The Beatles Release 'Now and Then' | Hacker News Reader

The Beatles Release 'Now and Then'

goldradiouk.com

15 pointsgeox12 comments

So apparently I'm in a HN minority (given the current comments) given that I absolutely love this single and in fact it almost immediately made me cry hearing John's voice and those lyrics. The song made me think about the passing of time, my own aging, and the people I've lost along the way.

I think it's a beautiful song and I think watching the "Making Of" video made the song more impactful for me, making me think of those four close friends and now with only two of them left... "Now and Then"

This song has a more…”distant” quality to the sound. It doesn’t seem (to me) like the other songs from before. The lyrics seem a bit too short in comparison too. But it’s haunting enough for me to listen to it several more times.

I was recently listening to a few of those melancholic or nostalgic songs because they were different yet similar to their original styles — The Fool on the Hill, Nowhere Man, Eleanor Rigby, Norwegian Wood, Girl, Michelle, Strawberry Fields Forever, In My Life, and Yesterday.

Edit: I hope deepfakes and AI don’t create more Beatles (or Beatles-like) songs. It’s enough to have what we have and be contented with those.

It's not very good imo. If it weren't the Beatles, it wouldn't be heard.

It's not going to be my favourite song but the official video did bring a few tears to my eye. There are plenty of worse Beatles songs.

a) As with all of this material, it's stuff they chose not to publish, even later on b) Unlike "Free as a Bird", this one has been done with no sympathy for the original sound. It just sounds weird with those modern compressed piano sounds all over it.

There's a weird wobbly, bassy thing happening under the vocal, at about 1:10. I'm not sure if it's an artifact, or Paul's voice being wobbly or what. Sounds a bit like tape flutter, or like the weird oompah noises on I Am the Walrus.

I notice that now that you pointed it out. The original does not seem to have it. https://youtu.be/ml3n25OzpYM?t=133

And, the equivalent bit doesn't particularly sound like it'd require heavier processing to extract the vocal. To my naive ears anyway. It seems like quite an odd thing to add deliberately though, given they're not really crazy sonic experimentalists at this stage.

I think the voice sounds very synthetic, and the overall tone very dystopian and weird.

Yes, and it was done for the money too - artistic integrity be damned!

I think it's an absolutely incredible Electric Light Orchestra single masquerading as the Beatles. (I think that's a good thing!)

Direct link to the official music... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW55J2zE3N4

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