I’m happy to announce that during October, in honor of the 70th anniversary of the birth of John Lennon and also in recognition of his upcoming releases (i.e. the Signature Box, the Gimme Some Truth CD set, the Power To The People: The Hits (CD & DVD) set, and the Double Fantasy Stripped Down CD), TheBeatlesRarity.com will be focusing primarily on his music. BROWS, VOWs and even The Beatles cartoons will all be highlighting the incredible music of John both during and after The Beatles. By the way, I had the privilege of hearing a sneak preview of the stripped down Double Fantasy last week and it is fantastic. Without the orchestration and heavy backing vocals in (Just Like) Starting Over, I can actually hear the guitars. I loved hearing it this way, as it sounded so “clean”. I’ve no doubt it will make an impact this month.

John Lennon & George Harrison check out guitars at Rushworth's & Drapers Music Stores, Liverpool, UK

To celebrate this occasion, I have included a “Bonus BROW”. I say bonus because this is in addition to the regularly scheduled BROW posts that usually hit the web on Mondays. On the morning of January 2, 1969, John Lennon and George Harrison are at Twickenham studios tuning up over tea and cigarettes while waiting for the other two members of the band to arrive. John begins a new song called I’ve Got A Feeling. The performance has a gentle breeziness not apparent in later arrangements. John sings off-mike and there are quite a few discordant notes from George, since he is trying to play along, never having heard the song in his life and not knowing what to play. The brief performance, of course, needs a lot of work, but it is interesting because John has evidently reverted to his conception of the song before Paul began to work on it with him. In it’s final arrangement, there are two distinct parts, sung (and in fact, composed) by Paul and John respectively. John deviates from the familiar arrangement and begins this performance with his own lyrics, using a variant of Paul’s part as a chorus. About a half hour later, when The Beatles actually begin rehearsing the song in earnest, with Paul present to sing his own part, it becomes substantially the song we know from the Let It Be album. This is the earliest recording of I’ve Got A Feeling (not including an earlier recording of John singing his fragment Everybody Had A Hard Year, circa late 1968). Thanks go out to Chip Morris for requesting that I post this track, in order to make good on my comment from this post.

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of thousands of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

To read more about the new John Lennon releases and/or order your own copies from Amazon, click any of the links below:

1) Signature Box

2) Gimme Some Truth

3) Double Fantasy Stripped Down

4) Power To The People: The Hits (CD & DVD)

5) Power To The People: The Hits (CD only)

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