The music video for the last Beatles track Now and Then, directed by filmmaker Peter Jackson, will premiere worldwide on The Beatles’ YouTube channel on Friday, following the track's release today (November 2).
The poignant and humorous film – Jackson's first foray into music video production – celebrates The Beatles’ enduring love for each another, as they create the last Beatles song.
The track has been lovingly created from an original recording made by John Lennon, which was given to Paul McCartney on cassette tape by Lennon's widow Yoko Ono Lennon following her husband's murder in 1980.
The song itself is out now as a double A-side single, Now and Then/Love Me Do, pairing their last song with the band's 1962 debut UK single, in a fittingly full-circle gesture. The single features original cover art by American artist Ed Ruscha.
When Apple first approached him about making the video, Jackson said, he was "very reluctant".
"To be honest, just thinking about the responsibility of having to make a music video worthy of the last song The Beatles will ever release, produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with," he said.
"My lifelong love of The Beatles collided into a wall of sheer terror at the thought of letting everyone down. This created intense insecurity in me, because I’d never made a music video before, and was not able to imagine how I could even begin to create one for a band that broke up over 50 years ago, had never actually performed the song, and had half of its members no longer with us. It was going to be far easier to do a runner."
In the end, it took him so long to "figure out a good reason for turning The Beatles down" that he "never actually agreed" to make it. He just got "swept along".
"I knew The Beatles don’t take no for an answer if their minds are set on something," he said.
Now and Then was written and sung by Lennon, developed and worked on by McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and now finally finished by McCartney and Starr over four decades later.
Yesterday Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song, directed by Oliver Murray, aired on BBC 1. The 12-minute film tells the story with exclusive footage and commentary from Paul, Ringo, George, Sean Ono Lennon and Peter Jackson.
Immediately following its BBC broadcast premiere, the short film debuted online for global viewing on The Beatles’ YouTube channel.
