The Beatles

Taking time over Thanksgiving to watch The Beatles Anthology feels like pausing the noise of the present to sit with something timeless. The documentary’s sweep—its memories, its contradictions, its fragile humanity—lands differently when you experience it in the soft lull between holiday meals and family chatter. It becomes less a history lesson and more a reminder of how rare it is for art to reshape the world, and rarer still for us to slow down long enough to feel it. In the quiet of the holiday, the story of four kids from Liverpool overrunning an entire century feels both impossibly distant and strangely intimate, like rediscovering a familiar warmth you didn’t realize you’d missed.

There’s a moment early in The Beatles Anthology—now revived on Disney+ like a relic exhumed from a time capsule of swinging London and acid-washed utopianism—where you realize that no matter how many times you’ve heard the same myth, you’re still powerless to resist the gravitational pull of The Beatles. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s not even hero worship, though that’s baked into the culture at this point like sugar in a doughnut. It’s the strange, lingering shock of discovering that four kids from Liverpool somehow hijacked the 20th century, and we’re still picking through the wreckage.

Watching Anthology in 2025 feels a bit like binge-reading someone’s diary long after they’ve died and been canonized. The documentary is part time machine, part séance, part messy family photo album. And now, thanks to Disney+, the whole thing is packaged with the glossy inevitability of a Marvel re-release. Press play, and suddenly we’re back on the rooftop, or on the plane to JFK, or in Hamburg, crawling out of seedy bars before they even knew they were supposed to be legends.

The Beatles never asked to become a religion. But they didn’t exactly discourage it either.

Anthology as a Resurrection Machine

When Anthology first aired in 1995, it was a sprawling, nostalgic reconciliation project—three surviving Beatles trying to square the circle of their own history. It arrived with two “new” songs, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” as if John Lennon were phoning in demos from the afterlife. There was a sense of closure, or at least the illusion of it.

Rewatching it now, the illusion fades fast.

Because what hits you is how unbelievably young they were when the circus erupted. The early footage is almost indecent: mop-topped cherubs strumming their way into global hysteria. Ringo looks like he still hasn’t figured out the joke. George hovers in the background with the Zen intensity of a kid already dreaming of escape. John and Paul—codependent, competitive, inseparable—seem like two halves of a single supernova destined to explode.

Disney+ doesn’t change any of this. But it reframes it. The Beatles come to us now in algorithmic form, recommended alongside Star Wars and The Simpsons. They’re no longer the gods of Rock History textbooks. They’re content.

And yet they refuse to shrink. What other band could endure a nine-part documentary and still leave you wanting more?

The Eternal Breakup

The thing people forget about Anthology is that it’s basically one long breakup album told in documentary form. You can almost feel the tectonic plates shifting as the series moves from Beatlemania to the studio years. The cameras stop capturing exhilaration and start capturing exhaustion.

“Help!” stops sounding like a joke.

“Yesterday” stops sounding like a fluke.

“Hey Jude” starts to feel like an apology.

The Beatles’ story is a tragedy disguised as a fairy tale. And Anthology never tries to hide that. In the early episodes, they’re compact and hungry and full of possibility. By the end, they’re four planets drifting out of orbit, held together only by tape, memory, and the vicious tenderness of old friends trying desperately not to say the wrong thing.

The venerable rock critic Lester Bangs would have loved this. He worshiped honesty almost as much as he worshiped guitars, and he would’ve recognized the profound emotional carnage humming under the surface of the Beatles myth. He would’ve also called them out for the contradictions—for preaching love while sometimes barely being able to stand each other, for reinventing the world while struggling to reinvent themselves.

But he would have forgiven them, too. Because the music was that good.

Beatlemania in the Age of Streaming

One of the strangest pleasures of the Disney+ re-release is how it recasts Anthology as a binge-worthy epic. You can watch the band evolve in real time, like some impossible evolution chart:

Cavemen in leather jackets → Cheeky pop savants → Psychedelic revolutionaries → Mature studio alchemists → Four guys too tired to keep pretending.

In the streaming era, this trajectory feels almost too clean, too narratively convenient. Today’s bands barely last two albums before the internet atomizes them into solo projects, Twitter feuds, or boutique coffee brands. The Beatles lasted about a decade, and in that decade they authored the modern idea of what a band could be.

What Anthology shows—sometimes accidentally—is that even at their peak, The Beatles were never comfortable with being The Beatles. That’s the secret fuel of the entire documentary: they’re constantly trying to escape the gravitational force of their own creation.

