The John Lennon song from 1965 that The Beatles Never Released

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John wrote it, Ringo sang it and Paul played guitar. Behind the recording the Beatles refused to release. Said George Harrison, “It’s the most weird song”

By Christopher Scapelliti

Guitar Player

Published  Mon, August 10, 2026

Recorded for 1965’s ‘Help!’ album, the track was left in the vault for just over 30 years

“It's the funniest thing I've ever done,” said Lennon, shown (right) with McCartney on the Beatles’ 1965 U.S. tour. (Image credit: Mark and Colleen Hayward/Getty Images)

By the time the Beatles broke up in late 1969, they had recorded and released more than 200 songs — most of them originals — and left dozens more in the vault. While the bulk of those unissued tracks ranged from rough demos to jams, several were completed recordings that they rejected for one reason or another.

Among them was the first song written for drummer Ringo Starr: “If You’ve Got Trouble.” Composed by John Lennon for inclusion on 1965’s Help!, the tune was a heavy riff-rocker built on a modified three-chord blues progression.

From the start of the Beatles’ recording career, Starr was given a vocal spot on each of their albums (except for 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night) in order to please his fan base. Because he wasn’t a songwriter in the group’s early years, he sang either covers — “Boys,” on 1963’s Please Please Me, and “Honey Don’t” on 1964’s Beatles for Sale — or Lennon and McCartney cast-offs like “I Wanna Be Your Man,” from 1963’s With the Beatles.

“If You’ve Got Trouble” falls into the second category. According to Ray Coleman, the former editor-in-chief of Melody Maker, Lennon knew it was not his finest work.

“I wrote it. It's the funniest thing I've ever done,” Lennon told Coleman, who attended the recording session for the track on February 18, 1965, and wrote about it for the magazine's February 27 issue,. “Listen to the words,” Lennon said, laughing. “I didn't expect anybody to want to record it.”

Despite Lennon’s disregard for the tune, the Beatles put a fair amount of effort into the recording. The basic track — drums, bass guitar and rhythm guitar, played by George Harrison on one of his Gretsch electrics, according to producer George Martin’s notes — is energetic and polished. As Coleman reported, McCartney was happy with the vibe the group was creating.

“Paul thought the sound was one of the best ever,” he wrote.

The song is notable as one of the first Beatles tracks on which McCartney played guitar, joining Harrison to perform its driving riff with his Epiphone Casino hollowbody electric. Interestingly, in the same week that it was recorded, the Beatles also cut “Ticket to Ride,” “Another Girl” and “The Night Before,” three Help! songs that were among the first to feature McCartney playing guitar solos and leads.

“Hey, listen, hear that play by Paul?” John asked Coleman at one point. “He’s been doing quite a bit of lead guitar work this week.”

Ringo Starr and John Lennon in a scene from the 1965 movie Help! (Image credit: Allstar Picture Library Limited. / Alamy Stock Photo)

McCartney’s sudden emergence as a guitarist during this week in the group’s history may help to explain Starr’s rather unusual shout out leading into the guitar solo on “If You’ve Got Trouble.” On previous recordings, he had made a habit of announcing Harrison’s solo breaks, calling out “All right, George,” on “Boys,” and “Rock on, George, one time for Ringo,” on “Honey Don’t.”

But on “If You’ve Got Trouble,” he says the rather unusual, “Oh, rock on, anybody!” Perhaps the Beatles had yet to decide whether Harrison or McCartney would play the solo; according to George Martin’s notes, Ringo’s vocals (which he double-tracked) were recorded before the solo was laid down.

That job eventually fell to Harrison, who delivered what is easily his most uninspired solo in the Beatles’ catalog. Perhaps everyone realized by the night’s end that the song was hopeless. Although the song received mono and stereo mixes on February 20 and 23, respectively, it was ultimately abandoned.

