Recent articles about John Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ – Summer 2025
Over the summer, there were eight articles published that mentioned John Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me.’ Some of these preceded the news of a 30th anniversary release of the Beatles Anthology albums. Most came after, spurred by the announcement.
I will discuss each article here. Note that, in some cases, I am doing so to correct the record, as some of the articles have inaccuracies.
ARTICLE 1: The John Lennon track Paul McCartney wanted to make a Beatles ‘reunion song’. Far Out, June 30, 2025.
The crux of what this article says about ‘Grow Old With Me’ is this:
“Paul McCartney particularly loved [‘Grow Old With Me’] and the sentiment behind it, so much so that when they were releasing some Beatles reunion tracks in the ‘90s, he was keen on using this one. Unfortunately, it proved impossible, as the cassette rattling in the background couldn’t be removed, and it was present throughout Lennon’s vocals. George Harrison was relieved that they couldn’t use the song, as he thought it was too sad, given that Lennon was no longer able to grow old with Yoko Ono.”
Let me break this down sentence by sentence. In research about ‘Grow Old With Me,’ I have found nothing to support the assertion that McCartney was “keen” on using the song as a Beatles reunion song. In fact, we have McCartney saying the exact opposite in 1995. In a 1995 interview published in Beatlefan, McCartney said that the group was not going to record the song because, “We’re not that keen on that one.” As far as I have found, this is all that McCartney ever said specifically about ‘Grow Old With Me’ during the Anthology period other than mentioning that Yoko Ono played him the song and gave him a copy.
Next, let’s look at “it proved impossible, as the cassette rattling in the background couldn’t be removed, and it was present throughout Lennon’s vocals.” Again, there is no evidence to support this claim that I have seen. ‘Grow Old With Me’ was released on 1984’s Milk and Honey, and any significant cassette rattling would have shown there. Additionally, producer Jeff Lynne and his team surmounted the exact same types of technical issues on ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love,” as these two songs were recorded on a cassette recorder. (NB: These issues were significant on ‘Now And Then,’ but it also appears George Harrison didn’t want to move forward with making a third reunion song.)
The last statement about Harrison being “relieved” as he thought the song was “too sad” comes from articles by writer Rip Rense. (I wrote about them here.) In 2005, Rense wrote that the song was “rumored to be too poignant to handle.” Many years later, he wrote that the song was not worked on “reportedly because Harrison found it too sad, given Lennon's fate.” However, these are just rumors. As best I can tell, Harrison never formally commented on ‘Grow Old With Me’ in a published interview.
Overall, this article muddies the water about ‘Grow Old With Me’ more than it adds clarity. The main points of the article lack veracity.
ARTICLE 2: “That would be great for you, Ringo!” How an unreleased John Lennon demo saw three-quarters of the Beatles write a song together, 40 years after Lennon's death. Guitar Player, August 13, 2025.
First, what a long title! This article is about Ringo Starr’s cover version of ‘Grow Old With Me.’ The article states:
Released in 2019 as part of his 20th album, “What’s My Name”, the song started life in Lennon’s imagination. Little came of the demo until it serendipitously ended up in Starr's hands years after Lennon's passing.
It later goes on to say of the song:
This idea, however, remained untouched nearly 40 years later.
I would challenge these statements. ‘Grow Old With Me’ had been released in 1984 on Milk and Honey, Lennon’s posthumous album with Yoko Ono. It was considered as a Beatles ‘reunion’ song. It received a George Martin orchestration in 1998 on John Lennon Anthology. It was included on various Lennon compilation albums. Finally, over 80 professional artists have recorded cover versions. This article makes it sound as if none of this happened.
ARTICLE 3: The Beatles tease 30TH anniversary Anthology collection November 21st with 4th chapter, video and audio UPDATED W GOSSIP. Roger Friedman’s Showbiz 411, August 19, 2025.
This article is about the 30th anniversary release of the Beatles Anthology. It says:
Is there any extra material left? Quite a lot, I think, judging by all the bootlegs floating around. And Apple would be smart to fix up the original set of albums and videos for a new generation. You Tube is filled with fan made versions of an Anthology 4 with all kinds of amateur remixes including one of the whole Band — somehow – playing on John Lennon’s “Grow Old With Me.”
It provides a link to one such fan-made version. Note again that there is no evidence that McCartney, Harrison, and Starr tried to work on ‘Grow Old With Me’ in the ‘90s during the Anthology period.
ARTICLE 4: Free As a Bird: The Beatles 'Anthology' gets remixed and expanded in new box set. Second Disc, August 21, 2025.
