The final song for The Beatles is definitely on the way. Penn Jillette of comedy duo Penn & Teller has heard the song and talked about it in his recent Podcast.
Penn Jillette releases a Podcast episode every Sunday about what he did in the previous week. This particular week he had visited London, went to Abbey Road Studios, and was treated to an advance hearing of the new Beatles song by producer Giles Martin himself, so the source if 100%.
Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller has confirmed he has heard what we suspect is called ‘Now and Then’. At no stage in Penn’s podcast does he refer to the song by name but it is assumed that the John Lennon song ‘Now and Then’, rejected for the mid 90s Anthology series is the song he is talking about.
Jillette has dropped even bigger info. He said Giles was working on remastering the Beatles compilation ‘1962-1966’ (Red Album) and ‘1967-1970’ (Blue Album). It is therefore assumed that the Red and Blue albums will be reissued in expanded form this September or October with what is also assumed ‘Now and Then’ added, and for the sake of the argument, lets also assume the two new song that made Anthology ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ will be there too.
In his podcast, Penn says “There was a recording. The last recording that Paul McCartney did not make money off. There was John Lennon playing piano and singing while watching TV. The TV is loud and John is playing the piano and singing. Paul had this is the 80s when they were doing all Anthology stuff (ed. Anthology was actually the 90s) and Paul got every engineer in the world to try and take out the TV and they all tried and they all failed. Giles (Martin) said to the people on ‘Get Back’ “can you take out the TV on this?” and they said “yeah” and sent them John Lennon from three mics, voice and the TV all separate. So they now have a verse and chorus of John Lennon. In the 80s (ed. It was the 90s) Paul played the track to George and George played some guitar over it so they have that.
“‘Now and Then’ will also feature a chord from an outtake of ‘Because’. “They took that chord, changed the key”, Penn added.
An expanded ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ would also potentially include the songs from Past Masters 1 and 2 not on the album and, if this is the next Beatles box set’, lets also assume it will include the B-sides as well as the A-sides.
If this is where The Beatles next release is heading the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 dates become obsolete. 1962-2023 maybe? But that leaves more inactive years in-between that active years. If the release happens in September, we should expect an announcement in coming weeks. The Beatles usually announce a project six weeks out from release.
The Beatles have traditionally only released one box set a year since the first box featuring ‘Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in 2017. A ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ box will most likely mean that the 2023 Beatles event will be only that, which makes an expanded ‘Rubber Soul’ (the anticipated 2023 release) unlikely.
Solo reissues from Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison have also gone quiet this year. While McCartney, Lennon and Harrison catalogues have been actively worked on, the Ringo Starr back catalogue has gone untouched so far.
Paul McCartney spoke with Australia’s ABC 7:30 program this week.
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