Now and Then: What The Last Beatles Song Says Three Decades After "Free as a Bird"

By Lina Morgan

When I was really little, my father would latch his giant, plastic headphones around my tiny head and blast music into my eardrums at top volume. I don’t remember this, but photographic evidence suggests that I absolutely loved it. And if my case of tinnitus says anything beyond “eeeeeeee” it’s that I still love it, probably a little too much.

What I do remember from those days was dad’s enormous record collection, especially his ‘45s. I remember taking Dion & the Belmont’s “Runaround Sue” to my preschool’s show and tell. And I can recall feeling baby’s first melancholy while playing “Cathy’s Clown” by The Everly Brothers.

But, of course, what I remember most was The Beatles, unquestionably my dad’s favorite band. Dad played Beatles records more than anything else when I was a kid.

There’s a day seared into my mind from early on. We’d recently moved to the house I’d ultimately spend most of my young life living in. Dad had tasked me with helping him clean up our unfinished, perpetually disastrous basement.

As we worked, he played his Capitol Records 45 of “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. And then we’d flip to the B-side: “I Saw Her Standing There”. And then we’d flip back again. Over and over. We must’ve listened to just those two songs for the whole afternoon. I can still close my eyes and see that yellow and orange record swirl round and round.

The funny thing is that dad didn’t really play me later Beatles records back then. Everything was from that earliest era. “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. “I Saw Her Standing There”. “Love Me Do”. “Do You Want To Know A Secret”. So as I grew older I’d gotten it into my head that The Beatles were just those songs.

By the time I was in high school, I was listening mostly to grunge, alt. rock, punk, and, yes, ska, everyone’s favorite genre to mock. I certainly wasn’t listening to The Beatles when I first turned 14.

One day my dad casually remarked that The Beatles were better than most of what I was listened to. And I laughed out loud because, to my mind, The Beatles were music for kids. All they did was sing about holding hands and, I dunno, sock hops and shit. Baby music for babies. And I told my dad as much.

So my father went down into the basement, which, by now, was a mess all over again. And he pulled out a record in what seemed like a plain, white sleeve. He dusts it off, looks over the track list, and drops the needle.

“She’s not a girl who misses much”. The lyrics of the song grabbed me immediately. And I absolutely lost it at the ironic, titular lyric “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. Bang bang. Shoot shoot. I didn’t know what I’d just heard but I knew it fucking ruled.

“Who is this,” I asked my dad. “The Beatles” he announced, smugly. The year is 1994 and by the end of it I’d gone from basically knowing two Beatles songs to owning their entire discography. I’ve memorized every lyric, gone to a Beatles convention, and gobbled up every factoid I could find within the constraints of the internet 1.0 era.

By 1995 I’m walking around unironically in a military shirt with a peace sign patched on. I play Beatles songs at concerts with my high school band. I quote “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!” liberally.

But the thing I’m concentrated on the most as 1995 rounds the bend is the Beatles Anthology: a documentary series focused on the history of the band. And punctuating the series is two new Beatles songs put together by Paul, George, and Ringo utilizing demo tapes recorded by John Lennon at the Dakota before his murder.

These new songs are a fixation for me. What will they sound like? Will I like them? Will they speak in some way to the legacy of this band that is now both my dad and my favorite?

It’s hard to describe hearing that first song the night it premiered. “Free As A Bird” felt at the time to me as though John Lennon was reaching out from beyond death to connect with me personally. The tinny quality of his audio track felt haunting and wondrous. Paul’s lyric on the bridge was a touching tribute to the friend and the moments lost to time. And George’s lead guitar line felt somehow both mournful and triumphant at the same time. And I wept. I don’t even know that I knew why. I just did.

“Free As A Bird” is not critically acclaimed. It wasn’t at the time and its popularity has only decreased since then. And while my own estimation of the track has waned over the years, I never forgot what it felt like hearing that song for the first time. Or the time after. Or the time after that. The track had, despite criticism from people around me, remained on repeat in my headphones for weeks, even months, after its release.

The second new Beatles song “Real Love” has held up a lot better over the intervening decades. It’s not hard to understand why. The track’s composition was much further along than anything else Yoko had shared with the remaining Beatles. The final result is a far more complete song.

But as much as I prefer “Real Love” in my head, my heart has always connected more with “Free As A Bird”. And it wasn't until years later that I understood my attachment to the song was due in large part to what I was feeling at the time of its release.

