A Beatles ‘Reunion’ Can at Last Be Put Right: Opinion
by Rip Rense
From the Beatles’ “Now and Then” 2023 video, directed by Peter Jackson
The reunion of the greatest band in history was flawed, faulty, well-intended, but with a tortured, complicated history involving old cassettes, new producers and limited technology.
Now it can be put right. Or certainly much righter.
Beatles sons Dhani Harrison and Sean Ono Lennon are pushing to have John Lennon’s technologically crude vocal on the reunion tracks, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” improved via artificial intelligence, much as John’s home cassette vocal was clarified, with great success, on the reunion song, “Now and Then,” which won a Grammy in 2025 for Best Rock Performance.
This is a long overdue idea, but, more importantly, it opens the door to restoring, remixing, enhancing, even re-recording parts of all four songs given by Yoko Ono to the “Threetles”—George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr—for completion in 1994.
In short, this is an opportunity to finish the troubled, uneven reunion project properly, with trademark Beatles polish, once and for all, preferably as a four-song EP.
Yes, four songs. Ono presented the three surviving ex-Beatles with crude home demo cassettes made by Lennon in the late ’70s of “Free as a Bird,” “Real Love,” “Now and Then” and “Grow Old With Me.”
“Bird” was released in 1995 on The Beatles Anthology, Vol. 1, and “Love” followed in Vol. 2 in 1996 [both available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here]. Harrison reportedly rejected “Grow Old…” as too emotionally taxing to work on, and he flat out refused to finish “Now and Then,” ostensibly because there was a terrible buzz on the cassette, and the song was clearly unfinished.
Related: About the “Now and Then” video
McCartney and Starr, with the blessings of the Lennon Estate and Olivia Harrison, George’s widow, completed “Now and Then” in 2023, when they realized that The Beatles: Get Back director Peter Jackson’s AI invention—dubbed MAL-9000 in tribute to Beatles aide Mal Evans and the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey—would render Lennon’s home vocal in near-studio quality, and remove both the buzz and echoey home piano placekeeping part.
In a January 2025 interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Japan, Dhani Harrison said, “I hope for it (‘Free As a Bird’) to be worked on the same way, to remix those original songs (‘Bird’ and ‘Real Love’) using the same technology as we used on ‘Now And Then,’ because they didn’t have that in the ’90s.”
Dhani Harrison
He and Sean Lennon, he added, listened to a version of “Bird” upgraded with AI, declaring, “We were both very impressed at how it sounded.”
Producer Jeff Lynne originally split Lennon’s voice into something like 50 channels, for the “Threetles” to accompany, accounting for the echoey “wall of sound” lead vocal that sounded, as many critics put it, “ghostly.” To his credit, Lynne did improve the quality of the Lennon vocal in new mixes of “Bird” and “Love” for the DVD release, The Beatles 1, in 2015 (also changing Harrison’s solo vocal in “Bird,” and adding many more guitar fills in “Love”), but AI would take the vocal quality a quantum leap further.
But much more needs to be done, from drums to arrangements to cleaning up yet another Lennon vocal.
Under Lynne, critics correctly said, the first two reunion songs sounded less like the Beatles and more like trademark Jeff Lynne/ELO productions that happened to include former members of the Beatles. Evidence? Witness the glaring absence of a George Martin string and/or horn arrangement underpinning “Bird,” something that surely would have happened had Martin produced.
What’s more, Ringo famously said he “hated” the fact that Lynne made him record his drums piecemeal—snare, then kick drum, then cymbals, then fills—preventing the drummer from finding the songs’ natural feel, groove. Then there is the fact that Lynne slightly speeded up “Love,” changing it from the languid, poignant ballad that Lennon intended into something quasi-uptempo. This diminished the song’s allure.
Mal Evans (r) with Michael Lindsay-Hogg, George Martin and Ringo Starr in Peter Jackson’s Get Back.
