Is the Beatles 1962-66 (the 'red' alb) the only record of theirs that you need?

I didn't mind the four of them being together like that; but it breaks the spell if you have to extend your disbelief to random cello players going home and saying, "Hey, ghost John Lennon and young Paul McCartney were goofing around as we recorded today..."

Can't wait for the 2031 remaster/re-release of this tune & video

There’s no art direction on that video at all. I would have gone black and white and sprinkle animation referencing different eras with footage like what they did on the Lennon and Cheap Trick version of I’m Losing You which feels infinitely cooler and better looking wouldn’t be as uncanny valley. This feels like it was conceived and wrapped in a couple of weeks.

I have few complaints about the concept, I don't mind the idea of young John and George interacting with the others, it's just the execution is absolutely awful.

I just watched the video but only had time to get through about 1:45min of it.

From what I saw it was fine, not sure why everyone was telling me how goofy it is. Actually really tasteful and touching. I was like - "OK I've seen enough, I've got the gist"

Nothing cartoony and wacky and hilarious and embarrassing and "cringe" and jarring and baffling about it at all.

Lol, 1:45 is right before it gets goofy...

(i think that was the joke)

look I don't have the time to go any further, I'm very busy

haha, well played

Paul deep in thought at 2:49, remembering the way he used to mug to camera

Like the string players blankly staring at the goofy Lennon conducting

They can do what they want, it was goofy but fine. But it stands in stark contrast to the absolutely beautiful and moving “Here Comes the Sun” video they released a few years ago.

Ah forgot about that one! Yeah that was the sort of video I was expecting. This one is trying too hard and doing very little.

Video and song are both enjoyable.

Fuck it, I'm gonna go listen to Revolver.

The Microsoft PowerPoint transitions near the end of the video were glorious.

Was hoping for some Lucas diagonal screen wipes or Spielbergian lens flare, but alas.

i liked this more the second time I watched it. it's lighthearted and dumb, who cares.

thought the video was kinda sweet... then @1:47 oh ffs

LOL, yes. Before that, I was wondering - "did he composite Ringo into that shot of Paul?" (The lighting looks off.) Then when we get to that, it's like JFC....

I'm not watching that again. Once was more than enough. Easily the worst thing about this whole endeavor, and it sums up everything I don't like about Peter Jackson - a guy who's great at coming up with new VFX tools but is completely bereft of either the aesthetic taste or sound judgment needed to use them.

The problem I had with the video is that the short film shown in advance of the song being released was quite sensitively done. In contrast, the song video through in footage for far and wide without discrimination in a blatant nostalgia fest. I think there was an opportunity to so something reflecting the "now and then" - maybe just contrasting the 1995 and 2023 sessions - with maybe a subtle reference to John in 1979.

And I don't know why they kept repeating the same clip of George smiling from the 1995 sessions. Was he scowling throughout the rest of the reported 14 hours filmed and there was no other footage?

Was he scowling throughout the rest of the reported 14 hours filmed and there was no other footage?

But it stands in stark contrast to the absolutely beautiful and moving “Here Comes the Sun” video they released a few years ago.

― Sam Weller, Friday, November 3, 2023 3:23 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is such a good & funny comparison. the "Sun" video is a perfect example of how less is more with an institution like the beatles, where the audience is inevitably going to be bringing a gigantic amount of memories, emotions and deep connections to the song, the band, the history, etc, and all thats needed is to create a space for the viewer to access that stuff and it can be a profound experience. whereas the "now & then" video does the exact opposite and seems to be in a frantic panic to be constantly reminding us that the Beatles were four fab lads who started in the cavern club then the world caught beatlemania and they wore sgt pepper suits and did let it be and oh yeah one of them died no wait two of them died and also yellow submarine was good and they had beards at one point etc etc. and its just like, dude, i'm choosing to watch the video, please trust me that i remember who the beatles are and why this is important ffs

Maybe it was made for the UK market, where people are more likely to need reminding than in the US.

I wonder how George would respond once told that "Here Comes the Sun" is the most streamed Beatles song.

NARRATOR: Paul McCartney, when told, had no comment other than "We always knew George had it in him

Forgot George said this when the Anthology stuff was rolled out:

“I hope someone does this to all my crap demos after I’m dead – turn them into hit songs.”

Even the "Free as a Bird" music video repurposed old Beatles clips to better use than this new video.

Think Glass Onion is easily my favorite of these recent remix videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBQIAWh3YBs

BTW, that shot of Paul/Ringo singing reminded me of this hilarious spot during the Classic Albums series for Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" and Eddie Clarke phases in to play (We Are) The Roadcrew" with the rest of the band.

I think it helps to remember that Peter Jackson has pretty much zero aesthetic sensibility (and has been wise enough to surround himself with folks who do for some of his big projects). Whereas LOTR shows the team busting their asses to bring the tech to support the production designers' vision, Hobbit shows what happens when the tech itself is the focus and Jackson exerts more control, so it looks like video game cutscenes. Get Back allowed him to flex his editing and narrative skills with the aesthetics taken care of by Lindsay-Hogg and crew. When he's in charge of the lot, you get stuff like this video.

