The Beatles
Now and then

If I had to name a month of the year that causes me rejection and depressive states, I wouldn't hesitate to name November. A month so gray, characterized by days of short solar exposure, rainy, tedious, and a stimulator of suicidal thoughts. And it is no coincidence that it is the time of year coinciding with the custom of visiting and placing flowers on the graves of our deceased loved ones, precisely to not forget the transience and relativity of our lives.

All very gloomy and, perhaps someone will think, seemingly unrelated to what I am about to review. Yet, after listening to the so-called new Beatles single titled "Now and Then" five times in a row, the thoughts I mentioned above spontaneously arose. And since anyone who reviews, even as a hobby like myself, must be frank, well then I'll make it clear right away: "Now and Then" is just a useless commercial move exclusively aimed at keeping a flourishing enterprise (not only artistic) called "The Beatles" well-oiled. Some might object that this is certainly not news and that everything we define as "rock and beyond" cannot disregard commercial reasons. But these dynamics are not always immediately obvious. And anyway, success comes in response to a valid musical proposal. It has always been like this for bands like the Beatles (and many others). But it may happen that what is produced and published is not really much.

Specifically, much emphasis has already been placed on how it was possible to record a new Beatles single. Already in the 1990s, the three surviving Beatles (Paul, George, and Ringo) had made efforts, with the kind intercession of Yoko Ono, with three John Lennon demos dating back to 1979. While "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" efforts succeeded (without being of great quality), for "Now and Then" there was nothing to be done for a very simple reason: separating John's voice from the piano chords was not yet possible according to the technological possibilities of the time. This has only become possible recently, thanks to procedures based on the well-known Artificial Intelligence (here’s a positive aspect of this new technology). From there, it was just a matter of adding the instrumental passages recorded by Paul and Ringo, along with the guitar chords recorded by George (sadly deceased about twenty years ago), plus a redundant orchestration (like Electric Light Orchestra) and the Beatles' choir voices from previous tracks like "Eleanor Rigby" and "Because". The result is the song "Now and Then" found on YouTube since last November 2nd (in Italy a day dedicated to the commemoration of the dead, just to be in the right mood).

In all honesty, the song has not yet generated in me such a positive impression as is typical for all Beatles musical productions. This even being well aware that for the former quartet, working in the recording studio has always been an excellent workshop to experiment with new sounds and new musical chords, generating an unparalleled kaleidoscopic effect. This time I had the impression of a very mechanical final result, like "taking an old food out of the freezer to prepare it hastily, without much commitment". It’s difficult to find that magic touch typical of Beatles compositions this way.

But even more debatable is what the two surviving Beatles declared, according to whom what was achieved would have been to John Lennon’s liking. However long they worked together with the latter over the years, it remains true that John Lennon the man and musician was indeed very prolific as a composer but equally prone to changing his mind about what he had created. He might well have considered his compositions as insufficiently satisfying, even when they were of great value (for instance, "Jealous Guy" maintains the same musical structure as "Child of Nature", written during his stay in India in 1968, but with a completely different and not as beautiful text). If "Now and Then" remained in the drawer for so many years, there must have been a good reason for Lennon (perhaps the sparse lyrics thanking the loved one for all the support provided to carry on, or the melody not particularly lively, rather a bit monotonous).

The fact is that if a present-day teenager unfamiliar with Beatles matters were to listen to "Now and Then", they might not be particularly struck by said song. And they would be even more puzzled at the idea of the brief history of the Beatles and John Lennon in particular. Perhaps they would not grasp the seminal impact of the Beatles' work in the history of music in the second half of the twentieth century. Perhaps they would not understand the existence of a magical touch related to the sound universe of the Liverpool quartet, and everything would seem as remote as Hannibal and the Punic wars.

Needless to say, to get a good grasp of the matter, it would be better to listen to the group’s complete works. Only then would one understand the extent of the Beatles phenomenon. Given such premises, listening to "Now and Then" would become something akin to a simple footnote in an unrepeatable saga of well-deserved success of four talented young men who grew up listening to the rock'n'roll of the 1950s. A footnote that comes when the protagonists of that epic (and this applies also to other survivors like the Rolling Stones) are only offering us some leftover sparkles from their music’s great splendor. And anyway, now as it stands, the respect and appreciation for a fundamental artistic legacy will remain.