Why didn’t Martin produce the sessions? The fabled Beatles musical mentor said at the time that he declined the project on the basis of hearing loss, and simply because he disapproved of it. Yet there have been many credible reports that this was a cover story, to give him a graceful out, and that George Harrison only agreed to the reunion on the condition that Lynne—who had produced his hit Cloud 9 album in 1988, and The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 and 3—produce the new Beatles songs.
As for the sad fate of the proposed reunion song, “Grow Old With Me,” Ono, disappointed that the band rejected it, later asked Martin to write an arrangement for Lennon’s home recording of the tender song. Martin obliged with lovely string-and-flute orchestration, and the song was released on the Lennon Anthology boxed set—despite Lennon’s tinny vocal, primitive piano, and ticky-tack rhythm box.
Now the piano and rhythm box can be removed, the vocal cleaned up, and the song properly added to what should become a full Beatles reunion EP. The prescription:
“Free as a Bird”—After AI-repairing Lennon’s vocal, Ringo should be allowed to, yes, re-record his drumming in normal fashion, where he finds his feel, as opposed to the machine-like sound Lynne insisted on in the original. This would make a huge difference in establishing more of a Beatles feel. Then, as per the wonderful string arrangement on “Now and Then,” composed by Giles Martin, McCartney and Ben Foster, a George Martin-esque orchestral part should be added, giving the song something to rest on. (McCartney initially said that he heard a George Gershwin-like arrangement, and there is a Royal Philharmonic instrumental version of the song that follows this instruction, and could provide some guidance.) The Lynne remix for The Beatles 1, with louder Lennon vocal and new Harrison vocal, should be the basis for the remake.
“Real Love”—Originally a slower, poignant ballad, it can be returned to its proper tempo, allowed to find the original mood intended by Lennon. Ringo can record a new drum part where he can find his groove, replacing the existing piece-by-piece recording insisted upon by Lynne. The Beatles 1 mix, with the many extra Harrison guitar parts, should be the basis of the remake.
“Grow Old With Me”—Use MAL 9000 to remove the click track and echoey piano on the Lennon Anthology version with the George Martin string/flute arrangement, and to improve the presence and quality of Lennon’s original cassette demo vocal. For those who argue that this is not the Beatles, consider the various songs with single Beatles produced with Martin arrangements under the title the Beatles. Among them: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (for The Beatles Love), “Yesterday,” Lennon’s own “Good Night.” There is, in other words, precedent.
“Now and Then”—With the inclusion of this song on a reunion EP, the original four songs presented to the “Threetles” by Ono would, at long last, be given due completion. Lennon’s bridges in “Now and Then” (“I don’t want to lose you”) should be restored here, as they have been by fans on YouTube. They give the song much more dimension. And finally, an actual George guitar solo could easily be devised from existing solos in the Harrison solo catalog (speed and pitch-corrected as necessary), something that should have been done in the first place, instead of Paul doing an impression of a Harrison solo.
This would mark the last chance for straightening out the long and winding recording road of this troubled project, and giving it the dignity and polish it deserves.
Call it “The Beatles Reunion—Special Edition.”
Check out these links:
“Now and Then” with missing bridges
“Free As a Bird” Royal Philharmonic Gershwin-esque treatment
“Free as a Bird” (Beatles 1 DVD improved remix, different Harrison vocal)
“Real Love” (piano demo, original tempo)
“Real Love” (Beatles 1 DVD improved remix, with more George guitar fills)
“Grow Old With Me” (with George Martin arrangement, rhythm box, echoey home piano)
The Beatles’ 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 (2023 Editions) are available here: 180-gram 6-LP set (U.S. and U.K.); 180g 3-LP black vinyl Red (U.S. and U.K.); 3-LP black vinyl Blue (U.S. and U.K.); 2-CD Red (U.S. and U.K.); 2-CD Blue (U.S. and U.K.).
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