The Beatles playing “Watching Rainbows” from Get Back sessions (1969)
“Watching Rainbows” is an unreleased song by The Beatles recorded on 14 January 1969 during the massive Get Back sessions at Twickenham Studios. It features John Lennon on lead vocal and electric piano, Paul McCartney on lead guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums; bass guitar is absent from the song because Paul McCartney is playing the absent George Harrison’s usual role as lead electric guitar. George Harrison had temporarily left the group at this stage of the sessions.
“Suicide” was a song written by Paul McCartney when he was just 14 years old. It was considered for release three times and is available (bootlegged) as a studio outtake from both the Beatles and Paul McCartney & Wings. The first time McCartney considered releasing the song was in 1970 when recording his McCartney album. He later decided that it didn’t fit in well with the family atmosphere of his album and it was dropped minus a few seconds of it at the end of “Hot As Sun / Glasses”.
The second time he considered releasing it was in 1974 when he attempted to give it to Frank Sinatra, who declined. Sinatra is quoted to have said “Is this guy trying to have me?” the third and final time McCartney attempted to release it was in 1975 when he recorded a piano/vocal only version of the song for the unreleased movie “One Hand Clapping”, an unreleased documentary about Paul McCartney & Wings in the studio. Other versions include a complete, four minute demo, a live television performance and a short studio outtake from 1969.
Complete known history of the song: 1956 Paul McCartney writes the song on the family piano 1969 A 46 second long single versed version is recorded during the “Get Back” sessions 1970 1:42 version taped for “McCartney”, 8 seconds of which appeared on the album 1974 A complete 3:46 Intro/Verse/Verse/Bridge/Verse/Bridge/Outro demo is taped by McCartney. The tape is offered to Frank Sinatra, who declines it. 1975 A Verse/Verse version similar to the one from 1970 is taped at Abbey Road Studios 2001 Paul plays a single verse of the song live on the Michael Parkinson Show, to some laughter from the studio audience.
This is the final version of “Junk”. It was released on the Paul’s solo-album “McCartney” in 1970. The track published in the Beatles’ Anthology was just the trialing song with Paul on ukelele.
“Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)” is a 1962 song, written by Buzz Cason and Tony Moon, originally recorded by soul artist Arthur Alexander, appearing as a B-side to his single “Where Have You Been”. The song was later covered by The Beatles during a 1963 session on the BBC, that is available on the album “Live at the BBC”; by Marshall Crenshaw on his debut album; and by Pearl Jam for the album, “No Boundaries”: A Benefit for the Kosovar Refugees, with their version appearing as a B-side to their cover of “Last Kiss”.
“That Means a Lot” is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and released in 1965 by P. J. Proby. Proby’s version reached #24 on the NME chart. Prior to the release by Proby, The Beatles recorded a version that was intended for the Help! film and soundtrack. The Beatles were dissatisfied with the song and their version was not released until the Anthology 2 CD in 1996.
Lennon said at the time, “This song is a ballad which Paul and I wrote for the film but we found we just couldn’t sing it. In fact, we made a hash of it, so we thought we’d better give it to someone who could do it well.” In an interview with Mark Lewisohn in 1988, McCartney said, “There were a few songs that we were just not as keen on, or we didn’t think they were quite finished. This was one of them.”
