Yeah it reminds me of Jealous Guy a little bit. It is beautiful though in it’s own way.
Everybody needs to stop saying it’s a Beatles song. It’s not. It’s a late John Lennon solo song with guest artists.
Sad to hear how Lennon had the rock beaten out of him. Rock was what he lived for. Rock was what he once played eight hours a night. Losing rock was losing the will to live. You can hear it in this song.
Well, I like it.
I like it quite a bit.
Well, that’s the thing. If you like Lennon’s post-Imagine work, you will like this. Many Beatles fans, including me, don’t care for his later records.
I actually prefer both Paul’s and George’s post-Beatle work to all of John’s post-Beatle work, so i would’ve loved to just have them do one of their own songs as a new Beatle track, and perhaps think outside the box with John’s old recordings. Maybe something like how they did “I’ve Got a Feeling” or “A Day in the Life.” Weave partial John and Paul (or even George) songs together.
The song does have ooomph. But if I’d heard it sometime in the past I might have thought it was a joke song on Dr. Demento.
Boy, Mick still has the pipes, don’t he?
I like the Lennon song, though I prefer the demo version.
I lasted halfway through it before “make it stop” kicked in. This should not have been the final Beatles song. Beatles songs grab you whether you like them or not, and that quality is just not there. I’m with George when he called it effing rubbish. If they were trying to destroy their legacy, this one’s going to really help them achieve it.
I’m a little surprised that Paul couldn’t invent a better hook for the guitar solo, which was kinda blah. That’s really all it needed, to my mind.
Yeah, I’ve now heard it once (thanks for the link), and do not really have much desire to hear it again. A forgettable dirge.
John Lennon is my least favorite Post-Beatles Beatle. I even prefer Ringo’s solo work to his.
Speaking of which… Ringo’s solo albums are almost ‘Beatles’ albums in that all four Beatles played on the early ones. And after John died the other two still routinely played with Ringo.
After listening to it twice so far today, I agree with those who liken it to Lennon’s post Imagine work.
I do enjoy Ringo’s drumming throughout. I enjoyed the instrumentation in general. And Lennon wasn’t in bad form or anything – he just took a back seat to the other players.
I liked it.
It’s not a great Beatles song.
I loved hearing their voices again. And yeah Ringo was good.
Doesn’t Julians voice sound just like his Dad’s? I went back and listened to his few songs. I don’t know if it’s natural or he trained his voice to sound like John, but it does. Amazing.
Well, what can I say, I liked it better than “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love”, much better. Don’t get me wrong, Jeff Lynne is a cool guy, but this “new” song fortunately had little of his production and sounds better. And the production is technically astonishing. Nothing earthshaking, but decent. (just like the recent Stones album)
Quite the ironic assessment.
It falls apart when they’re singing together. I can’t quite decide if it’s autotune or just an elderly voice but it sounds off. I guess for the fans it’s awesome to hear them together, regardless of whether it was the best choice for the song.
I thought Free as a Bird was great, but I would agree that it would have been better a little faster and with 60s punchier / experimental production.
I would agree. It goes like this:
- George
- Paul
- Ringo
- John
How soon we forget…
By the way, what became of this guy?
These are my thoughts exactly. I like the Beatles, and dammit, I also really like John Lennon as a solo artist.
Like the 1995 retread from John’s demos, Now and Then starts out very promisingly sounding like a new Lennon solo cut. But of course we all know what’s coming, the inevitable glurgy 4-part harmony mugging for attention in a song that didn’t need it at all. All the creepier since half the party are now dead.
Revitalize old Beatles tapes or Lennon tapes, but for Chrissakes please stop with the postmortem reunions. Aside from being creepy, it just doesn’t work artistically.