Super fans queue to buy final Beatles track at special launch in Liverpool

Beatles super fans were the first to get their hands on the "historic final single" from the band at a special midnight launch event in Liverpool.

Now And Then, written and sung by John Lennon and later developed by the other band members including George Harrison, has been finished by Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr decades after the original recording.

The track is sourced from a Lennon demo recorded in the late 1970s at his home in New York’s Dakota Building, using technology to extricate and isolate his voice.

Beatles super fan John Lennon, who changed his name by deed poll from Alan Williams in April 2022, was pictured holding the first copy of the newly released track at the music store in the early hours of Friday morning.

The event allowed 200 fans in the home city of the four Beatles members to be the first to purchase a copy of the single, in either clear, blue or black vinyl.

In a review, The Guardian music critic Alexis Petridis awarded the song four stars out of five and called it a “qualified success”.

He wrote: “Advances in technology have solved the problems with Lennon’s vocals….

“The other potential vocal problem – at 80, McCartney’s voice has aged considerably since the remaining Beatles last reconvened – is solved by keeping him low in the mix: you feel his presence rather than notice it directly.”

The Beatles: Get Back director Peter Jackson said it was “head spinning” to be involved in the creation of the “last Beatles record”, speaking on the BBC Sounds podcast Eras: The Beatles narrated by actor Martin Freeman.

The song was released on Thursday as a double A-side with the band’s 1962 debut single Love Me Do, and cover art by US artist Ed Ruscha.

New Zealand filmmaker Jackson also directed the music video for the track which is set for release on Friday 3 November at 2pm.