Remarkably, that February 20 mix session saw the Beatles record yet another song that wouldn’t be released for years. “That Means a Lot” was a McCartney tune played in a heavy, R&B style, with a thudding beat and a medium tempo similar to “Ticket to Ride.” It would be subjected to a remake one month later, on March 30. Dissatisfied with the results, the Beatles gave the song to American singer P.J. Proby, whose version reached number 24 on the U.K. charts that September.

“If You’ve Got Trouble” was nearly released in 1984 when former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick prepared the recording for inclusion on the group’s unreleased rarities album, Sessions. His work included cutting the first verse, thereby shortening the song by 20 seconds.

But after the surviving Beatles blocked the album, “If You’ve Got Trouble” remained unreleased until it was included in its full length on Anthology 2 in 1996. Commenting on the song, music critic Ian MacDonald called it “the only unmitigated disaster in the Lennon–McCartney catalog.”

Even George Harrison was unsparing in his criticism. “It’s the most weird song,” he commented in the Beatles’ Anthology book. “I’ve no recollection of ever recording it. It’s got stupid words and is the naffest song. No wonder it didn’t make it onto anything.”

A Night Celebrating The Music Of Yoko Ono

www.rollingstone.com

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT, KATHLEEN HANNA, YO LA TENGO CELEBRATE THE RADICAL MUSIC OF YOKO ONO

“Yoko Only,” a night of inspired performances and collaborations, honored Ono’s boundary-pushing songs, feminist vision, and enduring influence

By KATHERINE TURMAN

Rolling Stone

AUGUST 9, 2026

Artists onstage at ‘The Broad Presents: Yoko Only’ in Los Angeles on Aug. 8.

SALVADOR CEJA GARCIA/COURTESY OF THE BROAD

“I’d like to dedicate this to the Beatles,” Yo La Tengo guitarist and singer Ira Kaplan said from the stage, introducing Yoko Ono’s 1973 song “What Did I Do!” He added, by way of explanation, “It’s been long enough that we no longer bear a grudge for them trying to break up the Plastic Ono Band.” The quip resonated with most of the fans and other musicians — geezers and hipsters of all stripes — pressed up to the stage outside Los Angeles’ the Broad museum for “Yoko Only: A Night Celebrating the Music of Yoko Ono.”

Ono, 93, was not in attendance at the event, but it was a varied and star-studded tribute to her work. Performed mostly with the world’s coolest house band in Yo La Tengo, the 19-song set saw iconoclastic singers and musicians add their own flavor to Ono originals. The setlist ranged from the avant-garde (“AOS” — the original done by Ono in 1970 with Ornette Coleman Quartet) to bona fide hits like 1981’s disco tune “Walking on Thin Ice” to the painfully personal “No, No, No,” a guttural reaction to her husband’s murder the year prior.

"Tabetai"

Yo La Tengo turned into a five-piece for the evening thanks to Wilco member and guitar virtuoso Nels Cline and Cibo Matto’s Yuka Honda. The latter curated the event, hand-selecting performers and often songs, also playing keyboards throughout the night. The concert was presented in conjunction with the museum’s ongoing special exhibition, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind.

Tuneyard’s Merrill Garbus kicked things off with “We Are All Water,” adding to Ono’s lyrics about “Chairman Mao and Richard Nixon” some timely references to villains whose names rhyme with Rump and Titler. The playful “Tabeti” (“I want to eat” in English) was staccato and percussive, delivered with perfect verve by Deerhoof singer Satomi Matsuzaki. Both songs, like much of Ono’s musical and visual work, underline and encourage community, humanity, and creativity in everyone while simultaneously excoriating a pervasive malevolence.

Kathleen Hanna and Sleater-Kinney : "No, No, No"

Ono’s songs proved as diverse as the artists tackling them. Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna joined Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker for an impassioned “No, No, No.” Backstage, pre-gig, Tucker expressed thoughts no doubt shared by many of the women participating: “Yoko Ono was just so ahead of her time and so influential to my generation, the riot grrrl generation,” Tucker said. “She was a direct influence for us of someone who was, like, no filter. Music is about expressing yourself and about being who you truly are and putting out these ideas into the world. That was a huge impact on us.”

