Sir Paul McCartney is clearing the air about the new Beatles song that was created with the help of artificial intelligence.
The legendary hitmaker, 81, addressed the growing “confusion” and “speculation” about the track — which he’s previously stated will act as the final Beatles song — amongst fans in an Instagram Story statement on Thursday.
“Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project,” McCartney began. “No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year.”
However, the musician acknowledged that “we’ve seen some confusion and speculation” about the song since announcing it.
“Seems to be a lot of guess work there,” McCartney wrote about the hubbub. “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.”
The musician capped off his statement by adding that he hopes fans love the song “as much as we do” and that additional information about it — including a release date — would be announced “in due course.”
Last week, McCartney told BBC’s Best of Today that AI technology had been used in order to create what he described as “the last Beatles record.” The song — which will feature performances from himself, Ringo Starr, and their deceased bandmates George Harrison and John Lennon — is tentatively scheduled to be released sometime later this year.
“It was a demo that John had that we worked on, and we just finished it up,” McCartney previously teased about the track. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI, so then we could mix the record as you would normally do.”
He admitted that utilizing Al was a bit of a mixed bag. “It gives you some sort of leeway, so there’s a good side to it, and then a scary side,” he said. “And we’ll just have to see where that leads.”
This isn’t the first time that artificial intelligence has been used on a Beatles project. Peter Jackson previously used the technology in order to restore video footage and audio recordings featured in the band’s 2021 documentary series Get Back.
