"Real Love" is a song written by the English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles. He recorded six demos of the song in 1979 and 1980 with "Real Life", a different song that merged with "Real Love". In 1988, the sixth take was posthumously released for the documentary soundtrack Imagine: John Lennon. In 1995, his demo was completed by his former Beatles bandmates (Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr) as part of the Beatles Anthology project, along with "Free as a Bird". The song was released as a Beatles single in 1996 in the United Kingdom, United States and many other countries. It respectively reached number 4 and number 11 in the UK and US singles charts, and earned a gold record more quickly than a number of the group's other singles. The song was not included on the BBC Radio 1 playlist, prompting criticism from fans and British Members of Parliament. The track opened the Beatles' Anthology 2 album. It is the last single by the Beatles to become a top 40 hit in the US, the last released record of new material credited to the Beatles, and the last to originate and be included on an album as well as the last top 10 hit in the UK. Early origins According to Beatles biographer John T. Marck, "Real Love" originated as part of an unfinished stage play that Lennon was working on at the time, titled The Ballad of John and Yoko. The song was first recorded in 1977 with a handheld tape recorder on his piano at home. Eventually the work evolved under the title "Real Life", a song which Lennon would record at least six times in 1979 and 1980, and was then abandoned. The song was eventually combined with elements of another Lennon demo, "Baby Make Love to You". In June 1978, Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono told the press that they were working on a musical, The Ballad of John and Yoko, which had been planned during the previous year. Songs proposed to be included up to this point were "Real Love" and "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him". In later versions, Lennon altered portions of the song; for example, "no need to be alone / it's real love / yes, it's real love" became "why must it be alone / it's real / well it's real life." Some