In that context, the “Now and Then” movie’s upfront billing of the track as the last Beatles song feels like a two-pronged rhetorical move.
But the truth, ultimately, will lie not with any facts inherent to the universe of existing Beatles recordings.
If you can make a Beatles single using ideas from two dead Beatles, then you can make one with ideas from three dead Beatles — or even, perhaps, from four.
It reminds me of the Beatles without sounding like the Beatles — and why should it, when Lennon didn’t write it for them?
But I suspect that, in this late project, the always-innovative Beatles are once again ahead of their time.
Persons:
Drake, Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift, Hank Williams, I’ve, McCartney, Lennon didn’t, relistened