Artificial intelligence (AI) has already enabled the creation of the ‘last Beatles song’, Now and Then, which raced to the top of the charts this week.
Filmmaker Peter Jackson used an AI tool called ‘machine audio learning’ (MAL) to isolate John Lennon‘s voice from an old 1970s home demo.
The vocal performance – rendered ‘crystal clear’ by the AI – was then complemented by new instrumentation from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with guitar recorded by George Harrison for the song in 1995.
But MAL’s work may not be finished, as it could be used to salvage the last filmed interview of John Lennon, recorded less than two months before his tragic murder.
Long to the frustration of fans, much of Lennon’s answers to questions in the historically priceless clip are drowned out by – somewhat bizarrely – the sound of the first Star Wars movie.
The last filmed interview of John Lennon – which took place in New York on October 10, 1980 – could be restored to
READ MORE Now and Then storms to the top of the UK charts
Staff at a London record store holds a copy of Now and Then on November 3. The song was more than 40 years in the making
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It results in what is a bizarre mashup of two of the greatest cultural giants of the 20th century – Star Wars meets the Beatles.
The interview was filmed on October 10, 1980, a day after Lennon’s 40th birthday and less than two months before he was brutally gunned down outside his home in New York’s Dakota building by a ‘fan’ with easy access to firearms.
In the video, Lennon is chatting to Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn at New York’s Hit Factory Studios, where the former Beatle and his wife Yoko Ono were recording and mixing their comeback album, ‘Double Fantasy’.
Lennon’s personal assistant, Fred Seaman, allegedly set up a RCA video camera to capture the informal chat, although it’s unclear if Lennon was aware of it.
The reason Star Wars was being played is studio engineers were incorporating the film’s sound effects into one of the album’s songs, ‘Beautiful Boys’, during the latter stages of the album’s production.
The footage represents not only John’s sole video interview of 1980, but the final filmed interview of the famous Liverpudlian ever recorded.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono standing outside New York’s Dakota building in 1980. They made their spectacular comeback that November with the album ‘Double Fantasy’
Now and Then has its origins as a composition recorded onto cassette by John Lennon in his New York home in the Dakota building in the late 1970s
What we can hear from the interview – while Star Wars is not playing – covers several topics, including his former bandmate Paul McCartney, who he refers to as ‘my dear one’.
He also says he was ‘never surprised’ by McCartney’s songwriting ability and compares him to a ‘brother’ before the sound of stormtrooper blasters take over.
In addition, he discusses the critical reaction to the Beatles’ films film ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ (1967) and Yellow Submarine (1968), which he calls ‘my favourite Beatles movie’.
Lennon reflects on the decision by the BBC to premiere ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ in black-and-white rather than in colour, calling the broadcaster’s staff ‘stupid idiots’.
Experts are hopeful that MAL could be used to separate Lennon’s voice from the sound effects in a similar way to how it isolated Lennon’s vocals from his piano on the Now and Then demo.
MAL works by identifying different sounds on a recording and separating them from each other, even if they were originally recorded on the same track – akin to ‘unbaking a cake’.
Dr Adam Behr, senior lecturer in contemporary and popular music at Newcastle University, told MailOnline ‘it might be possible’.
Peter Jackson’s production company WingNut Films’ machine audio learning (MAL) audio technology was used to finally finish Now and Then
Before the making of Now and Then, Peter Jackson used MAL for his 2021 Disney+ documentary ‘Get Back’ to uncover hidden studio conversations between the Beatles during rehearsals
MAL was created by WingNut Films, the Wellington, New Zealand production company led by Jackson (pictured left)
‘I think a lot would depend on the extent to which the microphone actually picked up what John Lennon was saying in the first place,’ Dr Behr told MailOnline.
‘If his actual words are on the underlying recording but just inaudible because the background noises are louder then potentially – yes.
‘If the sounds from the background prevented his voice from getting to the microphone (and onto the tape) then perhaps not.’
MAL was created by WingNut Films, the Wellington, New Zealand production company led by Jackson, perhaps best know for his The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Before the making of Now and Then, Peter Jackson used MAL for his 2021 Disney+ documentary ‘Get Back’ to uncover hidden studio conversations between the Beatles during rehearsals.