Hanna and Tucker performing Ono’s “No, No, No.” Tucker called Ono “so influential to the riot grrrl generation.”

JULIAN HAMILTON/GETTY IMAGES

Indeed, Ono is a household name, though often considered a musical outlier, as her approach to music and singing — like art — has remained singular. If some in the Broad crowd might have been hard-pressed to name more than a song or two of Ono’s, or had only a passing acquaintance with the 1964 feminist performance art Cut Piece and other highlights in her seven-decade career in favor of her collaborations with John Lennon, it didn’t matter. Ono’s influence is myriad.

Especially captivating performances came thanks to Sylvan Esso’s take on “Sisters O Sisters,” singer Amelia Meath embodying the whimsical empowerment of Ono’s 1972 ditty. Meath was likewise vibrant, potent but never performative on “Walking on Thin Ice,” likely the show’s best-known song.

Cello and saxophone (from musicians Maggie Perkins and Shiroishi, respectively) augmented numbers including the unhinged “AOS,” rendered by composer and jazz singer Theo Bleckmann. At one point Bleckmann joked, “Sing along if you like,” his idiosyncratic style proving an ideal fit to capture Ono’s original musical conversation with Ornette Coleman. When the song delved into a cacophony as loud as Bleckmann’s green patterned suit, the crowd was at once laughing and holding their ears.

Chicago’s Finom — Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham — did Ono proud with an often operatic drama and feral vocalizing on the plaintive, short on lyrics, long on emotion “Why” (2018). The duo was equally compelling on the boldly orgasmic “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss,” from Lennon-Ono’s Double Fantasy.

In marked contrast, Ono’s gentler songs worked equally well in the set, with New York multimedia artist Emi Helfrich offering a compelling stillness augmented by acoustic guitars on “Remember Love.” The 1969 gem, wrought with acoustic guitars, was originally the B side of “Give Peace a Chance” from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. (Helfrich had more in common with Ono than anyone else on stage: She’s Ono’s granddaughter, her mother being Yoko Ono’s daughter Kyoko Ono Cox.) Helfrich also performed “Higa Noboru,” a song that Honda describes as carrying “a quiet yet immense gravity,” and that was exactly the tone and mood Helfrich achieved.

Wainwright wore tinted shades during his performance in homage to Ono’s signature look.

JULIAN HAMILTON/GETTY IMAGES

A “sad” song and a “pissed off” tune were on tap for Wainwright, who wore dark glasses, he said, in tribute to Ono’s own face-shielding specs. The bittersweet, timeless “I’m Going Away Smiling” was one Wainwright said always made him cry, and was beautifully intimate with Perkins on cello, cinematic without being maudlin. Ono’s original recording, from 2009’s Between My Head and the Sky, also featured Honda, while a fan-beloved cover of the song by Iggy Pop in 2012 confirms its sumptuous composition. Equally well-crafted is “What a Bastard the World Is,” a sad turned mad, powerfully human narrative with 1973 lyrics — “And all of us live under the mercy of male society / Thinking that their want is our need” — that regrettably still resonate.

Rufus Wainwright

Bikini Kill’s Hanna, hair piled high, fist in the air, introduced the final number culled from Ono’s large, disparate catalog, commenting on the “roller coaster of emotions” invoked by the evening’s song choices. The predominantly female all-star ensemble created a joyous assemblage onstage to perform “Woman Power,” first released in 1973. As a singer, Ono’s vocal approach and tone may not be traditionally crowd-pleasing, but her wishes and hopes for humanity have resonated across the decades. As Hanna, Tucker, and company sang Ono’s lyrics — “You may be the president now/You may still be a man /But you must also be a human /So open up and join us in living” — the sold-out crowd was on board, though not as fervent in a hands-raised, fist-thrusting unity as one might hope for, given the intent and clear follow-through of Ono’s life and art.

