed an aversion to it and what it might mean for the “purity” of one’s artistry. And with The Beatles still being a foremost “tastemaker” and “standard-setter” in the business, it means the floodgate has further opened in terms of embracing rather than bothering to rebuff the use of “cheating” with technology in music. What’s more, in a world that has already surrendered entirely to the ersatz, perhaps The Beatles are aware that “Now and Then” is actually more authentic than most of what gets released in the current landscape. By the same token, it’s easy to dismiss the dangerous effects of technology’s takeover in music when one has come to the end of their life, therefore the end of their musicianship. It’s sort of tantamount to boomers throwing a peace sign up to caring about climate change because they won’t be here for its most severe consequences anyway.

Despite this, there’s no denying that “Now and Then”—billed, definitively, as “the last Beatles song”—will be a comfort across generations beyond the band’s own birth cohort. If time goes on even for another century, it will be as James (John Hannah) in Sliding Doors said: “Everybody’s born knowing all The Beatles’ lyrics instinctively. They’re passed into the fetus subconsciously along with all the amniotic stuff. Fact, they should be called The Fetals.” “Now and Then” has jolted listeners into remembering why, exactly, that is.

Later in the song, still sparse with lyrics beyond the chorus in spite of its “clean-up” (ergo, the intense layering on of additional instrumentation), Lennon and McCartney sing, “And now and then/If we must start again/Well, we will know for sure/That I will love you.” That utterance “if we must start again” coming across as part of Lennon’s acerbic wit, which, in this instance, pertains to being dug up from the grave anew to “be a Beatle.” Yet, since the Fab Four did share such a unique experience together, their forever bond is still apparent even though half of the quartet is no longer with us. So it is that John is able to tell his brethren, from beyond the grave, “Now and then I miss you/Oh, now and then I want you to be there for me/Always to return to me/I know it’s true/It’s all because of you/And if you go away/I know you’ll never stay.” That last line being a peak Britishism/Lennonism in terms of wordplay and the exhibition of a cocksure ego.

With The Beatles bringing back 1995 all over again with this reminder that everything old can be dusted off to be made new, The Beatles Anthology-style, it raises the question of whether or not John and George truly would “consent” to the use of this song. On the one hand, both were extremely “pro-fan,” yet, on the other, each was a meticulous artist who wanted their work to be a certain way. Nonetheless, one would like to believe that this “certain way” would have been sufficient to bring a smile to Lennon and Harrison’s face. If for no other reason than because AI has given them both a last gasp in the music biz.

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Genna Rivieccio

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November 4, 2023
The Beatles and Marijuana

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It is testament to talent their music maintains popularity with new generations. In fact, when streaming was just getting going, 57 percent of Beatle steaming listeners were between the ages of 18 and 34. These fans in less than a month pushed the music to the most streamed of any artist on Spotify. In the last 10 years they have had a Las Vegas show (LOVE), continue to hold steady on streaming and now have a new song release Now and Then thanks to AI. Add to it the Beatles and marijuana have a rich history.

The Beatles introduce change and new ideas in a variety of ways, from their music to haircuts (the mop-top), to helping drive analogue recording technology. They had the popularity of Elvis, but made it into a fan power base – the first of its kind driven by the artists.

RELATED: Science Explains How Marijuana Inspires Awe

There are millions of fans who love the Beatles and marijuana, and August 28, 1964 the future of rock ‘n’ roll changed forever, when Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to cannabis. The two would and will be forever linked.

“I remember it pretty well y’know,” Paul McCartney has shared “We were staying in that hotel [the Delmonico in New York City] and we were on tour, so we were all together in the hotel suite. We were having a drink and then Bob [Dylan] arrived and disappeared into a backroom. Then Ringo went back to see him and after a couple of minutes Ringo came back into the suite looking a little dazed and confused and we said, ‘what’s up?’ and he said, ‘oh Bob’s smoking pot back there’, and we said, ‘oh, well what’s it like?’ and Ringo said, ‘the ceiling feels like it’s coming down a bit’.”

