Yesterday, The Beatles released what is being called their ”last ever song”. The track entitled, Now and Then, was much anticipated by the music world but one fan in particular is still in shock at how the song was unveiled.
Street Artist, Paul Curtis, was actually battling to finish a mural during storm Ciaran when The Beatles track went live. As he explains, “I’d had to stop because the rain and wind was making painting impossible and that’s when I watched the trailer for the new single. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw they’d featured a piece of my work”.
As Paul told us, “If you grow up in Liverpool, you grow up with The Beatles and as someone who paints in public areas, it was almost inevitable I’d end up painting the band, I just never expected them to use one of my pieces to promote their last single”
Of all the murals Paul has created with links to The Beatles, perhaps the most photographed one (until now) has being his version of the Abbey Road crossing, which is on the side of the city’s Cains Brewery. Ironically, that image doesn’t feature any of The Beatles and instead invites the public to stand in and recreate the famous album cover, by crossing the road as the band did for their own cover shoot in 1969.
However, it’s an earlier and perhaps less well known mural that was used in the promotion of Now and Then. The image in question depicts parts of the portraits from the 1963 album, With The Beatles and it can be found on Croxteth Street in Litherland.
When asked if The Beatles management had been in touch with Paul ahead of the singles release he said, “I didn’t know anything about it until the moment I saw the footage but it’s nice to know that they are aware of my work”.
The artist, whose first public work “For All Liverpool’s Liver Birds” arguably made him the second most famous Scouse Paul to be synonymous with “wings”, went on to say, “I’m a huge fan of The Beatles, so to be attached in some small way to the release of their last single is a huge honour”. Paul then added, “I actually used to play bass in a band in a band called Cresta. I was also a singer songwriter, so Macca is an idol to me and it’s a dream of mine to paint Paul McCartney at Abbey Road. That might sound like a pipe dream, but I never thought that the Beatles would use my artwork like this, so I can live in hope”.
You can watch the trailer for the song here.
If you want to see more work by Paul Curtis featuring The Beatles, there is a full interactive map of all his murals at Paulcurtisartwork.com
