Photo: Martin Wahlborg / iStock Unreleased / Getty Images
I couldn't believe my eyes last week when I saw the email sitting in my inbox. It had to be some kind of mistake. The email was from iHeartMedia Programming and the subject was "The Beatles World Premiere."
Now, we do a lot of iHeartCountry World Premieres here on the radio station. Anytime a superstar puts out a brand new, previously unreleased song from a forthcoming album, you can bet that you'll hear that song on the day of it's release all day on the station! But... The Beatles? A world premiere? A new song? How's that going to work???
Shortly thereafter came another email inviting us to a Teams call to hear more about what was being touted as "the last song from The Beatles." I joined the call, so excited to hear more about this "new," "last" song from The Beatles. I had SO MANY QUESTIONS... and in this call, all questions were answered. The short version- there was a cassette found of John Lennon in his New York City apartment singing this song "Now And Then" while playing piano. It was from the 1970s. Yoko Ono gave the cassette to the remaining members of the Beatles in 1994. George Harrison recorded a slide guitar solo for the song in 1995, but nothing ever came of it. It just wasn't right. Until now. Though the help of AI technology, John Lennon's vocal tracks were separated and isolated from his piano and his song was basically reassembled with George- even though George unfortunately passed away in 2001, and new recordings from 81 year old Paul McCartney, 83 year old Ringo Starr, and a string section conducted by Giles Martin.
How AMAZING is that???
On the Teams call, we were shown a documentary about the song and how it came about. There I was, watching this documentary with tears in my eyes in the entire time over the fact that THE GREATEST BAND of ALL TIME had managed to release a new song 60 years after the band first debuted, and many years after losing two of it's members. Just incredible! That documentary was released yesterday (below). The song was released today at 2pm Liverpool time, which was 10am eastern/9am central/8am mountain/7am pacific here in the states, and over 760 iHeartRadio stations simultaneously played the song upon it's release. It was played on iHeart's Country stations, Pop stations, Adult Contemporary, Classic Rock, Classic Hits, Oldies, Rock, and even News/Talk and Sports stations this morning, which goes to show that The Beatles transcend any traditional "format," and when you hear this song, it's clear that they also transcend time. Ever since learning about the new song from The Beatles, I have been listening to a lot of classic Beatles on iHeartRadio. Their music was, is, and always will be timeless, and that includes their new song released today. It's just so perfect that the new song is called "Now And Then."
What a beautiful day in music history.