Why it pays to be a creative pack rat

You never know where it will lead

At this point, you’d have to be living not just under a rock, but under a rock buried deep in an underwater cave, booby-trapped six ways from Sunday, and guarded by hammerhead sharks, to have missed the fact that the most unexpected thing in the world of music happened on Thursday:

Almost 43 years after the death of John Lennon, and 22 after we lost George Harrison, we got a new Beatles song.

How could this happen? Aside from the obvious answer of a whole lot of phenomenal technology and determination, the real answer is this: someone was saved unfinished tracks from 1977 (and probably more).

Without that track—if just one person had decided, or convinced someone else, that there was no reason to hang on to it anymore—there’d be no song.

I started 10th grade with an English teacher brand-new to our school, who we’d been told at the end of the previous year was an expert on the writing process. He became my first writing mentor and a dear friend. One of the first things he told us, possibly on the first day of school, was, “Always date and save a draft.”

Those words have been rattling around in my head since this song came out, because it feels like the perfect example of why it’s good advice. I’m sure well-meaning people have wanted to weed out unused Beatles tracks for decades and have been told to back off. Or perhaps some have been deemed more important to save than others.

Either way, hanging on to a track recorded 46 years ago, with no evidence that there’ll ever be a way to use it, is a massive act of faith.

It’s also a recognition that there’s value in this unfinished thing, even if you’re not sure what to do with it. It’s not trash. There’s something there worth preserving, even if it doesn’t look like there’s a reason to keep it—especially to outsiders who think it’s just junk.

Meanwhile, I’m 52 years old; the Beatles broke up before I was born—but here I am, hearing a brand new song of theirs for the first time. (And I’m far from the only one.) It’s a technological feat, not really a miracle… but at the same time, it is totally a miracle.

Miracles can’t happen if we don’t lay the groundwork to make them possible, and saving your drafts/sketches/studies is one way to do that. You just never know when the thing you thought didn’t work turns out to be exactly what you need for a later project. Maybe today isn’t the day you’re able to solve the riddle of what’s not working… but maybe three years from now, you’ll be doing something else, and suddenly you’ll know exactly what that old draft needs to come to life, or where you can use it as part of something new.

Fortunately, these days it’s much easier to hang on to these things without filling your house with paper and creating a fire hazard. Maybe you won’t ever go back to something again, but you’ll kick yourself later if you want it and you don’t have it.

On a different note, this is the first time I’ve seen the actual video for this song (I didn’t even know it existed until I looked up John Lennon just now). I have mixed feelings about the way they’ve gone whole hog with the idea of reviving old material, because having old video superimposed on the new does feel a little strange and artificial—how could it not?—but I love the fact that they obviously said, “You know what? We don’t care what you think. We’re going to have fun with this and that’s that.” I’m very impressed with how good the old footage looks with the new, and how well they matched movement, which couldn’t have been easy.

Most of all, though, I love how the video makes it so very clear that this song isn’t just a technological wonder, potentially done just for the sake of doing it. This song, both lyrically and visually, is a love letter to John and George. It’s also so bittersweet, because Paul is 81 and Ringo is 83, and here they are making music with their old friends one last time, missing the hell out of them while paying tribute in such a beautiful way.

Considering the disagreements that caused them to split, the video really says “We love you, and we always have. We miss you, and all is forgiven.”