The legendary Paul McCartney has admitted this Tuesday that they resorted to the Artificial intelligence (IA) to specify an unprecedented theme of the Beatleswhich includes the voice of John Lennon.
Speaking to the “Today” program of the BBCMcCartney, 80, said the technology was used to “pull” Lennon’s voice from an old “demo.”
Correction:
It should say ‘Let It Be’ album in the video above.
—BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) June 13, 2023
McCartney calls it “the last song by The Beatles” and the producers used AI to “free” John Lennon’s voice from a “demo” recorded at the piano in his New York apartment.
Yoko Ono, Lennon’s widow, handed it over to McCartney a year ago. It was one of several songs contained on a cassette labeled “For Paul” that Lennon produced shortly before his death.
Two of those songs, “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” were isolated, completed and released in 1995 and 1996, marking the first “new” material to be released from The Beatles in 25 years, the report notes.
According to BBC it is likely a Lennon composition called “Now and Then”, dating from 1978.
A love song
The band had already attempted to record “Now And Then,” an apologetic love song typical of Lennon’s later career, but the project was quickly scrapped.
McCartney revealed that George Harrison had considered this issue “garbage” and had refused to work with her. “It didn’t have a good title and it needed more work, but it was a beautiful verse that John sang,” he then told him. Q Magazine.
“George didn’t like it. The Beatles, being Democrats, we didn’t do it.”
Now, this new work is just finished “and will be released this year,” explained the former member of the “fab four” of Liverpool.
The Beatles and AI
But the BBC remember that in the documentary get back, by Peter Jackson, focused on reflecting the last sessions of The Beatles before they broke up, dabbled in the use of AI.
So the dialogue editor, Emile de Rey, trained the computers to recognize the voices of the four Beatles, isolate them from background noise and create a “clean” sound.
The same process allowed McCartney to do a “duet” with Lennon on his recent tour and create new surround-sound mixes of The Beatles’ Revolver album last year.
“Jackson was able to get John’s voice off a small cassette. We had his voice and a piano and we could separate them with the AI,” McCartney said.
“On this latest recording of The Beatles, we took John’s voice and got it pure through AI. We were then able to mix it, as is normally done. This gives you some freedom.”
Despite everything, the AI…
“It’s a little scary but it’s exciting, because it’s the future. We’ll have to see where it takes us,” McCartney said, referring to the use of Artificial Intelligence.
“I don’t surf the internet much, but people say to me, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a track where John sings my songs,’ and it’s just because of the AI, you know?” he said.
McCartney spoke about these issues ahead of an exhibition of his photographs that will be open to the public later this month at the National Portrait Gallery From london.
? 1964: Eyes of the Storm ?
Photographs and Reflections by Paul McCartney
Out now!take a look inside #EyesOfTheStorm and find your copy here: https://t.co/CDhNTSvjez pic.twitter.com/yWbpbs9cFy
—Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 13, 2023
Titled “Eyes of the Storm,” the exhibition features portraits taken by McCartney with his own camera between December 1963 and February 1964, when the Beatles were catapulted to fame.
The images taken by McCartney capture numerous intimate moments of the band members, and offer a unique look at the environment, the personality and the way in which the musicians perceived the phenomenon of “beatlemania” that was growing.
