Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr used machine learning to piece together a final song using John Lennon’s lo-fi recordings.
The Beatles are perhaps the most important iconic popular music movement in the past 60-odd years. John Lennon was the Beatles’ founder and frontman for many classics that are still considered the most boundary-pushing works of art. Sadly, the English singer-songwriter was shot in New York City on December 8, 1980. After publicly breaking up in 1970, the band had released its last album together called Let It Be before his death.
Beatles co-members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr turned an old demo of John Lennon’s work into a new, final song using machine learning technology borrowed from Peter Jackson.
The Verge reports that it’s likely the band’s last collaborative effort.
Using machine learning, Starr and McCartney were able to piece together a proper track from a lo-fi recording by Lennon. They attempted to create something using the “Now and Then” demo with the third member, George Harrison, back in the mid-90s as well.
Director Peter Jackson who was working on a documentary had developed a technology that allows music to be split among different components and saved into different tracks using machine learning. Starr and McCartney utilized this technique to truly finish Lennon’s last song. Starr’s drums, McCartney’s bass and slide solo, and Harrison’s parts from the older attempt were all combined with Lennon’s voice to put together the new song.
You can listen to the song here:
The song can also be streamed on Spotify and Apple Music.
You can find the short film made on the subject on YouTube:
