Paul McCartney clarifies Beatles song not “synthetically created”

Paul McCartney has clarified the process of creating a freshly announced AI song by The Beatles, saying that it features nothing “artificially or synthetically created”.

• READ MORE: The Beatles: every song ranked in order of greatness

Last week, McCartney revealed that artificial intelligence has allowed him to create a “final” Beatles song.

The legendary singer-songwriter and bassist discussed the prospect during a new interview with Radio 4’s Today Programme, and revealed that AI technology allowed him to “extricate” John Lennon’s vocals from an old demo track — meaning that he could complete the song.

Now, after fans debated about the specifics of the creation process, Macca took to Twitter to clarify.

He wrote yesterday (June 22): “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.”

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…

— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) June 22, 2023

While he did not explicitly mention which specific track he is now in the process of completing, it seems likely that the song will be one developed by Lennon in 1978, titled ‘Now And Then’.

The surviving members contemplated releasing the song on their career-spanning ‘Anthology’ series in 1995, although this idea was later scrapped.

In other Beatles news, Sir Paul is set to launch a new book and accompanying photography exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, titled Eyes Of The Storm.

Running from June 28-October 1 this year, the reopening of the gallery will see 250 photographs taken by the musical legend of his bandmates and surroundings on tour from 1963-64. The musician will also be interviewed by Stanley Tucci ahead of the opening.

Meanwhile, others aren’t so supportive of AI, with Nick Cave labelling it “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”, and later stating that he wanted AI platforms like ChatGPT to “fuck off and leave songwriting alone”.

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