On This Day: The Beatles Released Anthology, a landmark archival release brought the Beatles back together, decades after they stopped recording.
On this day in 1995, the Beatles reshaped their own history with the U.S. release of Anthology 1, a sprawling 60-track collection that pulled long-buried recordings out of the vaults and into the world.
The centrepiece of the release was ‘Free As a Bird,’ a track built around a 1977 home demo taped by John Lennon.
Nearly two decades later, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr reunited in the studio to finish the song, carefully weaving new vocals and instrumentation around Lennon’s fragile cassette recording.
Issued as a single, it marked the first Beatles “reunion” since 1970 and became a cultural event in its own right.
The compilation itself pulled from early sessions, live broadcasts, outtakes, and demos tracing the band’s evolution from Liverpool beginnings to global domination.
For fans, it revealed the messy, human, often chaotic process behind songs now etched into cultural memory.
News of ‘Free As a Bird’ eclipsed almost everything else surrounding the project.
Radio stations debuted it to massive audiences, the video premiered in prime time, and the single soared into charts around the world.
While purists debated whether a finished demo truly counted as “a Beatles song,” the surviving members framed it as one last opportunity to honour Lennon and to stand together as a band.
Nearly three decades later, Anthology 1 remains a milestone: a moment when the impossible happened, if only briefly, and the Beatles’ story gained one more chapter.
