The Beatles' last three songs: Let's talk about this...

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When we talk about this band, necessarily, without room for doubt, we are talking about the greatest, most transcendental and unsurpassable milestone in the history of contemporary music. Perhaps, alongside the arrival of the Internet and the fall of Communism, The Beatles are an intangible heritage of humanity. I do not know anyone who has not heard one of their songs, or who at least does not consider them the best or in the top 3 of all time… I myself grew up listening to them every weekend with my father. They are everywhere…

A few days ago, the last two surviving members of the mythical Liverpool band, together with the widows of Lennon and Harrison, released the song "Now and Then." According to the story, it was the last piece of a total of three songs that Yoko Ono gave, in the 90s, to the three Beatles who were still alive at that time and wanted to compose one final honorary album (which they did). Back then, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" were the songs that saw the light of day.

Both had music videos, one better than the other (I will leave both clips for you to decide, but the melancholy filled with Beatlemania that we can see in "Free as a Bird" still gives me chills), and at that moment everyone thought that would be the end; that the Fab Four had reached their limit. John had been cruelly murdered a decade earlier (December 1980), and the magic that only these incredible musicians could have had already given everything it could offer us… How wrong we were.

More than 30 years into the future, in the middle of the debate about AI (artificial intelligences), that third piece in the form of a song, which in the 90s could not be released because Lennon’s voice and the musical background full of pianos and vocal arrangements were impossible to separate given the music editing technology of that time, made it impossible for the full set of three songs to see the light of day. As I already mentioned, we could only witness two out of three…

Years went by, and technology not only evolved in a way that has transformed absolutely everything, but also made it possible, now without George Harrison and John Lennon (both dead), for The Beatles to reunite one last time. "Now and Then" is not only the last song we will hear from them, but also the definitive legacy of a band that changed absolutely everything. The generational fans, that is, those who share the same age as the members of The Beatles, are now 80 years old and above…

And in every single music chart on record, including streaming platforms and music consumption apps, the numbers of downloads, views, and plays are enormous… What does this mean? That The Beatles are not only unsurpassable, but timeless… It is a tradition passed from grandparents to parents, and then to grandchildren… We will all love them, and I believe we can never allow anyone to surpass them. Not even epic artists like Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones, or Prince.

Speaking with total honesty, of the last three Beatles songs, "Now and Then" is the one I like the least. Which does NOT mean it is a bad song. It is just that, compared to the melodic poems that are "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love," I simply cannot betray my passion, my taste, my subjective appreciation of what I find captivating. This last song has Lennon’s essence. That romantic and sensitive touch of his solo work. Typical of the era of his romance with Yoko Ono. I like what The Beatles have done, and I respect the fact that AI helped make this milestone possible. One last performance for the four greatest that have ever existed.