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PENN JILLETTE :
NEW BEATLES SONG DUE IN SEPTEMBER---
HARMONY VOCALS COME FROM "BECAUSE"
by Rip Rense
(copyright 2023 The Rip Post)
The new, "final" Beatles song will be released
in September, claims famed magician and dedicated Beatles appreciator
Penn Jillette.
What's more,
Jillette reports:
*The song
uses de-aged Paul McCartney vocals.
*John Lennon,
Paul McCartney, and George Harrison harmony vocals come from an outtake
of the 1969 Abbey Road song, "Because."
*The song has
brass as well as previously reported strings.
*Ringo had to
be persuaded by producer Giles Martin to record his drum part.
*The song
will be released as part of new Giles Martin mixes of the so-called
"red" and "blue" Beatles compilation albums released in 1973.
None of
Jillette's claims could be independently verified. They were made in
a recent edition of his "Penn's
Sunday School" podcast, and came, he said, directly from Martin
during a recent private tour of Abbey Road studios. Martin allegedly
played the new song for the talking half of "Penn & Teller," and his
daughter, Moxie, but Jillette made no comments about the quality of the
work, or his feelings upon hearing it.
Penn Jillette and silent partner. |
Widely assumed to be the abandoned third
Beatles reunion track from 1995, usually referred to as "Now and Then,"
the song originated as a home demo by John Lennon in 1978. The Jeff Lynne-produced
reunion sessions had already yielded the reunion songs,
"Free As A Bird," and "Real Love." "Now and Then"
(sometimes called "Miss You") was left
unfinished by the so-called "Threetles" because of technical issues
included poor overall sound quality, a buzzing noise, and, according to
Jillette, even the sound of a television in the background.
There are
some questionable assertions in Jillette's remarks. While he said
brass and strings were added in London, this conflicts with Ringo's
account of McCartney and Giles Martin recently flying to L.A. to record
(only) string parts. Jillette's remarkable claim of McCartney's voice
being artificially made to sound younger---supposedly to match Lennon's
then-38-year-old voice---was done casually, without substantiation. The
anecdote of Ringo needing persuading to record a drum part is
contradicted by Ringo's own account, made during his 83rd birthday
celebration July 10:
"We worked on
it when we did the 'Free as a Bird' sessions," Starr said. We did two of
them, then we got to the third (reunion) one, and we sort of let it go.
. .I don't know, Paul must have had a slow day, and he says, you know
that track we did, do you want to work on that? I said sure! And he sent
me the files and I drummed on it, and I sang on it. and I sent it back,
and Giles put it together. And then Giles actually flew back to L.A.
with Paul, who put the strings on. You know, I can only tell you it's a
beautiful track. And it is moving because the four of us are there, and
won't be ever again."
Jillette---dubbed
"America's Trickster Laureate" by the Wall Street Journal in
2012---also claimed that the original "Now and Then" 1995 recording
session featured Harrison on acoustic guitar, McCartney (presumably on
bass) and no drums. Yet producer David Kahne, who worked on "Now and
Then" in 2007, has said that all three Beatles---Harrison, McCartney,
and Starr---were present in vocals and instruments. Ringo's original
drum part was said to be "simple," and the vocals of McCartney and
Harrison described as "trial." But all were recorded. Both Ringo and
McCartney have said in recent interviews that they recently re-did the
drum and bass parts.
As has been
widely reported, the song was rescued by the advent of director Peter
Jackson's artificial intelligence technology (named "Mal 9000," in a
winking tribute to famed Beatles roadie Mal Evans, after the computer,
"HAL 9000," in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey'). For the first
time ever, this AI feature enabled separating mono recordings into
discrete individual tracks--- in this case, separating and enhancing
Lennon's voice and piano, and removing the buzz, TV, and other technical
distortion.
"The TV is
loud and John is playing the piano and singing," said Jillette, the host of
the hit TV series, "Fool Us." "Now Paul had this in the '80's (sic---he
meant the '90's) when they were doing all the Anthology stuff,
and Paul got every engineer in the world and said can you take out the
TV? And they all tried, and they all failed."
Jillette
described the song's process as purportedly related to him by Martin:
"Paul played the
John Lennon track ("Now and Then") for George, and George played some
(acoustic) guitar over it. And they have that. Okay. . .That's why, when
Paul said it was AI, it kind of isn't because (the tracks are only)
separated. But then it kind of is, because Paul wanted to
sing along with John, because that's what the Beatles did. And they made
Paul's voice young. And Paul played bass, and they put an orchestra in,
and they put horns in, and repeated the John thing four times, to make
it a full song, and they put George's guitar. Then they had an outtake
from 'Because' which had George, Paul and John singing together in a
chord. They took that chord, changed the key, and had that to do backing
vocals."
Jillette
went on to say that it was Martin, not McCartney, who pitched Ringo.
"(Giles)
said, 'Would you play drums on this new Beatles track?' and Ringo said,
'I don't wanna.' And Giles said, which I love, "You're the drummer for
The Beatles! This is the last time you'll ever be asked, as the drummer
for The Beatles, to play drums for The Beatles.' And Ringo said, 'Okay,
I'll record it here at my house.' He listened to the track. He played
drums along with it, he mailed it back to Giles."
Jillette said he
also heard AI-enhanced remixes of songs from the so-called red
and blue albums, in which, for example, Lennon and McCartney singing on
one microphone are now AI-separated.
"Twenty
five years ago, very few people imagined that stuff recorded on one
mike could be separated," he said. "That a machine can learn the
difference---I mean, you know your ears can do it. You hear John and
Paul on one mike, and you can tell---that's John, and that's Paul. But
he (Martin) played us some stuff that he remixed---and it was John and
Paul, but instead of being on the same mike like they've always been for
my whole life, they were like a foot apart! You can't imagine the
difference that is.
"(Martin is)
also going in and re-mixing the red and blue albums with all those
tracks laid out separately---because now they can give him five tracks
of drums. I've heard remixes before, but this sounded so wide. It
sounded like Imagine Dragons as if it was The Beatles---that well
recorded."
Whether
the red and blue albums are in fact scheduled to be re-released is
unconfirmed. Another rumor is that The Beatles Anthology is
getting remixed. And Jillette's September release date for "Now and
Then" does not sync up with traditional Beatles release schedules, which
tend to come in late November for the Christmas market.
Teller
reportedly had nothing to say about the matter.
RENSE
"GET BACK" COVERAGE:
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MICKEY MOUSES
"THE BEATLES GET BACK" DVD/BLU-RAY
REVIEW:
LET IT BE---
Six different albums, seven different producers. . .one opinion
A Slightly Personal History of the "Get
Back/Let it Be" Project
Sidebars:
exONOrated?. . .Was the Harrison affair due to an affair?. . .more. . .
"Get
Back/Let it Be" rights and wrongs!
How many "Get Back/Let it Be" covers
are there? This many!
Get Back coverage, front page
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"Now and Then"