George Harrison’s weary look in the late ’60s? That’s the face of a man trapped inside someone else’s mythology.

The Beautiful, Exhausting Machinery of Genius

One of the most fascinating through-lines in Anthology is the insight it gives into the creative engine of Lennon-McCartney. There’s a moment where they’re discussing writing “With a Little Help from My Friends,” casually tossing out ideas like they’re doodling in the margins of history.

Paul: “What about this?”

John: “Hmm, okay, but maybe make it a bit more… weird.”

George Martin: “Boys, that’s quite good.”

Audience of millions worldwide: Loses mind. This is the alchemy fans come for. The magic trick. The thing we pretend we can understand.

But Anthology also gives us something rarer: the gears beneath the magic. The insecurities. The imposter syndrome. The grind. These guys didn’t just wake up and write “Something” or “A Day in the Life.” They worked. They argued. They pushed each other to the brink. If rock mythology usually polishes everything into legend, Anthology leaves the fingerprints.

Seeing the Beatles Through 2025 Eyes

Maybe the strangest thing about revisiting Anthology now is how contemporary it feels. The media frenzy, the public-private split, the pressure to constantly innovate—it all maps eerily onto modern celebrity culture, except the Beatles didn’t have social media to amplify their every misstep. Imagine John Lennon on Twitter. Imagine Paul McCartney forced to explain the concept of “Paperback Writer” on TikTok.

And yet, despite the decades between then and now, the emotional churn of the documentary still lands. You feel the claustrophobia of fame. You feel the thrill of artistic discovery. You feel the heartbreak of watching four people who genuinely loved each other become unable to continue sharing the same world.

Paul’s grief in the early ’80s interviews is still palpable. George’s dry humor remains a perfect counterweight. Ringo—god bless him—anchors everything with the resigned joy of someone who knew from day one that he was lucky to be there, even when it broke his heart.

The End Still Hurts

By the time Anthology reaches the breakup, there’s no surprise left. You know it’s coming. You know the rooftop concert is the final performance. You know that lawsuits and bitterness and tabloid nonsense overshadowed the final chapter.

And yet it still hurts. It always does.

Because Anthology makes clear that the Beatles weren’t just a band—they were a lifelong conversation. And like all great conversations, it eventually exhausted itself. “The dream is over,” Lennon sings in 1970. But Anthology shows that the dream was already cracking long before he said the words.

So Why Watch Again?

Because Anthology is the closest thing we have to the Beatles telling their own story—warts, brilliance, contradictions and all. And because in 2025, in a world where music is increasingly reduced to background noise for workouts and commutes, watching their evolution unfold over 10 hours feels almost radical.

It reminds us that music once mattered enough to rewrite the world. And that four flawed, brilliant people somehow changed everything before they even understood what they were doing.

Final Thought

Watching The Beatles Anthology on Disney+ is like returning to the scene of a beautiful accident. You know how it ends. You know who gets hurt. You know which friendships survive and which don’t. But you can’t look away, because the wreckage is too gorgeous and too human to ignore.

Lester Bangs would have told you the same thing, only louder, with more profanity, and while throwing on Revolver at full volume to prove a point. But the point remains:

The Beatles aren’t just a band. They’re a feeling. And Anthology—even three decades later—reminds us why that feeling still refuses to die.

The world of music has been buzzing with anticipation ever since the news broke that the Fab Four, the legendary Beatles, had recorded a new song. It’s been over five decades since the band’s breakup, and many fans thought they’d never hear new material from the iconic quartet. But now, “Now And Then” has arrived, and it’s causing quite a stir. Speculation about the song has existed since it was recorded as a demo in 1977 with overdubs in 1995 by Paul McCartney, George Harrison (who would pass six years later), and Ringo Starr for the Anthology project. John Lennon recorded a rough demo in 1977, after his so-called retirement from music (approximately from 1975 to 1980) when he was a primary caretaker for his son, Sean. During the work on the Anthology series, the surviving members of The Beatles, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon shared demo tapes recorded by John. Those demo tapes unearthed several songs including a version of “Now And Then” with Lennon on piano.

