Paul McCartney has used artificial intelligence (AI) to take John Lennon’s voice from an old demo and used it in the production of a new Beatles song set to be released later this year. McCartney said the project had been made possible by technology featured in Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back, in which filmmakers trained machines to separate Beatles’ voices from their instruments and background sounds to make “clean” audio. “He [Jackson] was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette,” McCartney told BBC radio. “We had John’s voice and a piano, and he could separate them with AI.” He added: “So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had [and] we were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI.” McCartney did not reveal which demo had been re-recorded, but the legendary musician has long spoken about a desire to finish a song called “Now and Then” written by Lennon two years before his death in 1980.