I think a good contrast is that last Rolling Stones video for “angry” where it goes through different eras and it’s very effective at it - speaking exclusively about the billboards.

that glass onion video above was cool, for some reason I'd never bothered watching it.

Andrew Hickey's perceptive take on Now and Then:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/92258652?utm_campaign=postshare_fan

That was great, thanks.

I don't agree with him on the demo:

And, frankly, he was right. Lennon's original demo is a meandering, borderline-unlistenable, mess

I really like the demo (and the Free as A Bird and Real Love ones), though missed any unexpected reference to Turnham Green. I haven't found the relevant section, but I may have been hearing that as 'wander in eternity' !

For example, in the section that becomes in the final track the middle eight, Lennon sings (starting 2:13 in the demo) "Tow (sic) and then I miss you/Oh, now and then I wan te dow de Turnham Green/I know return to me" as near as I can phonetically transcribe it

Lennon and McCartney's collaboration was often in the form of editing each other's work, and sometimes extensively rewriting it (as when McCartney turned Lennon's sad acoustic dirge about being unloved and uncared for as a child into "Yellow Submarine") and what both men missed in their solo work was the ability of the other to find the core good idea among their bad ones and to polish it up for them and turn it into something workable. Both released plenty of fatuous solo work that could have been turned into classics with just a little bit of help from the other (as well as both releasing plenty of actual classics in their solo work).

It seems like a lot the examples of McCartney's solo work with the most critical cachet are tracks that sound kind of half finished - Maybe I'm Amazed, Ram, McCartney II, is this because people hear them as demos for Beatles songs that never were? Though I suppose the white album, Let It Be and at least the medley section of Abbey Road have a kind of unfinished, directionless quality to them as well. Even before they split up it feels like they'd reached the limits of what they could think of to do.

i don't get the idea that ram sounds half-finished - the arrangements are lush, rich and elaborate, and george martin does orchestral arrangements on a few tracks! it's basically paul continuing from where abbey road left off and deciding to make his own smile.

mccartney i & ii sure do sound half-finished but neither's really that good overall. mccartney ii is fascinating and endearing but only half of it is really that compelling, though the good ideas he had were really good and i would have loved for him to do a whole album of "coming up"s or a whole album of ymo/kraftwerk-esque synth pieces. it's just a weird grab bag of ideas as-is though.

man, I wished he'd kept going in THIS direction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5GVEfxZFbg

xp and ram is easily one of the most beatles-esque of all their solo albums yeah

"secret friend" is the best and a whole album in the vein of it and "all you horse riders / blue sway" would have been wonderful

secret friend is one of the best post-beatle things and the first mccartney track to break through the (not entirely false but woefully reductive) stereotypes about his solo work for me

and while I agree with a lot of hickey's points but the notion that lennon in the late 70s was more or less over the beatles is a total misreading and a disappointing concession to official mythology from someone who is usually better than that - if anything it was mccartney who was closer to acceptance over the end of the band at that time (in spite of his claims to the contrary in the last few decades)

I don't know about "over" the Beatles, but he seems to have the most balanced perspective by December 1980...

I liked the piece. I shared it with a few friends.

*seems to have had

yeah he was good at bluffing

esp in interviews he knew were for posterity

Ultimately, I don't care. To divine intentions is a mug's game, especially with four guys who knew they'd created the 20th century's most persistent, annoying mythos.

It’s okay, but I still prefer this Last Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch_Fb0AnzC0

the Firemen albums are McCartney going further in the direction of Secret Friend, to varying degrees of success (I think the third one is the only one that is completely successful)

Wow, nice article (Hickey on Patreon), thanks for sharing! Didn't expect Rutles and Asimov references, and it's particularly illuminating for him to point out Lennon's last words spoken in person to McCartney ("think about me every now and then, old friend") - so the title "Now and Then" has multiple meanings...

In 1981, a few months after Lennon’s death, McCartney invited Carl Perkins to collaborate on ‘Get It’, a song from his 1982 album, Tug of War. While working in the studio, Perkins showed McCartney a new song, ‘My Old Friend’, which contained the words: “Think about me every now and then, old friend”. Touched by the familiar lyrics, the former Beatle left the room in tears.

In a 1996 interview with Goldmine magazine, Perkins revealed an ensuing conversation between himself and Linda McCartney. “Paul was crying, tears were rolling down his pretty cheeks, and Linda said, ‘Carl, thank you so much.’ I said, ‘Linda, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.’ She said, ‘But he’s crying, and he needed to. He hasn’t been able to really break down since that happened to John.’

“And she put her arm around me and said, ‘But how did you know?’ I said, ‘Know what?’ She said, ‘There’s two people in the world that know what John Lennon said to Paul, the last thing he said to him. Me and Paul are the only two that know that, but now there’s three…you know it. I said, ‘Girl, you’re freaking me out!’…She said the last words that John Lennon said to Paul in the hallway of the Dakota building were…he patted him on the shoulder, and said, ‘Think about me every now and then, old friend.’”

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/john-lennon-words-paul-mccartney-carl-perkins/

Love it. I almost didn’t believe, or didn’t want to believe, until the part where he said “Girl, you’re freaking me out!”