Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. This week’s BROW highlights an off-the-cuff performance initiated by John Lennon during the Get Back sessions. Most of you probably know that it was this batch of recordings that were later used to produce 1970′s Let It Be album. Early in the day on January 25, 1969, just before beginning rehearsals for Paul McCartney’s song Two Of Us, The Beatles are discussing the filming of a proposed television show of them performing their new material (the television show never occurred though we have the Let It Be film). As Paul continues the discussion with sound engineer Glyn Johns, John begins playing his own modified rendition of I Lost My Little Girl, which Paul claims is the first song he ever wrote. John only remembers the first two lines of the song, so he just repeats them for awhile. Eventually Paul joins in, George Harrison throws in a brief guitar solo and John improvises a few more lyrics to keep it going for nearly 10 minutes. This account of the performance upgrades some early bootleg accounts which only included about 5 minutes of it (catching only the middle of the performance). It sounds like a fun performance, though it apparently has little resemblance to what Paul had in mind with the song. A good place to hear Paul’s version is on his CD Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) which covers his January 1991 MTV Unplugged performance. That CD is getting a bit hard to find now though, since the US pressing is out of print. If you’re interested, The Japanese import may be easier to find.

John Lennon (w/Paul McCartney in the background, Jan. 1969)

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