WATCH: ‘Last’ Beatles song released
The music video for “Now and Then,” described as the “final Beatles song,” is here.
Peter Jackson, who directed The Beatles: Get Back, helmed the music video, his first foray into music video production. The video features never-before-seen archival footage of the Fab Four: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the late John Lennon and George Harrison.
The music video is described in a press release as “poignant and humorous” and something for fans to “celebrate the Beatles’ timeless and enduring love for one another.”
Jackson also spoke in the press release about the stress he felt while creating the video for such an important project.
“To be honest, just the thought of the responsibility of having to make a music video worthy of the last song The Beatles would ever release triggered a collection of fears almost too overwhelming to bear could handle it,” he said. “My lifelong love of the Beatles collided with the sheer terror of letting everyone down.”
He continued: “This created a lot of insecurity in me because I had never made a music video before and couldn’t imagine how I could even begin to make one for a band that broke up over 50 years ago and never really did had performed.” the song, and half of its members were no longer with us.
WingNut Films Productions
The Beatles perform the song “Now and Then” in a music video created for the newly released single.
Jackson said he was initially concerned about “the lack of appropriate footage”, saying: “A Beatles music video has to have great Beatles footage at its core. There is no way to use actors or CGI Beatles. Every Beatles recording had to be real.
MORE: The Beatles’ final song “Now And Then” is here: Listen
To help, McCartney and Starr took recordings of themselves playing the song and sent them to the “Lord of the Rings” director, while Apple, the families of Lennon and Harrison, and former Beatles drummer Pete Best all excavated recordings were sent to him for use.
Jackson, who also made a short film about the creation of the song “Now and Then,” said that he wanted to achieve a “balance between the sad and the funny” when creating the music video.
“I am genuinely proud of what we have created,” he said, “and I will continue to cherish that for years to come.”