RELATED: Most Marijuana Users Smoke To Unwind While Listening To Rock Music

Of course, the music, the clothes, and the Yellow Submarine gives a strong nod to psychedelics. The hits are a constant favorite to those who consume who want to lose themselves in a positive, moment. With music and cannabis simultaneously triggering the dopamine system, the brain is chemically reinforcing two extremely gratifying behaviors.

Despite the differences which would later break them up, marijuana was a unifier during their best music making period. As John Lennon once admitted, they were “smoking marijuana for breakfast” during that period.

While making Help, Ringo Starr said: “A hell of a lot of pot was being smoked while we were making the film. It was great. That helped make it a lot of fun.”

RELATED: The Science Behind Why Music Sounds So Much Better When You’re High

A symbol of the marriage between the Beatles and marijuana is all the generations who listen to the music and whether you are a Boomer or Gen Z, it is on your chill play list.

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Anthony Washington

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November 3, 2023
The Beatles release their last new song

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The last “new” Beatles song, “Now and Then,” was released on Thursday, 60 years after the onset of Beatlemania.

The fresh release features the voices of all four original Beatles performers, with surviving members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr essentially finishing what was initially an old demo recording by John Lennon. The track draws in many ways on group’s signature style and features emotional chorus where, together, McCartney and Lennon’s voices sing, “I miss you.”

Listen: The Beatles – Now And Then (Official Audio)

The original “Now and Then,” recorded by Lennon more than 40 years ago, came from the same group of demo recordings that his former bandmates used to create the songs “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love” in the mid-90s.

Written by Lennon in 1978 and and completed by McCartney and Starr last year, “Now and Then” also features sounds by the band’s late guitarist George Harrison, using pieces of one of his studio recordings from 1995. McCartney also added a new string guitar part with help from Giles Martin, the son of the late Beatles producer George Martin, the Associated Press reported last month.

How did The Beatles make a new song?

“Now and Then,” in part, used artificial intelligence to separate out Lennon’s original vocals before incorporating McCartney and Starr’s musical additions in the studio last year. A short documentary film chronicling the making of “Now and Then” was released Wednesday on The Beatles’ official YouTube channel, ahead of an upcoming music video which is expected to drop roughly 24 hours after the release of the song itself.

“‘Now and Then’s eventful journey to fruition took place over five decades and is the product of conversations and collaborations between the four Beatles that go on to this day,” reads the short film’s YouTube description. “The long mythologised John Lennon demo was first worked on in February 1995 by Paul, George and Ringo as part of The Beatles Anthology project but it remained unfinished, partly because of the impossible technological challenges involved in working with the vocal John had recorded on tape in the 1970s.”

“For years it looked like the song could never be completed,” it continues. “But in 2022 there was a stroke of serendipity.”

In the documentary, both McCartney and Starr marveled at how clearly Lennon’s voice comes through in the newly-packaged version of “Now and Then.”

“All those memories came flooding back,” said McCartney. “My God, how lucky was I to have those men in my life? To still be working on Beatles music in 2023? Wow.”

Starr added, “It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him [Lennon] back in the room … Far out.”

Which Beatles are still alive?

Two of the four original members of The Beatles are still alive: McCartney, who played bass guitar for the group and shared both songwriting responsibilities and lead vocals with Lennon, and Starr, the band’s drummer. At 81 and 83 years old, respectively, McCartney and Starr have continued to make music as solo artists, and in collaborations with other performers, through the years.

Lennon, who served as the co-lead songwriter and vocalist, and rhythm guitarist, for The Beatles, died in 1980 at 40 years old. He was shot several times and fatally wounded by Mark David Chapman as he walked into his New York City apartment building on Dec. 8 of that year. Lennon’s death is remembered as one of the most infamous celebrity killings of all time.

Harrison, The Beatles’ original lead guitarist, died on Nov. 29, 2001, after battling cancer. He was 58 years old.

