Watch the premiere of a new short film about the final Beatles song
The 12-minute documentary streams exclusively on CBC Gem in Canada, 1 day before the song is released
The release of the final Beatles song is a day away, but as of 3:30 p.m. ET today you can watch the song's behind-the-scenes documentary via CBC Gem.
Written and directed by Oliver Murray, Now and Then - The Last Beatles Song tells the story behind the new release, which was built around a demo the late John Lennon recorded in 1978. The band tried to finish the recording in 1995 as part of their Anthology series, in which they recorded two previously unreleased songs sourced from the same Lennon demo ("Free as a Bird" and "Real Love"), but the tape was rough and they didn't have enough time.
Peter Jackson, the director and producer of the 2021 Beatles documentary Get Back, was the key to cleaning up Lennon's vocals.
"We had John's voice and a piano and [Jackson] could separate them with AI," Paul McCartney told BBC Radio 4 in June 2023. "They tell the machine, 'That's the voice. This is a guitar. Lose the guitar.' So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this AI."
"To hear John's voice, it's a thing that we should cherish," George Harrison, who died in 2001, said in an interview from the band's 1995 recording sessions, which is included in the new short film. "And I'm sure he would have really enjoyed that opportunity to be with us again."
Watch Now and Then – The Last Beatles Song via the link above on CBC Gem to hear the original demo tape from Lennon, his cleaned-up vocals and the remaining bandmates discussing what finally recording this song meant to all of them. It will air on CBC-TV as part of a half-hour broadcast at 3:30 p.m. ET on Nov. 1, with an encore broadcast at 11:30 p.m. local time.
"Now and Then," the song, will be released on Nov. 2 at 10 a.m. ET.