Still, as the audience streamed out of the concert courtyard, earlier words from Finom lingered. The duo were among the most instructive in their stage banter — a quality Ono surely would appreciate — reminding the audience to “celebrate the creative courage” of the evening’s honoree, and encouraging the throng to “Channel your inner Yoko!” As the performers hugged onstage, positivity and connectivity were decidedly in the air. Ono, likely asleep across the country New York, would have been proud.

Beatles ‘Revolver’ Turns 60

Klaus Voormann posing with the album Revolver in 1967.

beatlesblogger.com

Beatles ‘Revolver’ Turns 60

by BeatlesBlogger

Posted on August 8, 2026

This past week saw the 60th anniversary of The Beatles’ Revolver celebrated – and a post by bobzilla on reddit titled “Today is the day I get to show off my Revolver collection” immediately got our attention:

“I have somewhere in the vicinity of 400 copies and I’m not done yet. I have at least one mono and one stereo copy from every country that has released it. Almost every US label variation. Working on all of the UK label variations. Plus cassettes, reel to reels, 8-tracks, 4-tracks, Playtapes, and CDs.”

And then he posted two amazing photographs:

Somebody asked him in the comments section “Got any Rubber Soul?”, and he replied “Yes, but only 2 copies”. Proof that Revolver truly is the absolute favourite!

It reminded us that sometimes collectors get fixated on one particular thing.

Check out our reader named Simon who in 2022 sent us a photograph of all the many cassette variations he has of Magical Mystery Tour, followed by some of the vinyl gems he owns too. Simon has what he believes to be one of the world’s most extensive, if not the largest collection of Magical Mystery Tour.

The REAL Story Behind Lost Beatles Song Little Girl Revealed!

www.mojo4music.com

The REAL Story Behind Lost Beatles Song Little Girl Revealed!

MOJO gets an exclusive first listen to never-before-heard Beatles song and uncovers its closely guarded origins.

By Danny Eccleston

Mojo Magazine

7th August 2026

@MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY

In the new issue of MOJO – in UK shops August 11 and available to order for delivery wherever you are now! – we take an exclusive look inside the newly expanded edition of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and dig deep into the Fabs’ 1965 masterpiece.

There have been exhaustive Beatles vault excavations over the years, via the Anthology series and numerous reissue packages – not to mention the completion of the ‘final’ Beatles song, Now And Then, in 2023. But among the wealth of unreleased tracks featured on the new edition of Rubber Soul, undoubtedly the most remarkable discovery is something most fans didn’t think possible in 2026 – the release of a never-before-heard Beatles song.

Recorded in 1965, Little Girl is a John Lennon demo of a song that was never completed with his bandmates. A recording that was such a closely guarded secret that even the most ardent Fabs watchers weren’t aware it even existed.

Ahead of the new edition of Rubber Soul’s release on October 2, MOJO’s Danny Eccleston travelled to Abbey Road studios where Giles Martin – son of Beatles producer George – played him the song, and uncovered the origins of the recording.

“Little girl, I’ve come to say / That this has been a lovely day / I love you, I love you …” sings a disarmingly sweet-sounding Lennon over an idling acoustic guitar, before a more typically Lennon-like pay-off. “…If you’d have asked me yesterday / Then I’d have told you sweet FA…”

“It shows you where Lennon was at the time,” Giles Martin tells MOJO. “It is a pop song – maybe a song you could imagine going on Double Fantasy later, when he’d gone full circle. But the ‘sweet FA’ thing is interesting. It’s like he’s thinking, ‘Aren’t we getting away from this kind of song?’”

John Lennon and Giles Martin. Picture: Alamty

Little Girl is not the only revelation of 2026’s Rubber Soul reboot, but it is the most extraordinary. Out of four CDs’ worth of remixes from by Giles Martin and associate Sam Okell, outtakes, a mono version, the US version of the album, plus the contemporaneous single Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out, Little Girl stands out – a Beatles-era John Lennon song no one outside of the band’s closest circle has ever heard.

