Now And Then comes from a 1978 demo featuring vocals by John Lennon, which was unearthed in 1994 alongside early takes of Free As A Bird and Real Love while Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were compiling The Beatles Anthology.
Both Free As A Bird and Real Love were completed and released as singles in 1995 and 1996, respectively, though Now And Then was shelved without being finished after the audio was considered too poor quality to salvage.
Fast-forward to today, and the song now marks the last release worked on by all four members of the band, with McCartney and Starr using advanced technology on the original recording to enhance Lennon's vocal's, which were originally muffled by piano.
The same technology was used to isolate and "de-mix" overlapping audio in the footage for The Beatles' 2021 Get Back documentary, directed by Peter Jackson.
In a short film accompanying the song's release, Starr commented: "When we started Now And Then, it was very difficult because John was sort of hidden in a way."
"My dad would’ve loved that, because he was never shy to experiment with recording technology,” Sean Ono Lennon said in the clip.
In a full-circle move, the song has been released as a double a-side single with their 1962 debut Love Me Do. Press play below.
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