This article is about the 30th anniversary of the Anthology and the Beatles reunion songs. It writes:
Two additional tracks, "Grow Old with Me" and "Now and Then," were abandoned, but the latter was resurrected (utilizing technological advancements that better separated Lennon's piano and vocal, along with a vaulted overdub by the since-deceased Harrison and new overdubs by McCartney and Starr) for a remix of the group's 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 compilations in 2023.
This is not entirely accurate. ‘Now And Then’ was abandoned, as the article states. As I have written, there is no evidence that ‘Grow Old With me’ was ever worked on and a considerable amount of evidence that it was not. So I would not say that they “abandoned” the song. Rather, I would say that they decided not to work on it.
ARTICLE 5: What was the final song recorded by The Beatles? Radio X, August 21, 2025.
This article mentions that ‘Grow Old With Me’ was among the songs that Yoko Ono gave Paul McCartney to consider as a ‘reunion’ song during the Anthology period. It notes that the song was considered for Double Fantasy but was subsequently bumped to the follow up album. It mentions George Martin’s orchestration on John Lennon Anthology and the song being on the 2020 compilation Gimme Some Truth. All of these statements are accurate.
ARTICLE 6: ‘Grow Old With Me’: A look back at the song that brought John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr back together again. Q 107, September 1, 2025.
This is an article based on a 2019 interview with Ringo Starr. In it, he talks about covering ‘Grow Old With Me’ for his album What’s My Name? The original video interview is linked in the article. Given that the article is about six year old information, I would assume that it was published due to the Anthology announcement.
ARTICLE 7: ‘Grow Old With Me’: The tragic story of John Lennon’s denouement. Far Out, September 4, 2025.
The article states:
‘Grow Old With Me’ was the first time it sounded like the bespectacled icon had found peace.
I very much agree with this statement. To me, it is part of what makes the song so poignant. One could, of course, say that the same peacefulness can be found on many of the other songs on Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey. The article continues:
But it’s all wishful thinking at the end of the day. As much as this song is absolutely stunning, he’s singing about a version of his ideal life that would never come to pass, and even when the song was offered to Ringo Starr shortly after his bandmate’s passing, he knew that he couldn’t go through with it, eventually waiting years before making his own version of the track.
This section is problematic. There is no evidence, as far as I have seen, that ‘Grow Old With Me’ was offered to Starr shortly after Lennon’s death. Lennon did write a series of songs intended for Starr that he was offered. Those are believed to be ‘Life Begins At 40,’ ‘Nobody Told Me,’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Face It.’
Additionally, Starr told GQ magazine in 2019 he had “no awareness” of ‘Grow Old With Me’ until producer Jack Douglas brought the Bermuda Tapes to his attention. (The Bermuda Tapes are a series of John Lennon demos that have never been formally released as a collection.) This would contradict Starr deciding not to cover the song in the early 1980s and waiting until 2019.
The article continues:
Even when putting the tune together for What’s My Name, Starr wanted to make sure that it was an authentic reunion of the band, saying, “Paul came over and he played bass and sings a little bit on this with me. So John’s on it in a way. I’m on it and Paul’s on it. […] And the strings […], if you really listen, they do one line from ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ So in a way, it’s the four of us.”
This is inaccurate. It was Jack Douglas’s decision to include a line from ‘Here Comes the Sun’ in the instrumentation of Starr’s version of ‘Grow Old With Me.’ Starr was unaware of it initially. He told Billboard magazine, “Jack Douglas, unbeknownst to me, I go down to the studio where he’s putting the string section on and I listen to this music. He uses a George [Harrison] riff that everybody knows. So we’re all there now. And I thought, “Well done, Jack.””[1]
The article finishes:
While there had been speculation about the group working on the song during the Anthology project, this is one of the few demos that shouldn’t have been tampered with. This is a Lennon song from back to front, and while it’s sad to think about it in the context of the time it was made, it’s important for it to stand as a document of Lennon’s state of mind going into the 1980s.
It’s hard to disagree with these sentiments.
ARTICLE 8: ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’: the last Beatles song George Martin ever worked on. Far Out. September 18, 2025.
The author says of George Martin:
“His string arrangement for John Lennon’s ‘Grow Old With Me’ is one of the most stunning pieces of his solo catalogue.”
REFERENCES
1. Ringo Starr Emotionally Recalls Recording John Lennon Song for New Album ‘What’s My Name?’ Billboard. October 24, 2019.