HOW DOES the most popular band in rock music history both close out their recording history and celebrate their iconic legacy at the same time? Well, in early November, The Beatles accomplished both, by releasing their last new recording, “Now and Then,” and reissuing their ever popular catalog compilation albums, The Beatles 1962-1966 and The Beatles 1967-1970—known informally as the “Red” and “Blue” albums (Apple/Capitol/UMe), augmented with dozens of new tracks and completely remixed in stereo. “Now and Then” was accompanied by both a 12-minute documentary about its creation, by filmmaker Oliver Murray, and a joyous and fun music video by director Peter Jackson.
The story of “Now and Then” goes back to 1977. As was his custom when songwriting, John Lennon would record a little demo for himself, likely on a boom box set atop or near his piano. Such was the case with “Now and Then”—or, as it was known then, “I Miss You,” as marked on the cassette handed to Paul in 1994. Its title was also known as “I Don’t Want to Lose You,” as seen on a lyric sheet.
A little more than 10 years later, in 1988, George Harrison was enjoying the success of the record made with some of his friends, The Traveling Wilburys. Sadly, one of its five members, Roy Orbison, passed away two months after its release. George revealed in a 1994 interview that he attended a party at Graceland not long after Roy’s death. A discussion ensued about using Elvis’s voice, from existing isolated recordings, as a possible way to continue the Wilbury’s project. The idea was still on George’s mind when he met up with Yoko in New York at the end of his trip.. When he brought the idea up to Yoko, she said, “Oh, I’ve got a tape of John’s.”
In January 1994, Paul brought that very idea up to Yoko, as well, asking if she indeed may have some recordings that might be available for he and the others to try to finish. Upon John’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on January 19, Yoko handed Paul a cassette with four such songs, copied from some of John’s original work cassettes: “Free As a Bird,” “Real Love,” “Grow Old With Me”—and “I Miss You” (“Now and Then”).
Within a month, Paul assembled his former bandmates, George and Ringo – as a possible way to continue the Wilbury’s project. The idea was still on George’s mind when he met up with Yoko in New York at the end of his trip. –to record at Paul’s personal studio in Sussex, England: Hog Hill Mill (informally known simply as “The Mill”), along with (at George’s suggestion) Lynne, who would co-produce.
Paul, who often still worked with former EMI/Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, invited him to engineer the sessions. Emerick, in turn, asked his former assistant on a number of 1980s McCartney projects—Jon Jacobs—to join him in engineering the recordings.
It was decided that of the four songs Yoko had provided, “Free As a Bird” would be recorded by the band. But before any recording could take place, John’s cassette recording had to be transferred to 2-inch, 24-track tape. And it was not a simple matter. A person sitting alone at a piano and recording himself singing a song, without a drummer or a metronome, but just as a work tape, does so at a naturally uneven tempo. So the song had to be put to tape, as the basis of the full recording, in a way that over-came that limitation.
“All we had was the cassette,” Jacobs states. “So what we did was, we chopped the whole recording into bits, recording each phrase of John’s recording into a sampler. We created a click track on the tape, to have an even tempo as a base. Then, at the right point in time for each phrase, we would press the button and play that phrase onto the recording. It was transposed by hand, one phrase at a time. So it was time consuming, and so fidgety. That was our learning curve.”
One other big issue they faced was the presence on John’s tape of his voice combined with his piano, from the simple monophonic recording. “If you wanted to raise John’s voice level at any point,” Jacobs explains, “it meant the piano would come up with it, and it would obliterate the rest of the instruments we were recording. And whenever John’s voice appeared, there was background noise,” hiss, etc., “depending on how loud he was playing the piano.” Paul, then, came up with a solution. “The only way to fix it was for Paul to double-track John’s lead vocal,” doing his best John imitation.
With the approaching release of the three The Beatles Anthology CD sets, the plan was to feature one new Beatles song on each set: “Free As a Bird” on Beatles Anthology 1, and two others for the second and third albums. Two other songs were selected from Yoko’s cassette: “Real Love” and “I Miss You” (henceforth, here, referred to as “Now and Then”). A new set of sessions would take place in February 1995 for the two additional songs. And again, Jeff Lynne was asked to co-produce.
By this time, though, recording technology had begun to advance, so Jeff involved someone whom he had been working with for a few years who was skilled with both arranging and programming, Marc Mann. Marc had also been working with composer Danny Elfman, and was always on top of new gear and new systems, something that could make working with John’s cassette recordings go much smoother. So in late December 1994/early January 1995, the two got to work at a house Jeff was renting, while his now current home/studio was being completed.
Both “Real Love” and “Now and Then” suffered from the same flaws on the tape, so Marc was put to work repairing them. The two musicians were, themselves, most fond of “Real Love,” which was the likely candidate for , so Marc’s repair time was spent on that tune,
