So the much-anticipated “new” Beatles song is out. I actually just discovered a few days ago that it was actually originally going to be the single from Anthology 3 way back in 1996, but they couldn’t get satisfactory results from it back then (particularly in George Harrison’s opinion, he apparently called it “fucking rubbish”); technology has progressed sufficiently that now they can. And it’s out at last after quite a few months of hyping it up as the “last” Beatles song and all the talk of using AI to separate John’s voice out from the demo and…
…and it’s OK, I suppose.
I don’t know, for some reason I expected something more upbeat than it is, and I think I expected it to sound more “Beatles”. It’s nice but it sounds less like a Beatles song and more like what it is, i.e. a late 70s John Lennon solo demo recorded when, let’s face it, he was far from his peak that his two surviving former bandmates and Giles Martin have buffed up a bit. “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” started out the same way and both ended up sounding like the Beatles in a way this didn’t somehow, even though all of them (yes, even George, who appears via parts recorded during their initial attempts to finish it) are present and correct. It’s not “fucking rubbish” but it’s not particularly special in and of itself. Giles Martin’s string arrangement is nice, but I suspect it might actually have been better as a John Lennon solo song or given a more minimal treatment.
Look, it’s good. It’s fine on its own terms, and I think the hype around it will ultimately hurt it. I think It’s an album track, not a single. And ultimately a footnote. I think that’s how I feel about it.
