Free As a Bird
"Free as a Bird" is a single released in December 1995 by English rock band the Beatles. The song was originally written and recorded in 1977 as a home demo by John Lennon. In 1995, 25 years after their break-up and 15 years after Lennon's murder, his then surviving bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr released a studio version incorporating the demo.
The single was released by Apple Records as part of the promotion for The Beatles Anthology video documentary and the Anthology 1 compilation album. For the Anthology project, McCartney asked Lennon's widow Yoko 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 album Cloud Nine and as part of the Traveling Wilburys, co-produced.
The accompanying music video was produced by Vincent Joliet and directed by Joe Pytka. Shot from the point of view of a bird in flight, it includes allusions to numerous Beatles songs. The song peaked at No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also became a top-ten hit in at least 10 other countries, including Australia, Canada, Hungary and Sweden. It won the 1997 Grammy 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 used AI audio restoration technology to extract and clean up Lennon's vocals, for release on Anthology 4.
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