Here comes the sons: Three Beatles’ offspring collaborate on new song

The Beatles are back for a new generation.

John Lennon‘s son Sean Ono Lennon, Paul McCartney‘s son James McCartney, and Ringo Starr‘s son Zak Starkey, who previously played with The Who, have collaborated on the forthcoming song, “Rip Off,” Starkey has teased on social media.

The 59-year-old is a member of supergroup Mantra of the Cosmos, to which Oasis’ Andy Bell and Happy Mondays members Mark Berry and Shaun Ryder also belong. McCartney, 47, and Lennon, 49, worked together before, on the 2024 song “Primrose Hill.”

As Lennon, a solo artist whose mother is Yoko Ono, has explained, a high-profile life simply runs in the family.

“When you’ve never experienced anything else, it’s not weird — it’s simply your life,” he told Rolling Stone in 1998. “I never knew that doing interviews and having press was weird. You take it as it comes. You don’t choose your name, you don’t choose your parents. You’re hurled into this earth, and life hits you like a slap on the ass. Boom, you’re born. Now deal with it.”

The original Beatles — also including George Harrison, who died in 2001 — last released a song, “Now and Then,” in November 2023. The track was compiled using a tune that Lennon had written and recorded before he was murdered in 1980. The other three members of the “Fab Four” worked on the song in the 1990s. It was completed in 2022 using audio technology during director Peter Jackson‘s three-part Get Back documentary that aired on Disney+.

“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear.” McCartney said in a news release at the time. “It’s quite emotional, And we all play on it. It’s a genuine Beatles recording. In 2023 to still be working on Beatles music, and about to release a new song the public haven’t heard, I think it’s an exciting thing.”

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The elder McCartney and Starr famously reunited in December 2024 at the final concert of McCartney’s Got Back tour in London, where they played Beatles tracks “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)” and “Helter Skelter.”

The stories of all the Beatles is set to be told in four films directed by Sam Mendes to be released in April 2028. With each from the perspective of a different member, the films will star Paul Mescal and McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Starr, Harris Dickinson as Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as Harrison.