My initial thoughts on the documentary are mixed. It’s a lovely documentary with some unseen footage spliced in with movie and archival film. I always welcome the chance to see footage of the “Threetles” in the studio and a lot of the footage we saw was utilized in the Real Love video but now we know what they were saying!
Also, if the teaser of Giles Martin’s score is an indication of the rest of the song, I’m excited because the strings sound gorgeous and very reminiscent of his father’s style.
I’m disappointed that it seems like all we’ll get from Harrison is some acoustic strumming. It’s reported that he does background vocals but it’s also reported that they flew in vocals from other Beatles songs (like the Love soundtrack) so we don’t yet know if his vocals are from 1995 or the 60s. For the record, I think it’s cool to fly in the other vocals. I wouldn’t have minded if they made this a bit more like Love and flew in parts from all sorts of songs.
Also, Paul is a fine guitar player but he was no George and the isolated slide track proves it. I like his intent but if that’s what’s on the record…well, we’ll see.
Lastly, I don’t know how I feel about John’s vocal. When it was all by itself, it sounded light years better than the old demos but when you heard the first few bars of the song he sounded a bit chipmunky. All of that may be moot, though, because we have no idea what takes were used in this doc. Maybe I’ll be blown away tomorrow when I hear the full song.
Overall, I’m still very excited about the track and can’t wait for tomorrow. Be sure to join this new forum (we have a Beatles chat channel if you want more of a social network feel) because I’ll be releasing a new episode of The Kinks and Beatles Deep Dive at some point tomorrow after listening to the track.
Now that you’ve had a chance to hear it:
- Free As A Bird
- Real Love
- Now and Then
And now we have the official video! What a crazy three days it’s been. I’ll be recording a new podcast episode later today now that we’ve had a day to digest all of the new stuff.