In their heyday, the Beatles were the embodiment of the British Invasion, revolutionizing rock ‘n’ roll and pop music, setting a standard that countless bands have aspired to since. With the release of “Now And Then,” they prove once again why their influence remains unparalleled. Of course, there is controversy surrounding the resurrection of “Now And Then.” Using sound source separation technology, AI, Pro Tools Noise Reduction, and techniques developed by The Beatles: Get Back (2021) filmmaker Peter Jackson, this is not a simple recording, this was not a splicing of tape but an effort to save one of the last songwriting efforts from John Lennon.

The song opens with a light piano touch and delicate acoustic guitar riff, immediately transporting the listener back to the timeless sound. This simple yet evocative introduction captures the essence of the Beatles and sets the stage for a chance to reconsider this influential group’s music and legacy.

As the opening verse begins, it’s clear that the years haven’t dulled the magic of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting. The lyrics are introspective and poignant, reflecting on the passage of time, the need for another, and the fleeting nature of connection. The chorus is both haunting and beautiful, showcasing the unmistakable harmonies that made the Beatles famous. Lennon’s ethereal voice still carries the weight of a thousand emotions, while McCartney’s harmony adds a warm, comforting layer.

The song’s instrumentation reminds us why the Beatles’ timeless craft still holds allure. The lush string arrangements, reminiscent of the orchestration heard on tracks like “Eleanor Rigby,” add a rich layer of depth to the song. George Harrison’s slide guitar work is understated but masterful, and Ringo Starr’s drumming is as steady and unobtrusive as ever, providing a perfect foundation on which the melody soars.

But the true heart of “Now and Then” lies in the voice and the lyrics. Lennon’s voice and his verses reflect a sense of longing and nostalgia, a yearning for a connection to someone else. His words capture the essence of the social bond, and it’s clear that the need for connection has only deepened since Lennon’s passing in 1980. And I still remember where I was when I learned that Lennon had been killed. The memory of that day still brings tears to my eyes. McCartney’s contribution to the song mostly comes in the form of the bass and chorus, which is simultaneously uplifting and melancholic. The juxtaposition of these two elements is what makes the song so emotionally resonant. And the ability to hold those two disparate ideas together in a song is part of what The Beatles so influential and musically important.

The bridge of the song takes an unexpected turn, as it introduces a piano melody that harkens back to the band’s later, experimental period. The Beatles were known for pushing the boundaries of rock music, and, for this reviewer, “Now And Then” is no exception. The bridge is a beautiful fusion of their earlier and later styles, a testament to their ability to seamlessly blend different eras of their musical journey.

As the song approaches its climax, the band’s harmonies become even more transcendent, creating a sonic experience that is nothing short of breathtaking. The harmonies build to a space that moves at its own pace without rushing to an ending. It is impossible not to be moved by the sheer beauty of these legendary voices coming together again. The song reaches its emotional peak here, and it’s a reminder of one of the reasons that the Beatles remain one of the greatest bands in the history of music. The final moments of “Now And Then” bring the song full circle, returning to the feeling that opened the track. The song ends with a sense of acceptance and a quiet sense of hope.

It’s impossible to overstate the significance — and the controversy — of “Now And Then.” In a world where music trends come and go, and artists often struggle to maintain their relevance, The Beatles have managed to create a song that demonstrates some of what the band members would create in their respective solo projects, especially Lennon. It’s a statement of their enduring legacy and their ability to connect with listeners on a profound level.

The release of “Now And Then” has sparked a renewed interest in the Beatles’ music, and it’s not hard to see why, and I for one, welcome that rediscovery. The song is not only interesting because of the laborious effort to bring it to life but in the sweet simple feel of the songwriting. If for no other reason, the song is important because it reminds us all of the band’s unparalleled musical chemistry. It’s a reminder of the power of music to transcend time and touch the soul.

“Now and Then” is more than just a song; it’s a celebration of a band that changed the course of music history. It’s a tribute to the enduring power of their music and to the bond that still exists between the band members, even after all these years and even beyond the mortal coil.

For me, “Now and Then” is a triumph that reaffirms the Beatles’ status. It’s a song that captures a feeling from the band, ever so slightly hints at their early days as mop-topped lads from Liverpool to their later, more experimental phases. It’s a reminder of the timeless power of their music and the enduring connection they have with their audience. The Beatles have once again proven that their magic is as strong as ever, and “Now And Then” is a beautiful addition to their enduring legacy. It is most appropriate that the other “side” for the double A-Side is a new mix of their debut and first hit, Love Me Do. Perhaps in the release of Now And Then with Love Me Do (2023) we have, indeed, seen the future and the past.