Paul McCartney’s photos of The Beatles’ 1964 invasion

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November 2, 2023
Beatles release new song with a little help from artificial intelligence

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Beatles release new song with a little help from artificial intelligence – CBS News

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The Fab Four on Thursday released the much-awaited song “Now and Then,” completing an unfinished demo that was started by John Lennon in 1978. The surviving members, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, utilized artificial intelligence to parse out Lennon’s vocals.

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November 2, 2023
Hear ‘Now And Then,’ the Last Beatles Song, on The Beatles Channel

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“Now And Then” is the last Beatles song — written and sung by John Lennon, developed and worked on by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, and now finally finished by Paul and Ringo over four decades later.

The track will be released worldwide on November 2 and is one of the most anticipated releases of the band’s long and endlessly eventful history.

Hear “Now And Then”

Tune in to The Beatles Channel (Ch. 18) on November 2 at 10am ET to hear “Now And Then” at the top of the hour, the moment it’s released.

The song will continue to be played multiple times throughout the day November 2–5 on The Beatles Channel as well as on Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, Deep Tracks, The Spectrum, The Blend, 60s Gold, and 70s on 7.

Preorder/pre-save “Now And Then”/”Love Me Do” double A-side single.

Hear Exclusive Celebrity Track-By-Track Specials for ‘The Red Album’ and ‘The Blue Album’

The Beatles’ 1962-1966 (The Red Album) and 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) collections will be released in 2023 Edition packages on November 10. Featuring expanded tracklists, the albums have been mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos.

Tune in to The Beatles Channel (Ch. 18) to hear exclusive Celebrity Track-By-Track Album Specials for The Red Album and The Blue Album starting on November 10 at 11am ET and continuing through November 12 multiple times throughout the weekend. These exclusive album specials will also be available on the SiriusXM app starting November 10.

Preorder/pre-save 1962-1966 (The Red Album) and 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) 2023 Editions.

‘Now and Then’ Documentary Film

The Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song documentary film, written and directed by Oliver Murray, debuted November 1 on The Beatles’ YouTube channel. This 12-minute film tells the story behind the last Beatles song and features exclusive footage and commentary from Paul, Ringo, George, Sean Ono Lennon, and Peter Jackson.

“Now And Then”

The Last Installment of The Beatles Recorded History

In the late 1970s, John Lennon recorded a demo featuring his vocals and piano at his home in New York’s Dakota Building. In 1994, Yoko Ono Lennon shared John’s recording with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

While Paul, George, and Ringo recorded new parts for “Now And Then” with producer Jeff Lynne, the technology at the time couldn’t separate John’s vocals and piano, making it impossible to create a clear mix of the song. The track was shelved with the hope that one day it might be revisited.

Groundbreaking Technology

In 2021, The Beatles: Get Back docuseries directed by Peter Jackson was released. The docuseries utilized groundbreaking audio restoration technology to de-mix the film’s mono soundtrack, isolating individual voices and instruments within The Beatles’ conversations. Peter Jackson and his sound team, led by Emile de la Rey, applied this groundbreaking technique to John’s original home recording of “Now And Then.” They successfully separated his vocals from the piano, preserving the clarity of his original performance.

The following year, Paul and Ringo took on the task of completing “Now And Then.” The song now includes John Lennon’s vocals, electric and acoustic guitar recorded by George Harrison in 1995, Ringo Starr’s new drum part, and bass, guitar, and piano from Paul McCartney. Paul added a slide guitar solo inspired by George, and both he and Ringo contributed backing vocals to the chorus.

In Los Angeles, Paul supervised a recording session at Capitol Studios to add a quintessential Beatles string arrangement written by Giles Martin, Paul, and Ben Foster. Paul and Giles also included backing vocals from the original recordings of “Here, There And Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Because,” masterfully woven into the new song. The final track was produced by Paul McCartney and Giles Martin and mixed by Spike Stent.

Paul McCartney shared, “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.”

Ringo Starr said, “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.”

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Jackie Kolgraf

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November 2, 2023
3 lifelong Beatles fans seek to find missing Paul McCartney guitar and solve

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A guitar expert and two journalists have launched a global hunt for a missing bass guitar owned by Paul McCartney, bidding to solve what they brand “the greatest mystery in rock and roll.”

