Ringo Starr has called the upcoming “last” Beatles song “beautiful” and “moving”.
The drummer, 83, spoke out about the track after Sir Paul McCartney, 81, used AI to complete it before it was teased by the songwriter last month during an interview with Radio 4’s Today Programme, when he revealed he had used the technology to help him finish a “final” Beatles song.
Ringo told Variety about how the song has been made using authentic recordings from the past including ones of late Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison: “It’s not down to AI. It’s not like we’re pretending anything.
That is actually John’s voice, Paul’s voice and bass playing, George on rhythm guitar and me on drums.
“The two things that are new are Paul’s bass and me on drums… I really worked at it just months ago here. And it works.
“It’s a beautiful song. You know, for all the madness going on around it, it’s still a beautiful track. And our last track.”
The Variety interview states the new song is one Sir Paul, Ringo and George first attempted to make in the 1990s using scraps of songs that they found written by John.
Ringo joked about why Paul decided to recently tackle it again: “I don’t know. Paul must’ve had a slow day.
“He says, ‘You know that track we did? Do you want to work on that?’”
“It is moving, because the four of us are there, and there won’t be ever again.”
AI allowed Paul to “extricate” John Lennon’s vocals from an old demo track.
News he used the tech has provoked a mixed reaction from fans, who suspect it is the unreleased 1978 track ‘Now and Then’.
Paul told fans about the project: “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.
“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. 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.”