The Smiley Smile Message Board

I don't know how many people know this but at the same time as Free as a Bird and Real Love were recorded the 3 remaining Beatles attempted 2 other songs - Grow Old With Me! and I Don't Wanna Lose You aka Now and Then. Paul McCartney and Jeff Lynne have recently discussed revisiting Now and Then as it was the only tune left featuring George and John that could be classed as new material. Anyway 3 days ago someone posted the unfinished tune with 1994/95 overdubs on youtube - what do you guys think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G17A10TA2c

http://www.whatgoeson.com/blog/the-beatles/rumor-new-beatles-track-coming-in-08.html

http://www.whatgoeson.com/blog/the-beatles/now-and-then-leaked-to-youtube.html

I love "Real love" and "Free as a bird" and also the idea of having "new" Beatles stuff. But the track in the video sounds awful. Hope if something will be released it'll be better

I love both of those songs - not sure about this one yet. Obviously this is a work in progress but you can tell it was from the era when they were doing those tunes. Apparently they only spent a day or two of work on it before George vetoed it...

It's very interesting! Perhaps it will grow on me with a few listens.

*edit*
Ok, I like it already. Didn't take too many listens after all.

Dug this up from my Lennon collection:

I Don't Want To Lose You

length: 5:01
recorded: 1977
instrumentation: piano

Surfaced originally from a tape source on the Vigotone bootleg The Dakota Beatle Demos under the title "Now And Then", taken from Jeff Lynne's comments on the song which was intended to be the basis for the third "reunion" single accompanying the Beatles Anthology. The actual title, 'I Don't Want To Lose You', was confirmed in 2005 when the composition was featured in the John Lennon broadway musical. The buzz running throughout the demo is part of the original recording, as Lynne mentions having trouble with restoring the demo for overdubbing purposes by the remaining Beatles. Fortunately, the cause of this problem was sorted out and the rest of the tape with three takes of both 'Free As A Bird' and 'Whatever Happened To..?' is free of it. It's unclear how much work on the song was done in 1995 before it was abandoned and Anthology 3 didn't feature a new song but was forced to open with 'A Beginning' instead.

Interesting. I remember at the midnight madness sale when Anthology 2 came out they were giving out this little fanzine that talked about Now and Then. I have original Lennon version and the audio quality is terrible so I wondered how they were going to clean it up.

On the whole I think it sounds better than the original and it manages to do some pretty interesting things, especially in middle. Very nice. I would like to hear a better recording of it. I think the fidelity of the actual recording may have been lost in uploading it on youtube.

I dig it!

Here's Lennon's solo demo, by the way:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ObTyehx7n8

This is actually a fan mix using isolated trax from the other two Beatles' '95 singles, done by somebody in the Remixers Group.

I think it sounds decent.  Makes the song sound like it has more possibilities than the demo version.

Gutted! If thats the case (?)...

Someone's done a very good job of it then. My only doubt about it's authenticity was the snips of "Sun King" at the end of the tune.

Sounds quite haunting.

Could be good if they can clean up the vocal a bit more.

Rubbish, complete rubbish. Sounds like a load of old sh*t.