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.

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