Now and Then
The Beatles; "Now and Then"; eBay
I’m doing something a little different with this post, in that it’s about just one song. Not in the sense of some of my other posts; this one is about a single.
Maybe it’s recency bias, but I remember exactly where I was when Now and Then was released. It was during my honeymoon, just a couple short years ago. We'd postponed the trip because of life’s usual complications—those unpredictable things that cause you to put off what you really want to do. But we finally made it, and the songs came out when we were in Zurich.
I knew critique about the music would be everywhere—on every platform, every outlet—because of the hype. After all, it’s the final Beatles song to feature contributions from all four members, their voices layered together one last, sanctioned time. It’s also a double A-side, pairing the first song they did and the last. But I was still struck by the sheer reach of it: from Pitchfork to economics blogs, everyone had something to say.
And yet, I hesitated to listen. For a few days, anyway—inevitably, I couldn’t hold myself back. We were tucked away in a ski chalet in Zermatt when I put the song on. Snow was falling heavily on the Matterhorn, preventing us from going up that day. My wife was reading in bed, and I was browsing the web by the window. I was transfixed by the idea of the song being out there in the world, and couldn’t stop myself.
Now I know what part of that initial hesitation came from. Now and Then isn’t just a release—it’s a counterpoint to the idea that nothing ends anymore. Take Star Wars, for instance: an eternal licensing machine, constantly reanimated for new generations, divorced from its original context, sprawling and expanding forever. This is part of the reason nothing that is both new and good is made anymore. I felt myself getting sucked into the vortex of perpetual Beatles licensing just by listening. Inevitably, I think of Anderson .Paak’s tattoo, a direct plea not to publish any of his work posthumously. And Sir Paul is so famously nice that no one would reduce his work to a Dickensian end-of-life cash grab, ripping down the proverbial curtains to squeeze out one more "AI-assisted" album.
But Now and Then is somehow different. The song itself is fine. In a way, it sounds like a Beatles pastiche—there’s nothing wildly inventive happening musically, and it’s got the strings you would expect from George Martin (albeit via his son, Giles). But the idea of the song, what it represents, is far more compelling than the composition. It signals the end of something monumental: the Beatles, yes, but also a larger cultural era, with the preeminence and relevance of the Baby Boomers giving way to younger generations. It’s similar to the way Dark Was the Night meant something—a cultural sea change, a moment crystallized in sound.
At the same time, it was a testament to something the Beatles were always known for: relentless experimentation with new sonic forms. From tape loops to sitars to Moog synthesizers, they were always pushing what music could be by changing the context. That same spirit lives on here, in the machine learning tools that isolated John’s voice and made it possible to hear the four of them together again.
Of course, none of it would’ve come together without Paul. He’s the one with the most consistent work ethic, the one still performing and creating on the same clip that he was all those years ago. Pressure comes with that—he carried the weight of the band’s legacy and made it happen, mostly because he’s animated by the spirit of creation.
There was a time when legacy was something musicians could shape themselves. Now, that stewardship is slipping. Now and Then might not just be the end of the Beatles—it could mark a shift in how we consider authorship and artistic control. It could be a quiet, elegiac gesture that acknowledges its own finality, like the band walked into a snow squall, fading out into tape hiss, never to return. Or maybe it’s the continuation of a new chapter for the culture industry: one where the past is never fully at rest.
Verdict: Keep
Do you think the technologies will bring the culture industry (and by extension, us music fans) endless iterations on old songs and choke out creativity from new artists? A loaded question, to be sure…