LONDON, October 26. /TASS/. The latest song by The Beatles will be released on November 2, according to a statement on the band’s official website.

The song is called "Now and Then" and will be available for listening on streaming platforms on November 2 at 02:00 p.m. London time (05:00 p.m. Moscow time).

The song was written and performed by John Lennon in the 1970s. Almost fifty years later, it was refined and brought to its current state by two living members of the band - Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The song, recorded on a cassette in rather poor quality, was actually recreated using artificial intelligence (AI).

"Together and apart, The Beatles have always had a talent for the unexpected. And now, 2023 brings one of the most anticipated releases of their long and endlessly eventful history," the statement says.

About the song

Almost 15 years after Lennon was killed in New York in December 1980, McCartney received a demo from Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono. It was one of several songs on a cassette labeled "For Paul." Among the songs on the tape were "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love," which were released as singles in 1995 and ended up on the first and second parts of the Anthology album, released in 1995 and 1996.

Lennon's vocals from the cassette were mixed with a musical theme put together by Paul McCarthy, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, and with their voices.

The band members attempted to record a studio version of "Now and Then" as well, but ran into a slew of difficulties all at once. Harrison called the song very weak and did not want to work on the unfinished piece. In addition, the quality of the recording made by Lennon on the tape recorder was poor, and the musician's voice was very difficult to separate from the background noise. According to McCartney, he returned to the abandoned project after filming the documentary "The Beatles: Get Back" by New Zealand-born director Peter Jackson.

AI help

Paul McCartney announced the release of "Now and Then" in June in an interview with BBC.

"He [Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette, - McCartney told BBC, - We had John’s voice and a piano and he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine: "That’s the voice. This is a guitar, Lose the guitar". So, when we came to make what will be the last Beatles’ record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI. Then we can mix the record, as you would normally do," he explained.

The musician confessed that sometimes thinking about what AI technology is capable of scares him.

"I am not on the internet that much [but] people will say to me, "Oh, yeah, there is a track where John is singing one of my songs" and it is just AI, you know? It is a kind of scary but exciting, because it is the future. We’ll have to see where that leads," Paul said.

The Beatles lasted from 1960 to 1970, after which they disbanded, and each of the four musicians embarked on their solo careers. To date two of the four former Beatles are alive: Paul McCartney (81) and Ringo Starr (83). John Lennon was shot dead in 1980 in New York by a fan, and George Harrison died in 2001 after a long battle with cancer.