| "Free as a Bird" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single bythe Beatles | ||||
| from the albumAnthology 1 | ||||
| B-side | "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)" | |||
| Released | 4 December 1995 (1995-12-04) | |||
| Recorded | c. 1977
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| Studio |
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:26 | |||
| Label | Apple | |||
| Songwriters | Original composition byLennon; the Beatles version byLennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey[1] | |||
| Producers | ||||
| The Beatles singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "Free as a Bird" onYouTube | ||||
| Audio sample | ||||
"Free as a Bird" is a single released in December 1995 by English rock bandthe Beatles. The song was originally written and recorded in 1977 as ahome demo byJohn Lennon. In 1995, 25 years aftertheir break-up and 15 years afterLennon's murder, his then surviving bandmatesPaul McCartney,George Harrison andRingo Starr released a studio version incorporating the demo.
The single was released byApple Records as part of the promotion forThe Beatles Anthology video documentary and theAnthology 1 compilation album. For theAnthology project, McCartney asked Lennon's widowYoko Ono for unreleased material by Lennon to which the three remaining ex-Beatles could contribute. "Free as a Bird" was one of three such songs (along with "Real Love" and, decades later, "Now and Then") for which McCartney, Harrison and Starr contributed additional instrumentation, vocals and arrangements.Jeff Lynne, who had worked with Harrison on Harrison's albumCloud Nine and as part ofthe Traveling Wilburys, co-produced.
The accompanying music video was produced by Vincent Joliet and directed byJoe Pytka. Shot from the point of view of a bird in flight, it includes allusions to numerous Beatles songs. The song peaked atNo. 2 on theUK Singles Chart and No. 6 on the USBillboardHot 100. It also became a top-ten hit in at least 10 other countries, including Australia, Canada, Hungary and Sweden. It won the 1997Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was the Beatles' 34th top-ten single in the United States, giving the group at least one Top 40 hit in four different decades.
In August 2025, a remastered remix of "Free as a Bird" was released digitally, which usedAIaudio restoration technology to extract and clean up Lennon's vocals, for release onAnthology 4.[2]
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In the 1990s the surviving members ofthe Beatles,Paul McCartney,George Harrison andRingo Starr, originally intended to record some incidental background music, as a trio, for theAnthology project, but later realised, according to Starr, that they wanted to record "new music".[3] According to Harrison, they had always agreed that if one of them was not in the band, the others would never replace him and agreed that the "only other person that could be in it was John".[4]
McCartney then asked Ono if she had any unreleased recordings by Lennon, so she sent himcassette tapes of four songs.[5] "Free as a Bird" was recorded by Lennon in 1977,[6] in his and Ono'sDakota building apartment inNew York City, but was not complete. Lennon introduced the song on the cassette by imitating a New York accent and saying, "Free—as a boid" (bird).[7][8] The other songs were "Grow Old With Me", "Real Love" and "Now and Then".[9] Ono says that it was Harrison and former Beatles road managerNeil Aspinall who initially asked her about the concept of adding vocals and instrumentation to Lennon's demo tapes. Ono stated "People have said it was all agreed when Paul came over to New York to induct John into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame, but it was all settled before then. I just used that occasion to hand over the tapes personally to Paul."[10]
McCartney went to Ono's home after the induction ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to listen to, and receive, the Lennon demo tapes; he recalls the meeting with Ono:
She was there withSean ... and she played us a couple of tracks. There were two newies on mono cassettes which he did at home ... [s]o I checked it out with Sean, because I didn't want him to have a problem with it. He said, "Well, it'll be weird hearing a dead guy on lead vocal. But give it a try." I said to them both, "If it doesn't work out, you can veto it." When I told George and Ringo I'd agreed to that they were going, "What? What if we love it?" It didn't come to that, luckily. I said to Yoko, "Don't impose too many conditions on us, it's really difficult to do this, spiritually. We don't know, we may hate each other after two hours in the studio and just walk out. So don't put any conditions, it's tough enough."[11]
Ono recognised that she was now in a position of bringing the band back together after previously being criticised for splitting them up.[12]
During an interview for theAnthology project, McCartney revealed that he was surprised to learn that Lennon's demos of "Grow Old With Me" and "Real Love" had already been released and were well known by Lennon fans.[7][13] Starr admitted that when he first listened to the recording he found it very emotional.[14]
George Martin, who had produced most of the Beatles' 1960s recordings, turned down an invitation to produce "Free as a Bird" due to hearing problems (though he subsequently managed to produce and direct theAnthology series). Harrison suggestedJeff Lynne (founding member ofElectric Light Orchestra and co-producer of Harrison's 1987 album,Cloud Nine) as producer, and work commenced at McCartney's studio in February 1994.[15] Harrison expressed a desire to work with Lynne or he would not involve himself in the project.[16]Geoff Emerick and Jon Jacobs were chosen to engineer the new tracks.
