He gets by with a little help from AI — but just a little.
Paul McCartney has responded to the speculation about the use of artificial intelligence in the Beatles’ upcoming song.
McCartney, 81, told the BBC that “the final Beatles album” will be released later this year — using AI technology to “extricate” John Lennon’s voice from a previously unheard track.
“It was a demo that John had that we worked on, and we just finished it up, it’ll be released this year,” he said in his initial announcement on June 12. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI, so then we could mix the record as you would normally do.”
With AI being at the center of much concern and debate, many fans jumped to conclusions and assumed that the technology was being used to generate fabricated vocals from the late Lennon.
McCartney took to social media to ensure his fans that nothing was fabricated.
“Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project. No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year,” he tweeted.
“We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it. Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much at this stage but to be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created,” McCartney clarified. “It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings – a process which has gone on for years.”
“We hope you love it as much as we do. More news in due course – Paul.”
McCartney did not specify when exactly the song will be released or the name of the track, there is speculation it is called “Now and Then,” which was composed by Lennon before his death.
According to McCartney, he first received the demo in 1994 from Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, 90, along with several other songs on a cassette labeled “For Paul.”
The Beatles attempted to initially record the song in 1995, but the session ended quickly after issues with the late singer’s vocals emerged.