“It was Allan Rouse who discovered the tape, I believe,” Beatle expert Kevin Howlett tells MOJO, referring to Giles Martin’s predecessor as Abbey Road’s keeper of The Beatles’ sonic flame, “but nobody knew about it outside of a few people at Abbey Road. It was a very closely guarded secret.”

The tape consisted of four fragments of Lennon’s attempts at the song – subsequently edited into one performance by Giles Martin – dated by Rouse to 1965. Howlett, who writes the new Rubber Soul package’s liner notes, cites more evidence for the dating: a lyric Lennon scrawled on a postcard that Hunter Davies included in his 2012 collection, The John Lennon Letters. Amid crossings out, one of the “little girl…” choruses is verbatim, although a verse suggests a more troubled song than we hear from the tape: “When a girl begins to be a problem / Pretty soon the girl must go / When they’re gone you find at last you love them…”

From the book The John Lennon Letters edited by Hunter Davies

Like much of Rubber Soul, the song captures a feeling of The Beatles on the cusp - looking back, towards pop, and forward, to what pop could, and would, become in their hands.

The Beatles’ Rubber Soul revolution: “The fear’s gone. The experimentation is beginning to happen….”

New Mojo Mag Highlights Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' Special Editions

www.theglassonionbeatlesjournal.com

New Mojo Mag Highlights Beatles' 'Rubber Soul' Special Editions

The Glass Onion

on August 06, 2026

Details on Mojo's October issue:

A sneak peek at the exciting, expanded Rubber Soul – including its long-lost song – and an exploration of the timeless gems of The Beatles’ first masterpiece. Also in this issue: Johnny Marr speaks frankly; David Bowie – inside the Shel Talmy vault; the wonderful world of Kate & Anna McGarrigle; Joy Division – live, unleashed. Plus: Flamin’ Groovies; Mike D; Queen; The Mary Wallopers; Steven Wilson; The Afghan Whigs; Wishbone Ash; The Tubs; The Cure on film; Wuxtry Records; This Is Lorelei; Norma Winstone; Steve Reich; Generation X; and All Back To The God Of Hell Fire’s! 

CONTENTS MOJO 395

THE BEATLES An exclusive early look at a Special Edition of Rubber Soul – with remixes, outtakes and (intriguingly) more – prompts an indulgent immersion in the Fab Four’s first mature masterpiece.

Rubber Soul Redux, CD of The Beatles’ soul influences, David Bowie, Johnny Marr, Flamin’ Groovies, Mike D, Queen and more!

THIS MONTH’S COVERMOUNT CD is Spread The Word!: The Soul Of The Beatles. Fifteen R&B bangers the Beatles were digging in 1965. Little Richard, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Patti Labelle, Wilson Pickett, Larry Williams and more!

Looks Like the Yoko Ono Reissue Train is Back On the Tracks

beatlesblogger.com

Looks Like the Yoko Ono Reissue Train is Back On the Tracks

by BeatlesBlogger

Posted on August 5, 2026

After a solid start – way back in 2016 – the Yoko Ono reissue program came to an abrupt halt in 2019. It’s now been 7 years since we’ve had anything.

Back then the promise was 11 albums in all. They were to be reissued on LP, on CD and for the first time as digital downloads. The plan was to do this in three distinct groups:

1st group:

Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968)

Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With Lions (1969)

Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (1970)

2nd group:

Fly (1971)

Approximately Infinite Universe (1973)

Feeling the Space (1973)

A Story (1974)

3rd group:

Season of Glass (1981)

It’s Alright (I See Rainbows) (1982)

Starpeace (1985)

Unfinished Music No. 3: Wedding Album (1969)

And that release plan all began to happen. There was even a promo video to officially kick things off:

Group one materialised in late 2016. Then group two (except for A Story) was issued across 2017. Then came a two year hiatus until Unfinished Music No. 3: Wedding Album suddenly appeared in all its box-set glory in 2019, the first release of group three.

And then, for about seven years, it all went very, very quiet. Until now.

