Beatlemania in 2023!

A still from the 12-minute short

Given the insistence from the record label, Universal Music, to sign on an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), before we can preview the last song by The Beatles, Now and then, that dropped online, Nov 2 - we're tempted to believe, maybe Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr will show up for its launch at The Beatles Café, at the hippie plus holy quarters of Tapovan, in Rishikesh.

After all, McCartney, 81, is still touring, as we speak. Starr, 83, hasn't muted his drum-set yet. Although John Lennon died, 1980, and George Harrison, 2001. So, how're they even releasing the final track, involving the Fab Four, in 2023?

The story starts in the 1970s. John Lennon, while inactive as a performer in public, was still making music in his Manhattan apartment.

In the mid '90s, Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, passed on three of his demo tracks to band-mates, who worked on them to release Free as a bird and Real love as The Beatles singles. Except, the third one, Now and then, for multiple reasons, seemed hard to rebirth.

The Beatles' Cafe where the launch was held, the Beatles' Ashram at Rajaji National Park, Rishikesh

A rarer, more interesting piece of archive to do with The Beatles is what filmmaker Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, Hobbit trilogy) released as a documentary series, Get Back, in 2021.

The series is on the making of a film (by Michael Lindsay-Hogg) on the last time The Beatles were recording/cutting an album together, in 1969, before they officially split.

The three-part, six-hour doc series - sheer masterpiece, available on Disney+Hotstar - uses 60 hours of raw footage, 150 hours of audio recordings, to piece together the fall of inarguably the world's most loved band.

The audio restorative technology, powered by AI and machine learning, used by Jackson, for his series, it turns out, proved handy with McCartney and Starr going over Now and then again, in 2022.

Meaning, chiefly, a way to cleanly separate Lennon's vocals from the piano in the scratchy home recording. Hence, The Beatles' last track was reborn, in 2023. Jackson has also directed the music video for Now and then.

The Beatles' ashram

That Rishikesh was the chosen venue to preview The Beatles' final song seems obvious. Among other reasons, it's the spot where, as per Jackson's doc, seeds of the band's split were somewhat sown.

That is, at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, where the group, along with friends, had gone to learn transcendental meditation in Feb, 1968. Maharishi died, 2008.

But he was kicked out of the ashram, with the government laying claim to the land as wildlife protected zone - tiger reserve and elephant corridor - by 2001. The ashram itself officially opened for The Beatles' pilgrimage, in 2015-16.

It is part of the Rajaji National Park. While derelict, with various Beatles' graffiti and love-notes on the walls, the ashram, in its original form, survives, as is - meditation domes, hostels, post-office, down to quarters where The Beatles and friends lived in rooms with bathtubs, and the Maharishi's own AC-fitted villa...

The ghost-town overlooks the Ganges from a hilly corner. The ashram is self-explanatorily called Chaurasi Kutiya (84 Huts).

In Rishikesh, the (tour) guide is the friend, and philosopher you trust. According to guide Anurag, "The Beatles were here for 45 days, during which they composed 48 songs, of which 18 made it to their White Album. [Of the Fab Four], Ringo left within 10 days.

"He couldn't take the [sattvic] food. Then there was an issue between Maharishi and [actor] Mia Farrow and her friend [over the yogi's conduct]. They left. Eventually, everyone did."

As you can tell from Jackson's series, Harrison was the one still devoted to the Maharishi. The ashram has Paul Saltzman's photography exhibition on The Beatles' time there, and on transcendental meditation.

Only, it doesn't explain anything on the meditation technique. Another Rishikesh guide Goswami tells us, "Maharishi Ji wanted to fly [while meditating]. He managed to ascend just a foot above the ground."

On the track
The most spot-on line in Jackson's Get Back (2021) is the fact that there is "no duff [Beatles] album." No duff song either. Now and then is not an exception.

With backing vocals by Starr, McCartney, a new slide-guitar section, along with Starr reloaded on the drums, McCartney on bass and piano, including Harrison's guitar recordings from the mid '90s, and Lennon's original voice.

The song, like the entire Beatles' discography, while surely complex in its composition, is the simplest for a lay listener to instantly rattle and hum to.

For the preview of Now and then at The Beatles Café, by the Ganges, in Rishikesh, our phones get taken away, first. We half-expect this to be the moment McCartney/Starr will casually pop in to the café that, besides its name, has nothing to with The Beatles!

They do show up. Albeit in the 12-minute short film on the making of Now and then. That instantly defies the premise of Danny Boyle's film, Yesterday (2019). Which is to imagine a world without The Beatles in it.

AI and its attendant restorative technology have rendered that impossible. The song feels fresh like yesterday. There are two fully pimped-out, remastered albums of 75 Beatles tracks, titled The Red Album (1962-66), and The Blue Album (1967-70), dropping on November 10.