Giles Martin wanted to “rip off” his father on The Beatles song ‘Now And Then’
Giles Martin, the co-producer of the final song by The Beatles, ‘Now And Then’, has revealed that he sought to “rip off” his father, George, on the track.
Martin was enlisted for the song by Paul McCartney after the surviving members of The Beatles had first attempted to bring it to life in 1995. At the time, though, they were unsuccessful, as the band were unable to get ‘Now and Then’ up to an acceptable standard to release. Now, thanks to technological advancements in the studios, it has been made possible. After the song was released on November 2nd, Martin denied using artificial intelligence to bring frontman John Lennon’s vocals to life.
During a new interview detailing his working process on ‘Now And Then’, Giles Martin offered fans more insight into how he helped Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr get the track released. He explained: “Paul played me what he’d started working on from the ’94 demo plus the extras he’d already done — new bass, piano, the guitar solo. Then we discussed whether to do more things with it.”
The group then created a classic Beatles string arrangement in the style of Giles’ late father, George, who was famously known as ‘The Fifth Beatle’ due to his importance to the band’s work. “We started off with a 22-piece string section,” Martin said, “But eventually I cut it down to eight for most of the song — a double string quartet of four violins, two violas and two cellos”.
He continued: “I was thinking, ‘What would dad have done?’ And I know he would have said, ‘You have to serve the song.’ So yeah, if I wanted to rip off my dad, do it for ‘Now And Then’ by The Beatles.”
The track also contains vocals sampled from Beatles classics such as ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Because’ and ‘Here, There and Everywhere’. However, Martin claimed that he had to persuade McCartney to include them. “Paul was reticent about that, understandably so, because he didn’t want some gimmicky thing. But I just thought, ‘The Beatles would do oohs here and I can’t get The Beatles to do them because two of the oohs are no longer with us’,” he said.
“So I said to Paul, ‘Let me just try it because I think it will sound right.’ He liked the idea in the end — it works for the song,” he added. “‘Now And Then’ does sound like a Beatles song but not one from back in the day. It’s more how a Beatles song would sound now because they’re older. We didn’t try to hide that.”
In other ‘Now and Then’ news, The Beatles made chart history earlier this week as the song went to number one in the United Kingdom. It became the first track by the band to go to the top of the chart since ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’ in 1969, 54 years ago. It eclipses the record set by Kate Bush in 2022 when ‘Running Up That Hill’ went to number one after her last track to do so was 44 years prior.
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