The three lifelong Beatles fans are searching for McCartney’s original Höfner bass — last seen in London in 1969 — in order to reunite the instrument with the former Fab Four frontman.

McCartney played the instrument throughout the 1960s, including at Hamburg, Germany’s Top Ten Club, at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England and on early Beatles recordings at London’s Abbey Road studios.

Paul McCartney playing guitar in New York during the Beatles’ first U.S. tour in February 1964.

Daily Mirror / Mirrorpix via Getty Images

“This is the search for the most important bass in history — Paul McCartney’s original Höfner,” the search party says on a website — thelostbass.com — newly-created for the endeavor.

“This is the bass you hear on ‘Love Me Do,’ ‘She Loves You’ and ‘Twist and Shout.’ The bass that powered Beatlemania — and shaped the sound of the modern world.”

How McCartney came to buy it

McCartney bought the left-handed Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass for around 30 pounds ($38) ($585 in today’s money) in Hamburg in 1961, during The Beatles’ four-month residency at the Top Ten Club.

The website quotes McCartney recalling in interviews that, “My dad had always hammered into us never to get into debt because we weren’t that rich. (Fellow Beatles) John (Lennon) and George (Harrison) went easily in debt and got beautiful guitars. … All I could really afford was about £30 (30 pounds). So for about £30, I found this Hofner violin bass. And to me, because I was left-handed, it looked less daft because it was symmetrical. I got into that. And once I bought it, I fell in love with it.”

An enduring mystery begins

It disappeared without a trace nearly eight years later, in January 1969, when the band was recording the “Get Back/Let It Be” sessions in central London.

By then its appearance was unique — after being overhauled in 1964, including with a complete respray in a three-part dark sunburst polyurethane finish — and it had become McCartney’s back-up bass.

The team now hunting for the guitar say it has not been seen since but that “numerous theories and false sightings have occurred over the years.”

Appealing for fresh tips on its whereabouts, they insist their mission is “a search, not an investigation,” noting all information will be treated confidentially.

“With a little help from our friends — from fans and musicians to collectors and music shops — we can get the bass back to where it once belonged,” the trio states on the website.

“Paul McCartney has given us so much over the last 62 years. The Lost Bass project is our chance to give something back.”

The team behind the search

Nick Wass, a semi-retired former marketing manager and electric guitar developer for Höfner who co-wrote the definitive book on the Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass, is spearheading the search.

He told CBS News partner network BBC News McCartney
asked him about the guitar recently — and the effort to find it began.

“It was played in Hamburg, at The Cavern Club, at Abbey Road. Isn’t that enough alone to get this bass back?” he said. “I know, because I talked with him about it, that Paul would be so happy — thrilled — if this bass could get back to him.”

Wass is joined by journalist husband and wife team Scott and Naomi Jones.

The trio said other previously lost guitars have been found.

John Lennon’s Gibson J-160E — which he used to write “I Want To Hold Your Hand” — disappeared during The Beatles’ Christmas Show in 1963.

It resurfaced half a century later, then sold at auction for $2.4 million.

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September 4, 2023
Paul McCartney Thinks Concerts Are Too Long, and It’s All Bruce Springsteen’s Fault

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Paul McCartney would like to have a brief word with his performing peers—emphasis on the brief.

The 81-year-old musician recently appeared on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and bemoaned the length of concerts lately. In the late June interview, McCartney said that The Beatles “used to do a half hour. That was The Beatles’ thing: Half an hour, and we got paid for it.”

“Now, people will do three or four hours. I blame Bruce Springsteen,” he said. “I’ve told him so, I said, ‘It’s your fault.’”

“He ruined it for everyone,” O’Brien said, to McCartney’s enthusiastic agreement.

McCartney reasoned that back in the day, more acts would play on one bill, including comedians who would deliver four minutes of material. In contrast, the Beatles’ half-hour felt “epic,” he said.

