The Beatles might have broken up and gone their separate ways in 1970 but that hasn’t stopped them living on courtesy of the modern wonders of artificial intelligence (AI).
Paul McCartney revealed Tuesday that AI has been used to extract John Lennon’s voice from a crackly old demo tape to create “the last Beatles record” for release later this year.
The 80-year-old told BBC Radio 4’s Today program the ground-breaking technology was used to separate the Beatles’ voices from background sounds during the making of director Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary series, “The Beatles: Get Back.”
File/30th January 1969/The Beatles performing their last live public concert atop the Apple Organization building for the film documentary, ‘Let It Be,’ on Savile Row, London, England. Ringo Starr sits behind his drum kit. Singer/songwriters Paul McCartney and John Lennon perform at their microphones, and guitarist George Harrison stands behind them. (Express/Express/Getty Images)
Jackson was “able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette and a piano,” McCartney told BBC radio. “He could separate them with AI, he’d tell the machine ‘That’s a voice, this is a guitar, lose the guitar’.”
“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on,” he added. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI so then we could mix the record as you would do. It gives you some sort of leeway.”
McCartney didn’t identify the name of the demo although the BBC and others speculated it was likely to be an unfinished 1978 love song by Lennon called “Now and Then.”
The demo was included on a cassette labeled “For Paul” McCartney received from Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, the BBC report outlined.
McCartney described AI technology as “kind of scary but exciting,” adding: “We will just have to see where that leads.”
The same technology enabled McCartney to “duet” virtually with Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, on “I’ve Got a Feeling” last year at the Glastonbury Festival in England.
File/Rock and roll band “The Beatles” perform onstage at the Washington Coliseum on February 11, 1964 in Washington, D.C. (L-R) Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
AP reports McCartney is set to open an exhibition later this month at the National Portrait Gallery in London featuring previously unseen photographs that he took during the early days of the Beatles at the start of “Beatlemania,” when the band rose to worldwide fame.
The exhibition, titled “Eyes of the Storm,” showcases more than 250 photos McCartney took with his camera between 1963 and 1964 — including portraits of Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Lennon, as well as Beatles manager Brian Epstein.