On Tuesday, Paul McCartney revealed that artificial intelligence has facilitated the creation of the “last” Beatles song, featuring John Lennon’s voice. McCartney cited the technology as “kind of scary, but exciting.”
Chatting about AI in an interview with BBC Radio, McCartney said, “we were able to use that kind of thing when Peter Jackson did the film ‘Get Back’ where it was us making the ‘Let It Be’ album.”
The Beatles member continued with details regarding how artificial intelligence was used to create the new music from old recordings. “He was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette where it had John’s voice and a piano–he could separate them with AI. They tell the machine ‘That is a voice; this is a guitar; lose the guitar.’ And he did that,” McCartney explained.
McCartney did not disclose the song title during the interview, but rumor has it that it’s possibly a Lennon composition from 1978 called “Now and Then”, according to the BBC.
“So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record—it was a demo that John had—that we worked on and we just finished it up; it will be released this year,” McCartney told BBC Radio. “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. It gives you some sort of leeway. So, there is a good side to it and then a scary side, and we will just have to see where that leads.”
While McCarney called artificial intelligence scary, he did admit it’s exciting since it will be a significant element of the future.
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