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Steven Baur, Associate professor of musicology, Dalhousie University

Now and Then: How composition choices made John Lennon’s music memo into a Beatles song

John Lennon Beatles George Harrison Giles Martin MCCARTNEY The Beatles
Now and Then finds a place alongside Beatles' songs like We Can Work it Out or Girl which move between major-key and minor-key sections. A still from the song's video. (YouTube)

The Beatles’ “last song ever,” released 61 years after their first single, was bound to be significant.

But how did John Lennon’s lo-fi, 40-something-year-old cassette recording of Now and Then — deemed “fucking rubbish” by George Harrison during the failed 1995 attempt to revive the song — become an instant No. 1 chart hit and worthy addition to the Beatles’ catalogue in 2023?

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