Amid all the focus on The Last Beatles Song, “Now and Then,†we lost sight of the other treat coming this week: The Music Video of the Last Beatles Song. Even though the Fab Four preceded the MTV era, film has always been a big part of their artistry. For this one, they stayed mostly in-house, tapping acclaimed Get Back director and Beatles mixing genius Peter Jackson to direct. So it’s with the utmost respect for the lads that someone’s gotta ask: What the hell is going on here?
Let’s go to Jackson first. “We have Ringo and Paul in 2023 trying to work on a song and they get invaded by the 1967 Beatles,†he told Esquire. “So that was the idea, that they show up to disrupt them as they attempt to finish the song.†That’s … not quite how it actually goes. The video starts out innocuously enough, splicing together never-before-seen footage of the band playing over John Lennon’s initial demo in the mid-’90s, with contemporary clips of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr performing. Then, we get this meme-ass image:
Which kind of seems to imply that, in the video’s storyline, Lennon is alive yet the entire band is in heaven? Things get even weirder as we flip to ’60s-era John and George annoying the hell out of present-day Paul and Ringo in the studio.†Yes, the Beatles were silly chaps — they sang about octopuses and walruses — and got up to some studio antics. But what is this?
It’s so much to take in that, by the time Young Macca shows up in the studio with Old Macca, you just have to go with it.
Jackson said an original cut of the video was “sentimental and depressing.†We guess it’s better to be silly and weird, but it’d be even better to not use goofy film effects and tell a somewhat coherent story while doing it. “Now and Then†is a nice song that’ll pull the nostalgia strings of many Beatles fans. But the “Now and Then†video might make you nostalgic for the dud Sgt. Pepper’s movie.