Ed Ruscha | Now and Then

Last week the Beatles’ released a new single, music video and short documentary. The song, Now and Then, was released in a variety of formats, all featuring a cover by Ed Ruscha. It’s not a brilliant cover, and the song itself is far from spectacular (it was passed over by Lennon when recording two albums shortly after writing it). 

As a case study in changing attitudes towards AI, though, it’s very interesting. When it was originally announced many months back, AI was the saviour of the project. The original tapes had a hiss that couldn’t be removed and the piano overpowered Lennon’s voice, so the Beatles abandoned the track in the nineties, when working on the Anthology project1. But after the AI audio software developed for Peter Jackson’s Get Back series, it was suddenly possible to isolate Lennon’s voice and allow the band to record around him. 

A few weeks later McCartney was keen to clarify that AI did not create any of the performance, presumably to distinguish this “genuine” Beatles track from AI versions of Lennon singing Nirvana and Bowie songs.

Jackson, who directed the accompanying music video, also released a statement that read “A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core. There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used.” However, the video features animated photographs that have a very uncanny valley feeling to them. The first is a still-shot of Lennon looking out over the water, and the waves are animated, as is the slight movement of his head. Later a series of early headshots of the band float by, looking like a trailer for The Polar Express. 

The video emphasizes the (specious) reading of the lyrics as nostalgia for all things Beatles. It also emphasizes production over content. Can you recall another music video in which a band member is filmed sitting in the recording booth with the arranger for the string section, nodding his head in approval? 

Actually, the video mirrors the song’s emphasis on post-production. The new footage of Paul and Ringo looks flat and drab, reportedly filmed with the octogenarian’s lens of choice - an iPad. For what is surely a big budget production, you’d think they could actually get the two remaining Beatles in the same room together.

Where Jackson’s skills comes into play are a couple of instances where he has inserted vintage footage of the Beatles hamming it up for the camera (outtakes from a promotional video for Hello Goodbye) and combined with them the new shoddy footage. This leads to Lennon conducting the orchestra and the entire (young) band disassembling contemporary Ringo’s drum set while he is still drumming. 

The details of the demo have been reported ad nauseam, with little attention paid to the cover of the 7” single, 12” single, and cassette. But the Youtube response videos by fanboys all seem mystified at the cover choice. 

Free As A Bird (1995), the first of the three Lennon demos turned into Beatle productions, featured a doodle by Lennon as the cover graphic. Real Love (1996), the second, featured a vintage posed portrait of the group. The Anthology collection covers - while not particularly impressive - were at least done by Klaus Voormann, the group’s old friend from Hamburg, and the illustrator of the cover to the Beatles’ Revolver LP.2

Ruscha, however, would have seemed a logical choice for McCartney. Aside from being one of the most celebrated artists alive3, he had recently designed the covers for McCartney III and McCartney III Imagined. And, like the Beatles, Ruscha is not afraid to look backwards into his career for some nostalgia,  revisiting and updating older projects. He had previously released a project with the title Then And Now (see below). 

"I first met Ed Ruscha through my daughter, Stella, and since then have visited his studio quite a few times. He is a very easy going, humorous guy and of course a very skillful painter. His treatments are ingenious and intriguing. Nancy asked Ed to paint a picture for my birthday which uses the phrase 'For Life' which is taken from the song 'My Valentine', which I wrote for her. It is a beautiful picture with the text in his usual deadpan signature style. The lettering font he uses reminds me of art classes I used to take as a teenager in the Liverpool Institute where we learned to write the alphabet in this style and I enjoyed it so much I even offered to do the lettering on one piece of George’s homework! I feel happy to know him and his family.”

- Paul McCartney

1. George Harrison reportedly also thought that the composition itself was too poor to continue on with, and was said to have commented that he hopes when he dies someone turns his shit demos into hit songs.

2. Voormann also became the bassist for the Plastic Ono Band

3. Ruscha is often considered the artist who bridges the gap between sixties Pop Art and contemporary practices. The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles (White Album), featured visuals by '60’s Pop artists Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton, respectively.