The Friday Thing #822

Lots of love for last week's edition - thank you.?

The Friday Thing #822 sort of wrote itself - or I should say rewrote itself after a watched a video last night. This week was going to be a piece about Steve Jobs and the notion of a "zero sum game". He was a huge fan of The Beatles and one of my favourite interviews is the one he gave to Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at D5 alongside Bill Gates where he quoted The Beatles line to Bill - "“You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” Beautiful.?

We'll come back to Steve, but we'll stick with The Beatles.?

Growing up in Liverpool/Merseyside as I did, you couldn't escape The Beatles if you tried. They broke up as a band before I was born but their music was (and is) everywhere - especially in the city of Liverpool. Matthew Street, The Cavern, Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane. Wherever you go in Liverpool you will hear and see reflections of the "four lads who shook the world".?

This week, even though John and George are no longer with us, The Beatles released their latest and 'final' song. It was released yesterday, and I listened with some trepidation as I didn't want their final offering to be a dud. Thankfully, to me at least, it's not. It's a gem and the story behind it is too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, AI had a part to play here. Fear not, this is not a synthetic John Lennon - it's the real John - his vocals lifted from a scratchy cassette tape and isolated through some AI magic by Peter Jackson.? Here's the story behind Now And Then in a short film.

Magical, eh? I love that Giles Martin is involved too!

Thanks for reading and Happy Friday. Of course, the music for this week is Now And Then by The Beatles.?

-Steve

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