{"id":171910,"date":"2025-08-24T14:33:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/171910\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T14:33:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:33:14","slug":"the-beatles-postscript-songs-compared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/171910\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beatles’ postscript songs compared"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paul<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Sun 24 August 2025 8:00, UK <\/p>\n

Every modern fan of The Beatles<\/a> could probably tell you the time and place they were when they heard the final version of \u2018Now and Then\u2019. After years apart from each other and two of the Fab Four having moved on, this felt like a personal gift to all the band\u2019s fans around the world but when listening to it, one can\u2019t help but be reminded of the first time this happened.<\/p>\n

Because, really, we should have heard \u2018Now and Then\u2019 back in 1995 when The Beatles Anthology was released, but since the demo was so crummy, they decided to shelve a third song from the massive compilation. Although \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019 came out nicely as well as the band\u2019s reworking of the Lennon track \u2018Real Love\u2019, there are always going to be people that have their personal favourites when it comes to which one succeeded the best.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s easy to look at both of them as opportunities for the surviving members to work with their old mates once again, it goes a lot deeper than that when analysing them on a critical level. The production of both the songs are completely different throughout their runtime, and while both of them sound pristine now that \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019 has been remastered, they feel like two sides of the same coin as well.<\/p>\n

Both of them mark a fantastic glimpse into some of John Lennon\u2019s final musical offerings, but when judged together, they can also be considered polar opposites in some respects. Either way that you choose to see them, though, it\u2019s not to view them as a beautiful way of the band sharing their music with the world once again.<\/p>\n

\u2018Free As A Bird\u2019<\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s start with \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019. The Anthology was already going to be a huge undertaking, and the fact that Jeff Lynne was able to make something this cohesive sound good is a work of musical genius that George Martin probably couldn\u2019t have pulled off as effectively. And when judging it on the merits of a \u201cBeatles reunion\u201d, no one could have asked for more than this song when it was released.<\/p>\n

There was no sense of thinking that the band was going to reform and go back on the road or anything, but hearing that soaring slide guitar from George Harrison and Paul McCartney\u2019s answering Lennon\u2019s vocal on every other verse is the best way of finishing a song that was always meant to be half-finished. And since Macca saw this project as a case of Lennon being on holiday and asked his mates to clean up the track, this is them expanding on their craft and getting something that did justice to the musical partner that wasn\u2019t there to enjoy it anymore.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>(Credits: Bruce McBroom \/ Apple Corps LTD)\u2018Now and Then\u2019<\/p>\n

But with \u2018Now and Then<\/a>\u2019, the band got back together under much different circumstances. The technology that they used to separate Lennon\u2019s voice on this track would have been unheard-of back in the 1990s, but now with the benefit of Pro Tools in the mix, Giles Martin took over for Lynne and his father to create what is essentially the ultimate Beatles song, even throwing in different harmony parts from their past to play over McCartney\u2019s tribute solo to Harrison.<\/p>\n

And compared to \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019, \u2018Now and Then\u2019 ends up feeling a lot more like a Beatles song. It definitely has a modern sheen to it in the production, but everything from the unconventional chord progression to the solo to the orchestral touches make the whole thing feel like a strange lovechild of the Abbey Road medley and \u2018Eleanor Rigby\u2019. The song itself sounds far more Beatlesque then \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019, but that also might be a point against it.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)The perfect finale<\/p>\n

Because as much as both songs are great, each of them have elements that make them the perfect final Beatles song in some respect. Their work on \u2018Now and Then\u2019 is the kind of brilliant innovation that shows them still at the forefront of music-making, but if you look at everything critically, \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019 is a much better collaboration. There are pieces of \u2018Now and Then\u2019 that may have been turned around or fleshed out a bit more, but hearing McCartney and Harrison deliver their own verses to \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019 sounds like what The Fab Four may have been doing had they been able to reach the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Then again, both attempts at a reunion seem to be going for a completely different feeling as well. Whereas \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019 is a reminder of the freedom that they had playing music together, \u2018Now and Then\u2019 is from a different point entirely, where McCartney and Ringo Starr get the chance to communicate across generations to let their mates know that they miss them and they hope to see each other again someday. <\/p>\n

Each song feels like two halves of the magical Beatles reunion that everyone had hoped for, but that doesn\u2019t really make one necessarily better than the other. Most people were devastated when they figured out that the band wouldn\u2019t be going on past 1970, so even if it took nearly 30 years between their releases, \u2018Now and Then\u2019 and \u2018Free As A Bird\u2019 are the perfect send-offs that history\u2019s favourite band deserved. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Sun 24 August 2025 8:00, UK Every modern fan of The Beatles could…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":171911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,7657,975,53324,978,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-171910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-lennon","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-paul-mccartney","12":"tag-the-beatles","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115084237538456075","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}