Paul McCartney announced the "last" Beatles song created with the help of AI
Paul McCartney announced the "last" Beatles song created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). This technology was used to extract from an old demo recording the voice of John Lennon, who died in 1980, to create what Sir Paul calls "the last Beatles album". "We've just finished it, and it's coming out this year," the octogenarian McCartney told the BBC.
He didn't name the song. The BBC suggested that, most likely, this is a 1978 Lennon composition called Now and Then. It was considered as a possible "reunion song" by the Beatles in 1995. McCartney received a demo recording a year earlier from Lennon's widow Yoko Ono. The collection includes several songs on a cassette called "For Paul", which Lennon recorded shortly before his death. Most of the tracks were recorded using a boombox while the musician was sitting at the piano in his New York apartment.
The Beatles were one of the most successful bands in the history of music. In 1970, they broke up. Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980, Harrison died in 2001.
Over the years, Sir Paul has repeatedly spoken about his desire to finish the song. Now technology has given the musician a chance to achieve this goal.
The turning point was Peter Jackson's documentary "The Return", in which the dialogue editor trained computers to recognize the Beatles' voices and separate them from background noise and even their own tools to create a "clean" sound.
The same process allowed Sir Paul to "duet" with Lennon on a recent tour, as well as for new mixes with surround sound for the album Revolver, which was supposed to be created last year.
"We had John's voice and a piano, and they could be separated by AI. They tell the car: "It's a voice. It's a guitar. Lose the guitar," McCartney explained.
However, the musician admitted that other applications of AI cause him concern. "It's a little scary, but exciting because it's the future. We just need to see where it leads," he said.
The star spoke to BBC Radio 4 on the eve of the presentation of a new book and a photo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The project titled "Eyes of the Storm" features portraits taken by Sir Paul on his own camera between December 1963 and February 1964, when the Beatles catapulted to worldwide fame.
Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm will be held at the London Gallery from June 28 to October 1.
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