So the official video for “Now and Then” got released a day or so after the song was finally unveiled:
…and… fuck. The whole thing with the SAG-AFTRA strike in the US over the last few months and the union’s fear of actors being exploited by the studios using AI-generated copies of them makes a LOT of sense after seeing this. Peter Jackson made the video using archival footage of the Fabs, and it’s the way he uses some of that footage, particularly the stuff from the “Hello Goodbye” film shoot, that suddenly made me realise just why the union is wary of this shit. It’s come a long way from Laurence Olivier in Sky Captain. Still maybe some way to go, in that the 60s film footage of John and George doesn’t quite gel with the new HD video footage of Paul and Ringo, but the bit where John “conducts” the string players just leapt out and slapped me in the face somehow…
Anyway, now the song’s out there’s also a bunch of YT videos about it too, and this is my favourite now:
Amazing. The song’s actually growing on me the more I hear it, but I still feel like it’s not a “real” Beatles song somehow. It’s the sort of song that you’d put somewhere in the middle of side two of the album, if that makes sense as a description. This, on the other hand, DAMN. It’s one guy doing a cover the way the Beatles might’ve done it in their early style (with an amusing parody of John & George’s appearances in the official video), and though he doesn’t sound vocally like John as such, and “Paul” plays right-handed for some reason, he still nails the overall sound and feel of 1964-era Fabs, the vocal harmonising… it almost feels more like the Beatles than their own version does.
