In January 1994 Yoko Ono gave Paul McCartney two cassettes of John Lennon's home recordings, which included a number of incomplete and previously unreleased songs. They included “Free As A Bird,” “Real Love,” “Grow Old With Me” and “Now And Then.” The last one was a song that Lennon supposedly wrote for his former bandmate Paul McCartney, although many think is dedicated to Yoko herself. “I know it’s true, it’s all because of you. And if I make it through, it’s all because of you. And now and then, if we must start again. Well, we were not sure, that I love you” are part of the lyrics written by John Lennon, two years prior to his tragic death. The song was recorded as a piano/vocal demo track at his home at the Dakota Building, New York City, around 1979. The lyrics are typical of the apologetic love songs that Lennon wrote in the later half of his career. Despite reports, for the most part, they are nearly complete, though there are still a few lines that Lennon did not include in the demo tape performance.
On 20 and 21 March 1995, the three surviving former Beatles began constructing a backing track to be added to Lennon's demo of “Now And Then.” However, the work ended on the second day because, according to McCartney, George Harrison "didn't want to do it" He thought that the song was consisted only of choruses and needed to be extensively rewritten, which would not be fair to the author. Jeff Lynne, who produced the Anthology, noted that another factor was a humming sound on Lennon's demo which was impossible to remove, reduce or mask. Although it was considered as the third reunion single for The Beatles at the time, it was dropped from the compilation.
Around 2005 rumors began to emerge that McCartney was going to finish the song by writing verses and credit it as the last Lennon/McCartney song. He allegedly wanted to have Ringo Starr record the drum parts and use some unreleased guitar recordings by Harrison in order to complete the song. However, it didn’t happen, which leaves Lennon's demo to be the only available recording of “Now and Then” for now. The overdubs added in 1995 by the other surviving members have yet to surface. During a Jeff Lynne documentary shown on BBC Four in 2012, Paul McCartney stated about the song: "And there was another one that we started working on, but George went off it...that one's still lingering around, so I'm going to nick in with Jeff and do it. Finish it, one of these days." We can only hope that Paul will gather the strength to finish what probably would be one of the hardest tasks in his career, mostly because of the emotional pressure that this deeply intimate song puts on him. We believe in you Paul, you’re the only one that can do it!
