The Fab Four on Thursday released what they’ve called their last song, “Now and Then.”
The Beatles tune was 45 years in the making, with the first bars written in 1978 by John Lennon, BBC News reported. In the years since, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr worked on the song, with McCartney and Starr finishing it more than four decades later.
The song is being released on a double A-side, paired with the group’s 1962 debut single “Love Me Do.”
The song is the last of three to be created from demos written by Lennon and shared with McCartney by Yoko Ono, who gave McCartney a cassette labeled “For Paul” in 1994, The Guardian reported. It was made with the help of artificial intelligence, with the technology used to help better isolate Lennon’s vocals from the demo, according to the newspaper.
The song uses guitar parts recorded by Harrison in 1995, six years before his death.
Lennon died in 1980 after he was shot in New York City.
The Beatles on Thursday also released a short documentary showing the process that led to Thursday’s release.
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