John Lennon (top right) and the other three Beatles after receiving their MBEs from Her Majesty the Queen in 1965
The former Beatle performs onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York City, August 1972
Video shows MAL at work on footage from the Get Back sessions at Twickenham in January 1969
If Jackson’s team were to clean up the footage, it could ‘really help’ reveal new details about Lennon, according to Beatles scholar Kenneth Womack.
‘I would love to see a restoration of that video,’ he told MailOnline.
MailOnline has contacted WingNut Films and Abbey Road Studios for comment.
Now and Then: The story of the ‘last Beatles song’ finally finished using artificial intelligence (AI)
‘Now and Then’ has its origins as a composition recorded by John Lennon in his New York home in the Dakota building in the late 1970s – about 10 years after the Beatles broke up.
Lennon played the song while a cassette recorder was running on top of his piano, although the composition was at the time unfinished.
This demo – which has been on YouTube for years – was only intended as a rough run through and was accompanied by electronic ‘hissing’ and buzzing from the mains.
Lennon played the song while a cassette recorder was running on top of his piano, although it was at the time unfinished. He’s pictured here during studio sessions for Imagine (1971)
Fourteen years after Lennon was brutally murdered, his widow Yoko Ono handed over a tape of the recording to Paul McCartney.
With Ono’s blessing, the other three Beatles had agreed to work on the song with the aim of finally finishing it, along with three other Lennon compositions (‘Free as a Bird’, ‘Real Love’ and ‘Grow Old With Me’).
Free as a Bird and Real Love were completed and released, in 1995 and 1996 respectively, but work on Now and Then halted after two days and the song was shelved. Work was never started on Grow Old With Me, which had already been released on Lennon’s posthumous album ‘Milk and Honey’.
The Now and Then demo in particular was blighted by the mains hum and, in McCartney’s words, ‘every time I wanted a little bit more of John’s voice this piano came through and clouded the picture’.
Luckily, George Harrison recorded acoustic and electric guitar parts for the song that were kept.
Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr work on a John Lennon demo during the mid 1990s
A breakthrough came more than a quarter of a century later thanks to ‘machine audio learning’ (MAL) technology developed by Peter Jackson and his team at WingNut Films.
MAL can identify different sounds on a recording and separate them from each other, even if they were originally recorded on the same track.
The AI was able to take John’s demo, remove the piano and the mains hum and render the vocal ‘crystal clear’.
The easy bit was adding fresh music to finally complete the song.
Paul McCartney laid down a new bass part, a slide guitar solo, electric harpsichord and a piano line that mimicked John’s original on the demo.
Ringo Starr added drums and percussion, while both the surviving Beatles contributed vocals.
Guitar recorded by George Harrison for the song in 1995 was included and formed an integral part of the final song’s arrangement, according to producer Giles Martin, son of ‘fifth Beatle’ George Martin.
As a final touch, a string arrangement secretly recorded at Capitol Studios in LA were added, as well as snippets three-part harmony vocals recorded by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison in the 1960s.
Now and Then features on the reissue of legendary Beatles compilation The Blue Album, which, along with The Red Album, was released on Friday
Beatles fans are hopeful that Paul McCartney and Giles Martin will create new mixes of Free as a Bird and Real Love using MAL with much clearer lead vocals from Lennon.
Unlike the new single Now and Then, these two Beatles songs completed in the 1990s maintain Lennon’s original piano and have a comparatively fainter, weaker vocal.
Peter Jackson told the Sunday Times last week that more ‘new’ Beatles music could conceivably be found among recordings and rehearsals in January 1969 (the subject of his ‘Get Back’ documentary).
‘We can take a performance from Get Back, separate John and George, and then have Paul and Ringo add a chorus or harmonies,’ Jackson said.
‘You might end up with a decent song but I haven’t had conversations with Paul about that.
‘It’s fanboy stuff, but certainly conceivable.’
Now and Then has been billed as the ‘last Beatles song’, but fans know there are more tunes in the vaults that haven’t had an official release.
Perhaps the most famous of these, the 13-minute avant-garde piece ‘Carnival of Light’, was recorded by all four Beatles at Abbey Road in January 1967.
Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn described the experimental, improvised track as ‘distorted’ and ‘hypnotic’.
‘It’s not a big deal in my world because I’ve heard it,’ he said. ‘And it won’t be a big deal in anyone else’s world once they’ve heard it! It isn’t that amazing, but it’s important in its own way.’
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
