The Beatles, Now and Then, review: A loving but dreary attempt to recapture the magic

The Beatles, from left, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney arrive in Liverpool, England, on July 10, 1964, for the premiere of their movie A Hard Day's Night. Photo / AP

REVIEW

There has been a great deal of excitement about news of “the last Beatles song”, although I suspect that might abate once people have actually heard it.

Now and Then is a slip of a dreary ballad, only elevated by the quality of the singing and playing, and the spooky notion that it is the work of the greatest group in pop history, reunited across death’s divide.

The plodding soft rock arrangement is replete with trademark Ringo drum fills and a fluidly melodic Paul McCartney bass from the two surviving Beatles (aka The Twootles), and it is more than a little supernaturally wondrous to hear John Lennon’s distinctive high and tender voice rising up above the gentle, melancholy melody etched out on sonorous piano chords.

But just as the band find a sensual groove, the McCartney-led chorus arrives as an anticlimactic plod, dropping where the song needs to lift, awkwardly repurposing some snatches of unfinished Lennon phrases into a form that doesn’t quite fit the song’s plaintive mood.

The chords aren’t interesting, and harmonies pasted in from old Beatle recordings (Here There and Everywhere, Eleanor Rigby and Because) don’t really cut through as they should.

Britain's pop group The Beatles pose in a carriage window of train before they left Paddington Station in London, March 2, 1964. Photo / AP

It’s not that it is bad, honestly. There are lovely instrumental passages, lustrous strings, and it has all been crafted with love and care, but it doesn’t hit the heights we expect from a great Beatles ballad, ending up sounding like a poor imitation of genius, the kind of soft rock whimsy you’d find on thousands of second-rate Beatle influenced albums in the 70s. And yes, I’m looking at you Jeff Lynne.

And where is George Harrison in all of this? On acoustic guitar, apparently, and a very un-Beatley thin and incongruously funky electric rhythm part, recorded in 1995.

That’s when Paul, George and Ringo (The Threetles) first made a pass at finishing off John’s low fidelity demo for the retrospective Anthology project that included two other (and better) reconstructed post-Beatle songs, Free as a Bird and Real Love.

McCartney later claimed that Harrison had declared Now and Then “rubbish”, leading them to abandon it.

“It needed a bit of reworking, but it had a beautiful verse and it had John singing it,” according to McCartney. “George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.”

Since the death of Harrison in 2001, that “democratic” power base has shifted, and McCartney and Ringo have clearly done their best to recapture and honour the spirit of their old bandmates. There is, in fact, a beautiful trademark Harrison slide guitar solo, albeit played by McCartney as a tribute to his late friend.

The Beatles perform on the CBS Ed Sullivan Show in New York on February 9, 1964. Photo / AP

But maybe Harrison was right all along. Certainly, it is hard to believe that if he and Lennon were alive to contribute, Now and Then would have ended up in such a stately but ponderous form.

Lennon’s original sketch included a soulful but unfinished bridge that seems to have disappeared completely, perhaps hampered by his improvised lyrics, which included the immortal couplets: “If you have to go / Nda-da-doo doo doo” and “I wanna de ne dunna dee / I du duh return to me.”

So is Now and Then really a Beatles song at all? Well, it’s a song with all the Beatles on it, and that will have to do.

Despite my criticism, I’m glad it exists, because it would have felt like a missing piece of the puzzle had it languished in the vaults. I can feel the love on this record, and that will have to be enough for now.

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison of the Beatles attend a press party at the home of manager Brian Epstein supporting the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, May 19, 1967. Photo / Getty Images

Director Peter Jackson’s accompanying video is a joy: a cute, funny and ultimately very touching film of the old Beatles playing with their younger selves.

It concludes the Beatles’ recording career not with a bang but the aural equivalent of an elegiac toast to days gone by and those we have lost.

There is a certain relief in the notion that McCartney has described it as the last Beatles song, although, ominously, the actual full quote is that “it’s probably the last Beatles song”. I don’t like the sound of that “probably”. It’s time to accept we have reached the bottom of this apple barrel. It was beautiful while it lasted.