The single, written by John Lennon 45 years ago, was released yesterday. The official music video directed by Peter Jackson is out today, November 3, featuring unseen early footage of the iconic rock band.

The New Zealand director describes finding “a collection of unseen outtakes in the vault, where the Beatles are relaxed, funny and rather candid. We wove humour into some footage shot in 2023. The result is pretty nutty and provided the video with much needed balance between the sad and the funny.

The director continues: "I realised we needed the imagination of every viewer to create their own personal moment of farewell to The Beatles"

Jackson concluded by saying he has “genuine pride” in the finished piece, his first ever music video “and I’ll cherish that for years to come”

'Now and Then' has been dubbed as the 'final song' of the band, featuring all four Beatles on the song credits in the band’s new short film, Now And Then - The Last Beatles Song.

While the original demo has been floating around as a bootleg for years, the recorded version released today required decades of improvement – and an AI-generated software – to reach a production level that would do justice to Lennon’s unfinished tune

The story of the song begins in 1978, when Lennon first recorded the demo with simple vocals and piano at home in New York. After his death, his wife Yoko Ono passed the recording on a cassette to the three remaining Beatles, along with demos for ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love.’

The other two songs were completed and released as singles in 1995 and 96, after a 25-year hiatus of new Beatles material. As for ‘Now and Then,’ the track wasn’t quite there yet – and wouldn’t be, until now.

At the time the band received the demo of the song, the audio quality was too poor to save. Harrison reportedly deemed the song “rubbish” after toying around with it one day in the studio.

However, McCartney refused to let go of the track, confident that it would eventually resurface. That time came during the making of The Beatles’ Get Back documentary, when director Peter Jackson’s film company created a software which allowed them to ‘de-mix’ fuzzy recordings of overlapping sounds.

This software, called the WingNut Films’ MAL audio technology, was used last year to create a new mix of the band’s staple album, Revolver. The same technology was used for ‘Now And Then’ to lift Lennon’s vocals from the original cassette demo and remove the background noise that had originally prevented the song’s completion.

“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear. It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it's a genuine Beatles recording,” said McCartney of the song. “In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”

Check out the Peter Jackson directed music video below: