Photo by Bruce McBroom / © Apple Corps Ltd.
The Beatles’ “final” song “Now And Then” is on its way to becoming a British chart title.
Based on sales and streaming data for the first 48 hours of the chart week, “Now And Then” is in pole position, outperforming the rest of the top five combined, the Official Charts Company reports.
If it holds its spot, “Now And Then” will become the Fab Four’s 18th UK chart-topper and their first in 54 years, since “The Ballad of John and Yoko” topped the weekly chart in 1969.
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“Now And Then” actually debuted at number 42 in the UK last week based on just 10 hours of sales, but is now expected to jump 41 places to the top of the Official Singles Chart when the chart is released on Friday November 10th become .
The culmination would be a remarkable journey for Now And Then. The track began as a demo, written and sung by John Lennon, was later engineered and edited by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and now completed more than 40 years later by Paul and Ringo, the surviving members of the Beatles the group began with working on it.
The late Lennon’s vocals and piano part were recorded on tape at New York’s Dakota Building in the 1970s and remained there until film director Peter Jackson and his team at WingNut Films developed the AI-based MAL audio technology that could separate the tribes . The result is a lush production with a string arrangement written by Giles Martin, Paul and Ben Foster and featuring contributions from all four Beatles.
On its release day last Thursday (November 2), Now And Then was named BBC Radio 1’s hottest record. “The song is all love,” McCartney told Radio 1’s Clara Amfo. “Just a loving feeling,” he says of the recording, “because that’s often what we were trying to achieve with our records, we were trying to express love spread.” And in this case it is very poignant. It’s John talking about “I miss you” and things like that. I think emotion would be the key word that people could take away from this: “emotion.”
Jackson directed the official music video for “Now And Then,” which was released last Friday.
The biggest competitor on the First Look charts, according to the Official Charts Company, is BTS star Jung Kook’s “Standing Next To You,” which is at No. 2. This would be the highest peak of the K-pop artist’s solo career in the UK. Jung Kook has three UK top 10s to his name, with a peak of No.3 for 2023’s “Seven” with Latto.