The original 1977 tape of Lennon singing the song was recorded on a monocassette, with vocals and piano on the same track.[17] They were impossible to separate with the technology at the time, so Lynne had to produce the track with voice and piano together, but commented that it was good for the integrity of the project, as Lennon was not only singing occasional lines, but also playing on the song.[18]
Although Lennon had died in 1980, Starr said that the three remaining Beatles agreed they would pretend that Lennon had "gone for lunch", or had gone for a "cup of tea".[19] The remaining Beatles recorded a track around Lennon's basic song idea, but which had gaps they had to fill in musically.[20] Some chords were changed, and the arrangement was expanded to include breaks for McCartney and Harrison to sing extra lines. Harrison played slide guitar in the solo.[21]
The Beatles' overdubs and production were recorded between February and March 1994 inSussex, England, at McCartney's home studio.[22] Harrison ended the song with a homage toGeorge Formby, a Northern English comedian who the Beatles were fans of, adding a slightcoda with a strummedbanjo ukulele,[23] and an archive recording of John Lennon saying "turned out nice again!", Formby's catchphrase, played backwards.[24] The final result sounds like "made by John Lennon", which, according to McCartney, was unintentional and was only discovered after the surviving Beatles reviewed the final mix.[25] When Starr heard McCartney and Harrison singing the harmonies, and later the finished song, he said that it sounded just likethem [the Beatles]. He explained his comment by saying that he looked at the project as "an outsider".[26] Lynne fully expected the finished track to sound like the Beatles, as that was his premise for the project, but Harrison added "It's gonna sound likethem if it isthem ... It sounds likethem now."[27]
McCartney, Harrison and Starr all agreed that the recording process was more pleasurable than when they later recorded "Real Love" (the second song chosen for release); as the latter was almost finished, they had very little input, and felt likesidemen for Lennon.[28]
The music video for "Free as a Bird" was produced by Vincent Joliet and directed byJoe Pytka and contains, from the point of view of a bird in flight, many references to Beatles songs, such as "Penny Lane", "Paperback Writer", "A Day in the Life", "Eleanor Rigby", "Helter Skelter", "Piggies", "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Doctor Robert" and "The Fool on the Hill". It has been estimated that the video includes between 80 and 100 allusions to the Beatles' story, music and lyrics.[29] Although the bird can be heard at the beginning of the video, it is never seen.Neil Aspinall (Apple Records executive at the time) said that this was because no-one could agree on what kind of bird it should be.[30] Pytka had to send his ideas to McCartney, Harrison and Starr, as well as Ono, to make sure they all agreed before he could proceed with the filming of the video.Derek Taylor (ex-Apple Records executive) sent a two-page letter to Pytka confirming that he could proceed, and personally encouraged and supported Pytka's ideas.[31] The video was filmed in as many authentic locations as possible: Penny Lane was made by Pytka's art department to look as it was in the 1950s, and other locations filmed wereThe Liver Building andLiverpool Docks (as a reference to Lennon's fatherAlfred Lennon).[32]
Although Pytka fixed the ideas on astoryboard, he abandoned it as soon as filming began, and followed ideas based on what angles and perspectives theSteadicam camera produced. One instance was the filming of the car crash, which Pytka filmed for hours from above, but realised that a Steadicam shot on the ground was a much better idea.[33] The inclusion of the car registration number 847 BHN on a police van in the "A Day in the Life" crash sequence alludes to John and Yoko's commitment to the case ofJames Hanratty, hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder (then a contentious case, but proven guilty by DNA evidence in 2002). Archiveage was used by imposing it on scenes shot by Pytka, who utilised agreenscreen stage to digitally blend it into the finished film, such as Paul'sOld English Sheepdog in the graveyard, and the elephant in the ballroom procession scene.[34] The elephant was put in last, as Aspinall phoned Pytka and said that Starr liked the scene, but insisted an elephant be put in it, which Pytka later did, as he had already put asitar in at the request of Harrison.[35] Apart from the Steadicam shots, Pytka used a Russian-made Akela-crane for sweeping overhead shots, such as theAbbey Road zebra crossing shot at the end, as well as a remote-controlled toy helicopter with a camera added to it for intricate aerial shots.[36] To make it more interesting, twoBlue Meanies make cameos.
