I think at this point they acknowledged the well (if you will) of Lennon demos had run dry. I liked "Free as a Bird," loved "Real Love." But "Now and Then..." it was the bottom of the barrel and it showed.
It's not terrible. It has quite a bit of harmonic complexity. But it is, as I said, dreary. They can only do so much with the material and I can see why George called it rubbish.
For all the hype... nah.
I realize what I'm about to say is sacrilegious in some circles, but The Beatles had only limited appeal for me. I was in high school when they started hitting the charts. I liked some of their songs, but I preferred R&B, country and doo-wop for the most part, so Beatles didn't exactly fit into those categories. No Beatles song ever made me want to dance, and that's a big measure of my grading system.
No surprise that this Beatles tune fell flat with me.
