‘Now and Then’ may be the final Beatles song but it may not be the final Lennon and McCartney collaboration we will get to hear.
On 28 March, 1974 John Lennon were together at the Record Plant studio in Los Angeles. John was living in Los Angeles at the time during his ‘Lost Weekend’ period. McCartney has spoken of the day saying “we were stoned” so the true musical worth of the recordings is unlikely to be more than just interesting by the fact that both Paul and John were together in the same room.
McCartney said in 1997, “John was doing some recordings in L.A. and I showed up. lt was a strange session. The thing that I recall, apart from the fact that Stevie Wonder was there.”
There is a photo doing the rounds with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney and Harry Nilsson looking quite out of it. There is another, taken by May Pang, of John and Paul which is believed to be the last photo of the two Beatles ever together.
That day they recorded 10 pieces of music with Bobby Keys, Harry Nilsson, Jesse Ed Davis and Stevie Wonder. The recordings have never been officially released but they have been widely bootlegged.
The recording has been listed with the known session titles:
A Toot and A Snore
Little Bitty Pretty One
Lucille
Four takes of Stand By Me
Cupid/Chain/Gang and Take This Hammer
Various jams
Lennon record the tracks that appeared on ‘Mind Games’ over July and August, 1973. The album was released on 29 October, 1973 so technically the McCartney sessions of March ’74 may be considered part of the next record for John, ‘Walls and Bridges’, released in September 1974. However, the ‘Walls and Bridges’ sessions were recorded across July and August 1974.
More likely are the sessions to recorded the two songs for Ringo, ‘I’m The Greatest’, used on the ‘Ringo’ album, and ‘Goodnight Vienna’, used on the ‘Goodnight Vienna’ album. Both songs were written by John.
Ringo’s ‘I’m The Greatest’ featured not only John and piano and back vocals but also George Harrison on guitar. Billy Preston, who recorded ‘Get Back’ with The Beatles, is on organ and Klaus Voormann is on bass, making this as close to a Beatles reunion as you can get. This was the first time three former Beatles recorded together. John’s version has been officially released as part of the John Lennon Anthology box set.
John’s ‘Goodnight Vienna’ was the title track of Ringo’s next album released in November 1974. John plays piano on Ringo’s version, Klaus Voorman is on bass, Billy Preston on organ but there is no George on this one.
Outtakes from the ‘Mind Games’ session were officially released on Anthology including the two Ringo songs, the original version of ‘Real Love’, the track that appeared as a Beatles track on the Beatles Anthology 2, and two early versions of ‘Mind Games’ titled at the time ‘I Promise’ and ’Make Love, Not War’.
John Lennon ‘Mind Games, The Ultimate Collection’ will includes 72 tracks on 6 CDs and 2 BluRays. It is coming in June 2024.
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