I loved my parents. I loved falling in love with The Beatles. But I was still a queer kid growing up in the 1990s. I felt very trapped in my conservative family and town. So for me “Free As A Bird” was about more than just a new Beatles song, on a subconscious level it represented my desire to fly away from a home that didn’t always understand me and my fear that I never would.

But that was then. This is now. And nearly 30 years later, here we are again with what’s being called the final Beatles song.

Back in the ‘90s the limits of technology kept Paul, George, and Ringo from salvaging “Now and Then”, a third Lennon demo the three had attempted to wrangle into a fully-fledged Beatles track.

On the plus side, the 2020s offers A.I. learning which makes the demo more malleable. But the downsides are twofold. For one thing, The Beatles are down another member with George Harrison having passed away back in 2001. And as for “Now and Then” itself, like “Free as a Bird” it’s a rough, incomplete recording.

Can the remaining Beatles still make something out of all that? Or is this a recipe for disaster? Even for someone like me who found “Free as a Bird” to be personally meaningful, there was a great deal of uncertainty.

And yet, doubts aside, I found myself thinking a lot about “Now and Then” in the days leading up to its release. What will the final version sound like? Will I like it? Will it speak in some way, not only to the legacy of the Beatles, but to my own?

There’s a cavernous divide between listening to a new Beatles song at age 15 and listening to the last Beatles song ever at 43. Like I suspect it is with Paul and Ringo, even before listening to it “Now and Then” feels like looking back on a long road of hard-fought victories and agonizing losses in equal measure.

The demo for “Now and Then” was out there even before the Beatles Anthology. And so I’ve listened to it many times over the years, sometimes imagining what the rest of the Beatles might do with it. I’ve even heard it in my dreams. How can reality compare with 28 years of wondering what if?

I thought about driving over to see my dad, to play “Now and Then” for him so we could hear it together for the first time. That was part of what kept me awake the night before the song’s release. But I’ve just come off years of not talking with either of my parents. And even now as we try to cobble together something resembling family again, the conflicts that drove us apart still hang in the air, and that's scary. In 1995 I dreamed of flying away. Now I find myself terrified that I'll make them fly away.

So in the end I just quietly sat in the dark of my own living room, closed my eyes, and pressed play. I listened. And then I listened again. But this time the tears didn’t come. Not yet anyway.

If I try to take myself out of the equation and ask the most basic question, “Is the final version of ‘Now and Then’ a good song,” my answer is “it’s okay”. It is most definitely a song. That may sound like damning with faint praise but I really wasn’t sure if there was enough to the “Now and Then” demo to make a cohesive, well-structured song in the first place.

The strongest part of the song happens as Paul’s vocals and bass come in just before the first chorus. He and the strings section give the song movement and passion. And as the second verse kicks in there’s a nice bit of chunky electric guitar that beefs things up. We get more orchestration. Paul plays a slide guitar as an ode to George. It all feels like we’re building towards something.

I just don’t think we ever quite arrive at the full potential of that something. There’s some nice harmonies, borrowed from old Beatles tracks. But it’s just that: nice. What "Now and Then" ultimately lacks is impact. Just like so many Saturday Night Live sketches, this final Beatles song doesn’t know how to resolve itself. It doesn’t know how to end. Which makes sense in a way. After all, how do you end the song that simultaneously ends The Beatles, too?

Honestly, though, I’m not even sure any of that matters. What matters is if it makes people feel something. And if the hundreds, if not thousands, of reaction videos of people openly and emotionally responding to “Now and Then” speaks to anything beyond the algorithm’s need for content, it’s that people listening do feel something.

I didn’t weep. But I can feel something behind my eyes when John sings “Now and then, I miss you”. I miss a lot of things. I miss the people I’ve lost touch with. I miss the ones who died over the years, before their time. Sometimes I even miss the person I used to be when “Free as a Bird” debuted.

But mostly I miss my parents and the relationship we had at the very beginning. I miss splitting an apple with my mom as dad flips through his 45s before settling on one of the same five we always listen to. The Beatles probably.

More than anything, what matters most to me is that somewhere out there is a 15 year old kid whose love for the Beatles is, like mine was so many years ago, brand new. For them, “Now and Then” is the first time they have ever heard a new Beatles song.

And it’s the last time, too. Maybe that person I’m describing is you. And if it is, I hope “Now and Then” makes you feel the way I did when I heard “Free as a Bird” the first time. I hope it gives you that mix of love for the life you have and a longing for something more. I hope John Lennon feels like he’s singing to you specifically, because he is. And I hope it makes you weep, even if you don’t know why. Someday, I promise. Somewhere between Now and Then… you will.