Springsteen is known for his multi-hour concert extravaganzas, even at his current age of 73. McCartney has kept up with the times with a reportedly nearly three-hour concert length on his 2022 tour, though after these comments, you’ve got to wonder about his internal monologue and yearning for a nice, comfy place to sit.

The long shows aren’t just limited to the Guys With Guitars genre, either: Taylor Swift is turning in three-hour sets on her current Eras Tour, an extremely physical performance even when her trap doors are behaving, and Beyoncé, on her Renaissance Tour, is clocking in similarly epic performances. It makes your knees hurt just to think about it. Paul should count his blessings: At least he doesn’t have choreography.

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July 5, 2023
Paul McCartney says there was “confusion” over Beatles’ AI song

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In a BBC Radio interview earlier this month, Paul McCartney said the Beatles’ final song has been made with the help of artificial intelligence and will be released this year. On social media this week, the singer said there was confusion about the song, though, as it wasn’t “artificially or synthetically created.”

McCartney, 80, told BBC Radio’s Martha Kearney that in the 2021 documentary “The Beatles: Get Back,” which is about the making of the band’s 1970 album “Let It Be,” a sound engineer used AI to extract vocals from background music. “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,’” McCartney said.

“When we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John [Lennon] had that we worked on. And we’ve just finished it up, it’ll be released this year, ” he said. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI so that we could mix the record as you would normally do.”

Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project. No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year.

We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it. Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much…

— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 22, 2023

In social media posts on Thursday, McCartney further explained that “nothing has been artificially or synthetically created” for the song and “we all play on it,” explaining that for years they have “cleaned up existing recordings.”

The band broke up in 1970 and Lennon died in 1980 at age 40 after being shot outside his apartment building in New York City; Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001 at age 58. McCartney and Ringo Starr, 82, are the two remaining members of the band.

It is possible that the recording they “cleaned up” for the new song will be from a recording Lennon made in 1978 called “Now and Then.” Before he died, Lennon recorded a demo tape he labeled “For Paul,” which his widow, Yoko Ono, gave to McCartney in 1995, according to BBC News.

McCartney and Jeff Lynne reproduced two of the songs, creating the posthumous tracks “Free As A Bird,” released in 1995, and “Real Love,” released in 1996, as part of its in-depth anthology retrospective.

“Now and Then” is another song on the tape that the Beatles considered releasing in 1995.

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Caitlin O’Kane

Caitlin O’Kane is a digital content producer covering trending stories for CBS News and its good news brand, The Uplift.

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June 23, 2023
Princess Kate Reopens the National Portrait Gallery with Paul McCartney

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As the patron of the National Portrait Gallery, Princess Kate has donated her own portrait, posed with children, and even curated Hold Still, a show of photographs documenting the UK’s coronavirus lockdown. On Tuesday, she joined Paul McCartney and artist Tracey Emin to celebrate the reopening of the museum after a three-year renovation that cost 41 million British pounds.

McCartney has his own exhibition of photographs going on display at the museum next week, and he and Kate talked about their shared love of art alongside his wife, Nancy Shevell, and marveled at the recent renovations. According to the Daily Mail, the pair discussed McCartney’s process for narrowing down the photos to appear in the show, titled Eyes of the Storm, which features images of the Beatles from 1963 to 1964. “Were there pieces that were very important to you personally?” Kate asked.

“For me, the pictures of John and George particularly, just because they are not here,” McCartney replied. He also joked to Kate that all of the pictures depict times “when you weren’t even born.”

Emin, a Goldsmiths Prize winning multimedia artist, was tapped to design new doors for the gallery and on Tuesday, she walked through them with Kate. The doors feature 45 images of women, first drawn by hand in Emin’s studio and then cast in bronze.

“When I arrived, I was anxious,” Emin later told the BBC. “There was all these other things that were on my mind, and I totally forgot about the doors! So when I came up, I gasped—it was a big surprise and that lifted my energy.”

Kate wore a white dress from Self-Portrait, paired with a Chanel clutch and shoes from Aquazzura, but she wasn’t afraid to draw with a few children when she arrived at the museum’s new Mildred and Simon Palley Learning Centre, which has doubled the space available for children’s educational activities. Along with a three-year-old named Rania, Kate took part in a children’s activity based on the books of Beatrix Potter.