Harrison played the ukulele in the studio for the song, and asked to appear as the Formby-style ukulele player seen only from behind at the very end of the video. Pytka resisted this, as he felt it would be wrong for any contemporary members of the Beatles to appear on screen. Pytka later stated that it was "heartbreaking" that Harrison had not played the role, particularly after Harrison's death in 2001 and upon discovering that the ukulele was not a sample as Pytka had assumed.[37] The video won theGrammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video in 1997.[38]
To promote the expanded 30th-anniversary edition ofThe Beatles Anthology, the video would receive a 4K remaster byPeter Jackson's post-production company,Park Road Post, who previously work onThe Beatles: Get Back andBeatles '64. This would be uploaded on to the band's YouTube channel on 21 August, replacing the original 2016 upload and the audio, which originally used the mix on1+, was replaced with the 2025 remix.
On 6 November 2015, Apple Records released a new deluxe version of the1 album in different editions and variations (known as1+). Most of the tracks on1 were remixed from the original multi-track masters byGiles Martin, who, with Jeff Lynne, also remixed "Free as a Bird" to accompany the music video for the DVD and Blu-ray releases. The remix of "Free as a Bird" cleans up Lennon's vocal further, and uses a different take of Harrison's vocal phrase, replacing the lyric "whatever happened to thelife that we once knew" with "whatever happened to thelove that we once knew". The clip of Lennon saying "turned out nice again" was switched to play forward. McCartney's lead vocal, buried in the original mix to serve as a double-track for Lennon's own vocal, can now be heard more prominently in the second verse.
On 21 August 2025, a new remix of "Free as a Bird" was released digitally. The remix was done by Lynne and employedaudio restoration technology to isolate Lennon's vocals. The remix serves as a precursor to an expanded 30th-anniversary edition ofThe Beatles Anthology, which released on 21 November 2025.[2] The remix was met with mixed reception, with some praising Lennon's clearer vocals, and others believing that the previous sounds of Lennon's vocals were superior.[39] The new mix was later released as a limited edition AA-side single alongside the new mix of "Real Love" on 28 November.[40]
"Free as a Bird" marked the first time a single containing new material had been released under the Beatles' name since "The Long and Winding Road" in the United States in 1970.[7][8] The promotional video was broadcast during episode one ofThe Beatles Anthology that aired onITV in the UK andABC in the US.[41][42]
"Free as a Bird" was greeted with mixed reviews. Its release was criticised by Caroline Sullivan inThe Guardian as a publicity gimmick, exploiting the Beatles brand, and owing less to the Beatles than to Lynne.[43] Andy Gill inThe Independent called the song "disappointingly low-key. ... George's guitar weeps gently enough when required, but the overall effect is of a dirge."[44] Ben Willmott fromNME viewed it as "a mournful dirge of a tune, overlaid with a grimly slick guitar on loan fromDire Straits and with Macca wanting to knowCan we really live without each other?".[45] Jordan Paramor fromSmash Hits gave it four out of five, writing, "Instead, hide in your room for a few listens, 'cos it's a classy, laid-back Beatles anthem – with fantastic twangy guitar – to be enjoyed well away from anyone evenremotely nostalgic!"[46]Ian MacDonald, writer ofRevolution in the Head, declared it to be a "dreary song" that stood no comparison with the Beatles' sixties music.[15] Chris Carter, host ofBreakfast with the Beatles, commented: "I would value any song (especially if it was great) performed by John, Paul, George and Ringo, no matter how (or when) it was recorded."[47] "Free as a Bird" won theGrammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1997.[48]
"Free as a Bird" was premiered onBBC Radio 1 in the early hours of 20 November 1995 and was sent to UScontemporary hit radio stations the following day.[49][50] It was released as a single on CD, cassette and 7-inch vinyl in the UK on 4 December 1995,[51] two weeks after its appearance on theAnthology 1 album. The single sold 120,000 copies in its first week, entering theUK Singles Chart at No. 2. It remained on the chart for eight weeks.[52] In the US, the song was released on 12 December 1995 and reached No. 6 on theBillboard Hot 100, becoming the Beatles' 34th Top 10 single in America.[53][8][54] It was the group's first Top 10 song in the US since 1976, and also their first new single since their final number one hit on that chart in 1970.
The CD and vinyl cover art is by John Lennon, taken from his 1964 bookIn His Own Write.[55]
All songs written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, except where noted.
According to Ian MacDonald:[56]
Weekly charts[edit]
| Year-end charts[edit]
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom (BPI)[94] | Silver | 200,000^ |
| United States (RIAA)[95] | Gold | 500,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
| Region | Date | Format(s) | Label(s) | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 21 November 1995 | Contemporary hit radio | [50] | |
| United Kingdom | 4 December 1995 |
| Apple | [51] |
| United States | 12 December 1995 |
| [53] | |
| Japan | 1 January 1996 | CD | [96] |
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