Now and Then- The Beatles Anthology Review

I recently watched The Beatles Anthology and then, not long after, saw the video for “Now and Then” for the first time. It was released on November 2, 2023, but it didn’t strike me as something new. It felt more like something that had finally been given permission..... to finish.

I didn’t expect it to linger the way it has.

Part of that may be because I’ve never really considered myself a huge Beatles fan. I love much of their music—especially McCartney, both within the band and beyond it—but I never wore the label. I wasn’t chasing album rankings or liner notes. The Beatles were simply there, embedded in the atmosphere of my life. Their songs didn’t demand attention; they provided a backdrop.

I was born in the summer of 1964, right as Beatlemania was cresting. By the time I was old enough to form memories, their music was already part of the furniture—playing in living rooms, riding along in cars, drifting through radios without explanation. 

I do have a specific memory of listening to the (vinyl) album "Help!" in the living room of my home. It was my mom's- along with Simon and Garfunkle, Blood Sweat and Tears, John Denver, and the very first Billy Joel album. My aunt Janis a short way down the street had Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Steely Dan, and a Beatles ("greatest hits?) as well.

But Help! existed before I knew what distress was. The White Album was present long before I had language for tension or contradiction. McCartney’s melodies followed me quietly into adolescence and adulthood, not as statements to analyze, but as companions that stayed.

Watching Anthology now, decades removed from all of it, I didn’t just see the rise and fracture of a band. I saw time itself doing what it always does—compressing youth into memory, promise into limitation, intensity into reflection. These weren’t just cultural icons on the screen; they were men aging, changing, drifting, and yet remaining tethered by something they once made together.

That is why “Now and Then” landed the way it did.

The song is simple, almost fragile. A voice recorded alone in the late 1970s, finally allowed to stand clearly in the present. When John sings, “Now and then, I miss you,” it doesn’t sound like a lyric crafted for effect. It sounds like a sentence that waited a long time to be heard. What makes it powerful is not polish, but honesty—spoken across decades, answered by others who are still here.

What moved me most was the restraint of it all. There is no attempt to pretend nothing has been lost. No illusion of a full reunion. Just voices—separated by time, absence, and death—allowed to speak together one last time. It felt less like a release and more like an act of remembering.

The technology that made this possible didn’t exist when the song was first attempted in the 1990s. What stalled then could be completed now, not by inventing something artificial, but by carefully revealing what was already there. That distinction matters. We live in a moment when reactions to AI tend to swing between fear and fascination, but this song offers a quieter lesson. Tools are tools. They can distort and deceive, but they can also preserve, clarify, and help us remember. The moral weight never belongs to the tool itself, but to the hands—and hearts—that use it.

I have no hesitation in using technology for good: for education, for creativity, for preserving what might otherwise be lost to noise or decay. In that sense, “Now and Then” is not a warning, but a reminder of what careful, restrained use can accomplish.

As I watched the video, I became aware of how much my own life has been quietly moving alongside theirs. Not in any dramatic or obsessive way—just alongside. Their music aged differently than I did, but it aged with me. And that difference matters. Some art defines identity. Other art defines eras. The Beatles, for me, belong to the second category. They were never the center of the room, but they were always in it.

Looking back now, what stands out is not just what endured, but how quickly everything passed. Time is fleeting. Memory is selective. Art, somehow, is stubborn. And every once in a while, something like “Now and Then” breaks through—not to pull us backward, but to remind us where we’ve been.

I’m thankful for music that didn’t demand my attention, but earned my gratitude. Thankful for the wide and deep roots of classic rock that shaped my inner world without asking permission. And thankful for the strange grace of being able to look back—now and then—and recognize the backdrop that quietly shaped a life.

The Beatles were human beings, the combo of their sound tuned the ears of millions, now 2 are gone and though the band doesn't exist in reality, we are blessed to share the preserved memory.

Raised in Shadows

Verse 1 I grew up in the afterglow, A light that lingered soft and low. A melody that wasn’t mine, But hummed along my growing spine. I heard it in my mother’s room, Spinning vinyl through the afternoon— A gentle warmth that shaped my ear, A distant echo drawing near.

Chorus I was raised in the shadow, not the sun, By songs from a world already done. A harmony that colored every dream— A tender chord beneath the seams. And though the years keep moving on, That ghost of light is never gone. I was raised in the shadow, not the sun… But the shadow made me who I’ve become.

Verse 2 I never saw the crowds explode, Just walked the quieter, older road. The headlines faded into dust, But the music lived in all of us. A gentle verse, a falling rhyme, A weeping guitar keeping time— It found me when my life was young, A borrowed tune on my own tongue.

Chorus I was raised in the shadow, not the sun, By songs from a world already done. A harmony that colored every dream— A tender chord beneath the seams. And though the years keep moving on, That ghost of light is never gone. I was raised in the shadow, not the sun… But the shadow made me who I’ve become.

Bridge Some lights burn hot, some lights burn long— Some shape a life by shaping a song. And I found hope in the quiet refrain Of voices I never heard again. You don’t need the fire to feel the flame— The warmth can still remain.

Verse 3 Now all my days are threaded through With bits of red, and gold, and blue. A minor chord, a drifting line— A steady pulse that feels divine. I never stood beneath that sun, But its shadow shaped my run— A secondhand awakening, Bright enough to make me sing.

Chorus I was raised in the shadow, not the sun, Where borrowed light still gently shone. It taught me how a heart can heal, How truth in melody feels real. And though the dawn has long since gone, That ghost of light keeps shining on. I was raised in the shadow, not the sun… But the shadow made me who I’ve become.