Paul McCartney uses AI to resurrect old John Lennon demo for “final Beatles record”

Paul McCartney has revealed an upcoming Beatles song, which uses an AI-enhanced version of an unreleased John Lennon demo.

An old demo of John Lennon singing has been used to create a new song with ex-Beatles member Paul McCartney.

Provided by Yoko Ono, the demo was labeled “For Paul” before Lennon was killed in 1980. Speaking with BBC Radio 4, McCartney detailed how they managed to salvage the old recording.

Dubbed “the final Beatles record” by Sir Paul McCartney, AI has managed to “extricate” Lennon’s vocals from what is described as being recorded onto a boombox.

This isn’t the first time this has been done, as two songs in 1995 and 1996, Free as a Bird and Real Love, were published while another Beatles member, George Harrison, was still alive.

The song, expected to be called Now and Then, was marred with audio issues when considered by the surviving three Beatles. Harrison apparently gave up on trying to work with it.

“The final Beatles record” will feature lost John Lennon vocals

However, McCartney and his team have continued to consider it for release, and with the rise in technology from AI, it is now planned to be released later this year.

The software was able to rescue Lennon’s vocals for McCartney to begin working on to turn into a full song. When they gave up originally, it was just a chorus backed by buzzing.

McCartney’s interview with BBC Radio 4 also gave his reaction to the AI remixes with Lennon singing McCartney’s songs:

“I’m not on the internet that much [but] people will say to me, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s a track where John’s singing one of my songs’, and it’s just AI, you know?

“It’s kind of scary but exciting because it’s the future. We’ll just have to see where that leads.”