NOW AND THEN
by BEATLES

Now and Then is the 'last' song released by the original, full line-up of The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. Originally recorded a solo Lennon piano and vocal demo, the track first came to fruition in 1979. Following Lennon's death on December 8 1980, Now and Then was considered as a possible reunion single by McCartney, Starr and Harrison; alongside the group's previously-unreleased songs Free as a Bird and Real Love.

Marrying the group's final song with the first release, Now and Then is available as a double A-side release with the group's first-ever Official Singles Chart entry Love Me Do, which reached Number 17 in 1962.

With Lennon's demo having been recorded in the late 1970s at his home in the Dakota Building, New York City, The Beatles revisited the song in 1995 with the intention of including it as part of The Beatles Anthology project. But, while Free as a Bird and Real Love were reworked with producer Jeff Lynne and made publicly available, Now and Then was abandoned; remaining unreleased.

Now and Then's long-rumoured official release was confirmed by the group on October 26 2023, with The Beatles: Get Back documentary director Sir Peter Robert Jackson using WingNut Films' MAL audio technology to extract and clean-up Lennon's original vocals. Jackson also worked on the Now and Then Music video, released on November 3 2023.

The song's inclusion on a reissue of The Beatles' 1967-1970 ('The Blue Album') was also confirmed, with both that and 1962-1966 ('The Red Album') compilation records celebrating their 50th anniversaries in 2023.

Having been released six days into the Official Chart week and with just ten hours of sales counting toward its weekly total, on Friday 3 November 2023 Now And Then still managed to debut at Number 42 on the UK's Official Singles Chart. 48 hours later on the Official Charts First Look bulletin for the new chart week, Now And Then had catapulted out in front in the midweeks, with Official Charts reporting that The Beatles were on course to claim their first UK Number 1 single in 54 years.

On 10 November 2023, The Beatles made a record-breaking return to Number 1 on the UK's Official Singles Chart with Now And Then, setting a new record for the longest time span between an artist's first and last Number 1. Now And Then reached the top of the Official Chart 60 years and 6 months after The Beatles' First Number 1 - From Me To You in May 1963.

Now And Then also signified another record-breaking gap - the band's last Number 1 prior to Now And Then was a whole 54 years earlier, 1969's The Ballad Of John And Yoko.

A huge opening week of sales saw The Fab Four deliver the UK's fastest-selling vinyl single of the century too, according to Official Charts data, as well as the biggest one-week physical sales in nearly a decade, since 2014's X Factor winner's single Something I Need by Ben Haenow.

The accolades didn't stop there either; The Beatles set new personal bests digitally too, notching up the most streams in a week of any Beatles song ever (5 million), while Now And Then became the band's most-viewed official music video in a week with over 2 million UK video streams.