Paul McCartney Clarifies Reports on New Beatles AI Recording

Paul McCartney has taken to social media to clarify reports last week about a new Beatles song that was reportedly completed with help from AI.

Sir Paul said, “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.”

He added, “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

The buzz about this Beatles project happened after Macca talked about it in an interview with BBC Radio 4. Sir Paul said this song came from an old John Lennon demo tape. As far as AI goes, McCartney told the BBC, “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.”

Currently, there’s no release timeline for what McCartney called the “forthcoming Beatles project.” Of course, this isn’t the first time old Lennon demos have been used to make “new” Beatles music. “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love” were reworked and released on 1995’s Anthology 1 and 1996’s Anthology 2.

Paul McCartney – His 50 Best Post-Beatles Songs, Ranked

If Paul McCartney retired from music after the Beatles broke up, no one would blame him. How do you follow up nearly a decade of being in a band that changed music, changed culture, and maybe changed the world?

But McCartney clearly had a lot of fuel left in the tank. In the decades since, he’s been a formidable force in music: he dominated radio in the ’70s with Wings, he was ubiquitous on MTV in the early days of the cable channel and has collaborated with Kanye West and Rihanna, the surviving members of Nirvana, Diana Krall, David Gilmour, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Elvis Costello, among others. He’s delivered classic theme songs for Cameron Crowe and James Bond, and besides recording scores of rock and pop albums, he’s also composed classical music and done experimental electronic music under the name The Fireman.

On December 18, he’s releasing McCartney III. Like 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II, it was recorded entirely by McCartney — this was his “quarantine album.” Given that some of his recent songs (“Home Tonight,” “Fuh You,” “New”) made this list, we’re sure we’re going to have to update this one pretty soon.