Listen to Vanity Fair’s DYNASTY podcast now.

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June 20, 2023
Paul McCartney’s photos of The Beatles’ 1964 invasion

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Paul McCartney’s photos of The Beatles’ 1964 invasion – CBS News

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Paul McCartney recently uncovered photographs he’d thought were lost – ones he took during The Beatles’ first tour of America in 1964. The pictures – candid shots from the vantage point of newly-anointed superstars – are the basis of a new book, “1964: Eyes of the Storm,” and an exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery. Correspondent Anthony Mason gets a private tour with McCartney, who talks about documenting the astonishing welcome that the “lads from Liverpool” received.

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June 18, 2023
6/18: Sunday Morning

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6/18: Sunday Morning – CBS News

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Hosted by Jane Pauley. In our cover story, Tracy Smith looks back at the history of “The Ed Sullivan Show,” which debuted 75 years ago. Plus: Anthony Mason gets a tour of photographs by Paul McCartney, taken during The Beatles’ U.S. tour in 1964; Susan Spencer looks at the fight over health care for transgender youth; Jim Axelrod meets a woman who ticked off unfulfilled items from her late father’s bucket list; Mark Whitaker explores the legacy of African American architect Paul Revere Williams; Faith Salie talks with a photographer whose picture of a racially-motivated attack using an American flag won a Pulitzer Prize; and Ben Tracy reports on the rising interest in burial via human composting.

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June 18, 2023
Rediscovering Paul McCartney’s photos of The Beatles’ 1964 invasion

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Paul McCartney used his Pentax camera the same way he used his guitar: with total freedom. And in early 1964, the 21-year-old took his new camera on perhaps the most momentous musical journey of the 20th century: The Beatles’ invasion of America.

On The Beatles’ first visit to the United States, Paul McCartney brought his Pentax camera. The pictures he took, long though lost, were recently found, and are the basis of a new book and photo exhibition.

Paul McCartney

Hundreds of photographs from that trip were recently rediscovered in McCartney’s archive: “It was really nice,” he said, “because I thought they were lost.”

The images, collected in the new book, “1964: Eyes of the Storm,” will be on view later this month at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

He offered a tour of the exhibit to correspondent Anthony Mason.

McCartney explained his process: “Taking photographs, I’d be just looking for a shot. And so, I’d aim the camera and just sort of see where I liked it, you know, oh, that’s it. And invariably, you pretty much take one picture.

“We were moving fast. So, you just learned to take pictures quickly.”

Paul McCartney gives correspondent Anthony Mason a personal tour of an exhibition of the former Beatle’s photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

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One picture was taken as the group arrived at the Deauville Hotel in Miami. Mason said, “I think your quote in the book was, ‘I can almost hear her scream.’”

“Yeah, you can!” McCartney laughed. “The cop is going to restrain her, you know?”

Fans greet The Beatles in Miami in 1964.

Paul McCartney

“I also love the cop in the foreground who just sort of looks puzzled by everything,” said Mason.

“I like the architecture of that hotel,” said McCartney. “But, you know, as we were saying before, that had to be taken really quickly, just to snap that.”

“But, you have to have an eye to take that.”

“It’s my left one!”

The Beatles had started their trip in Paris. “And it was in Paris that we got the telegram, ‘Congratulations, boys, number one in the U.S. charts.’”

“And you’d said you won’t go to America unless you have a number one?”

“I know. And that was pretty spunky to kind of think that. But I’d seen quite a few of our major stars go to the States, and we’re going, ‘Wow, he’s going to leave us now. He’ll be made famous over there.’ But then they’d come back and they weren’t famous. So I said, ‘Well, if we go over there, you know, I really don’t want to come back with our tail between our legs.’”

Setting up for their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in New York City.

Paul McCartney

In America they played “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Seventy-three million people would tune in. It was, McCartney writes, “the moment all hell breaks loose.”

