Ringo Starr has confirmed that an upcoming “new” Beatles track uses only authentic parts recorded by John Lennon and George Harrison before their deaths.
Last month, Paul McCartney revealed that the unnamed song was completed with the help of artificial intelligence, and was built off an old Lennon demo tape. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI so that then we could mix the record as you would normally do — it gives you some sort of leeway,” he explained. “So there’s a good side to it and then a scary side and we’ll just have to see where that leads.”
This led to some confusion amongst fans about whether Lennon’s voice on the track was real or an AI version, but Starr, in an upcoming podcast episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, has emphasized that the band would “never” fake Lennon’s vocals.
“This was beautiful,” he continued, “and it’s the final track you’ll ever hear with the four lads. And that’s a fact.”
Of course, this is not the first time the Beatles have worked from Lennon’s demos. In 1994 McCartney, Starr and Harrison reunited to complete “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” which appeared on the Anthology 1 and Anthology 2 compilations.
McCartney later clarified his earlier comments. “Seems to be a lot of guess work out there,” he wrote on Twitter. “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.”
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