Grow Old With Me (3rd remix now up)

[Lord Reith]

I didn't know what to call this, so if you're confused then this is John's demo finished off by me.

One of the biggest drags about losing John when we did was that he was right in the middle of recording all his new songs! I think it was Taylor Swift - sorry, Rupert Pupkin (or was it Kwai Chang??) - who posted a note that John had scribbled where he made plain his intentions for this song. So that got me thinking, and I decided to make it into an Imagine era outtake in the kind of style he might have intended. So there's his voice... and I'm afraid the rest is me! No, don't switch off!!

So in fewer words I've added John style piano, Klaus Voorman bass, Ringo Ono Band drums, some horns, some strings and some acoustic guitar. So there it is! Listen and weep!

I've also done another mix with a double tracked John vocal.

https://tinyurl.com/mixes-1-and-2 (thanks to MUR for re-up)

Here is a third mix. Sunnylew gave me the idea for this and I've used John vocals from two different takes to create a superior double tracked version.

https://tinyurl.com/expires-aug-6

[zappaf78]

Can't wait to hear this!

[greenfrog12]

Beautiful, a tear fell from my eye for sure, thanks.

[applebonkerz]

Brilliant, thank you for this.

[Doug]

Lovely to hear with the piano in tune.

[theboxinargentina]

This one's a keeper! Best I've heard. Wonderful. Thanks.

[zappaf78]

This is excellent. Kind of wish others can add their interpretation of his other songs as noted on John's original plans for the "Double Fantasy" album. Who even knows if the album would have been called that anyways?! Reading Jack Douglas's interview from '97 it felt like John wanted to do a solo record and was caught off guard with Yoko's sudden appearance with reels of her songs. He did tell Jack "Next album will be just the boys"

[billylentz]

It´s incredible. John´s voice is beyond words. Thank you!

[eeztheman]

It´s incredible. John´s voice is beyond words. Thank you!

What he said !!

This is superb

[Rupert Pupkin]

we won't get an official version like this. This is close to John Lennon's handwritten notes (intended for the sound, not the arrangement of the song, as he wrote); it seems that he has first written strings/brass then added "bag pipes" and I can't imagine what "bag pipes" he had in mind (certainly know an end like "Mull Of Kintyre" )

The bridge is magnificent with the discreet fux fiddlers strings arrangement a-la "Imagine". I love the melody you had for the delicate coda of the song.
George Martin's arrangement was queasy (like Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge). You even find something which could be called "bag pipes" while keeping even so the perfect balance of what is "just" a delicate piano song, with not pompous arrangement; just a love song for his wife, "until death do us apart"

I'm in a sad mood; was listening last week to a lot of Serge Gainsbourg records and Jane Birkin's "Ex Fan Des Sixties" and "Ballade De Johnny-Jane".

I love how - logically - a-la "Imagine" the drums goes in, just after the first part of the verse.
This is a tremendous job, Lord Reith.
Thank you for the music. And don't be frightened; you are more like Gene Tierney in "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" or Ray Milland playing Stella By Starlight in the Uninvited (watch it for the young tragic beauty of Gail Russel) than Swan in Phantom Of The Paradise (this is not the Juicy Fruits; this is music).