Mason said, “To look at those pictures, it’s kind of you looking at the world, looking at you. You seemed very comfortable with it.”

“Yeah. I mean, you know, you got to think about it: We’re kids from Liverpool. And we’re trying to get famous, and it’s not easy. And we were like stars in America, and people loved us. So, we loved it. And having that number one was really the secret – because, if the journalists, you know, New York journalists, ‘Hey, Beatle! Hey, Beatle! Why you are here?’ whatever. We say, ‘We’re number one in your country!’ Bingo!”

Beatlemania in New York City.

Paul McCartney

McCartney captured the commotion on the streets around New York’s Plaza Hotel, and the crowd that chased them when they snuck out the side door.

Mason said, “There was one reporter who said you were like prisoners with room service?”

“Yeah,” McCartney laughed. “That was kind of true. But we liked room service. You know, we’d never had it before!”

From New York, The Beatles travelled by train to Washington, D.C. McCartney’s camera took the ride, too.

As they traveled South, Paul McCartney took this picture of a railroad worker: “I love this guy. He is like from where I’m from. He looked great. And he’s got his hand up, a little smile. It’s nice. It’s a great memory, you know?”

Paul McCartney

So many of McCartney’s pictures were taken on the move, including shots from his car of a policeman in Miami who’d pulled up next to him: “And that was basically what I saw. And we’d never seen policemen with guns. We just didn’t have that in England.”

Paul McCartney

But in Miami, McCartney broke out the color film. “For us, it was like going on holiday,” he said.

The Fab Four even had a few days off.

Mason said, “There are some great shots of you with, like, it looked like terry-cloth jackets.”

“Yeah, the hotel supplied them,” McCartney said. “You normally, like, get a robe, but this place, because it was Miami, had these little cool, little short things – and hats! We lived in them for days. Even Brian [Epstein], our manager. We thought they were really cool items of clothing.”

John Lennon, Brian Epstein, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in Miami.

Paul McCartney

He caught George relaxing with an anonymous admirer: “In that picture, yeah, I don’t think I was trying to protect her identity,” McCartney said. “I love her bathing costume. So great. And, you know, there is George, like I keep saying, living the life. He’s got a drink which is probably a scotch and Coke. He’s got a tan, the girl in the yellow bikini. For lads from Liverpool, that was exceptionally wonderful!”

George Harrison with an admirer in Miami.

Paul McCartney

The band went back home to England in late February. By early April, The Beatles had the top five songs on the U.S. charts. McCartney writes, “We spent the months and years after holding on for dear life.”

Liveright

Mason asked, “Did you remember all these when you saw them?”

“Kind of,” McCartney replied. “It was a very memorable period, you know?”

“But there was so much going on, I’m amazed you could process it and keep it all.”

“Yeah, so am I!”

McCartney’s not only looking back at photos of his past; he announced last week to the BBC that this fall he’ll be releasing what he says is “the last Beatles record” – a John Lennon demo tape that McCartney is re-mixing using the latest artificial intelligence technology. The music, like Paul McCartney’s pictures, all part of The Beatles’ enduring legacy.

McCartney said, “For me, it is like a little slice of American history. And it’s my history, is that it’s Beatles history. So, it was great to rediscover these pictures.”

For more info:

Story produced by Ed Forgotson. Editor: Joseph Frandino.

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Anthony Mason

Anthony Mason is senior culture and senior national correspondent for CBS News. He has been a frequent contributor to “CBS Sunday Morning,” and is the former co-host for “CBS This Morning: Saturday” and “CBS This Morning.”

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June 18, 2023
Actor Steve Martin and cartoonist Harry Bliss on new cartoon memoir

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Actor Steve Martin and cartoonist Harry Bliss on new cartoon memoir – CBS News

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“CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King sits down with actor Steve Martin and cartoonist Harry Bliss to discuss their new book, “Number One is Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions.” Martin shares behind-the-scenes stories about hit movies like, “Three Amigos,” and talks about getting Paul McCartney to sing one of his songs.

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November 21, 2022