Season of Glass has just been released and, like each of its predecessors, it comes on limited edition white vinyl, on black vinyl, and on CD. All the artwork is faithfully reproduced and the CD comes with bonus material:

And today an email from Secretly Canadian/Chimera Music popped into our inbox alerting us that on September 18 It’s Alright (I See Rainbows) is set to follow quickly on its heels. It is available for preorder now:

So that begs the question – are A Story and Starpeace soon to follow? Hope so.

Rare signed US-only issued Beatles album set for auction

themusicuniverse.com

Rare signed US-only issued Beatles album set for auction

BUDDY IAHN

The Music Universe

AUGUST 3, 2026

Courtesy of Anderson & Garland

The album is the only signed copy known
A signed copy of the Beatles’ American-only album Beatles ’65, one of only two such copies known to survive, is to be offered at British auctioneers, Anderson & Garland’s Collectors’ Auction on August 27th, with an estimate of £20,000-40,000 ($27,000-$54,000) The album carries a direct and well-documented connection to the filming of the band’s second feature film, Help!

The album’s history begins with the Beatles’ journey to the Bahamas in February 1965 to film warm-weather location scenes for Help!

The band arrived in Nassau on February 22nd. On arrival, when a reporter asked John Lennon how the band had entertained themselves during the flight, he replied simply, “Well, we got stoned,” believed to be the first time any member of the group publicly acknowledged drug use.

The band spent 15 consecutive days filming across locations including Nassau itself, Balmoral Island and the Nassau Beach Hotel, before departing New Providence Island on March 10th. Their management chartered a BOAC Boeing 707 for the journey, a flight nicknamed by those on board the “Beatles Bahamas Express.”

Among the cabin crew on the return leg was Angela Bass (née Bourton), a BOAC air stewardess. During the flight back to London, landing at 7:05 am the following morning, Mrs Bass had the opportunity to spend considerable time in conversation with all four Beatles, and asked them to sign her personal copy of the album. Three of the band signed the reverse of the sleeve; George Harrison, by his own preference, chose to sign the front. She also had them autograph the flight’s first-class menu, which promised cabin service including fresh Canadian salmon mayonnaise, breast of chicken Madeira, French beans and roast potatoes, a tossed salad with Roquefort dressing, a wine list drawn from Bordeaux and the Côte d’Or, and a choice of English or American cigarettes. 

That menu was later sold for more than £5,000 ($7,000), and was subsequently acquired by the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool, where it now resides.

Max Bass pictured holding the Beatles album which his mum got the Beatles to sign in 1965

The album has remained in the family ever since and is now being consigned for sale by Angela Bass’s son, Max Bass, on behalf of himself and his two brothers. Speaking about the album and his mother’s memories of the flight, Mr Bass said:

“Mum was an air stewardess in the golden age of flying in the 1960s. She flew with BOAC, the precursor to British Airways. She was lucky enough to be the stewardess on the flight bringing them back, and as was her way, she made the most of the experience and spent time talking to all of them. She particularly enjoyed chatting with George Harrison, who she said she talked to for hours, and always said how easy he was to get on with. She also had a memorable exchange with John Lennon, who was lying across the gangway of the plane as she tried to get past with the menu. He wouldn’t let her by until she gave him a kiss, which, apparently, she didn’t oblige him with.”

“This album has stayed in the family ever since our mother passed, and between the three of us brothers, we decided the best thing was to move it on to a collector who would really value it.”

Signed copies of any Beatles album are exceptionally scarce, and copies of American-only releases signed by all four members are rarer still. Specialist census work by autograph researchers has identified only one signed copy of Beatles ’65 known to exist.

Beatles ’65 was released in the United States and Canada on December 15, 1964, issued by Capitol Records as the North American equivalent of Beatles for Sale and drawing on material from the group’s EMI recordings. The record topped the Billboard albums chart for nine consecutive weeks from January 1965 and has been certified triple platinum in the United States.

A close-up look at the album which will go up for auction this month.