{"id":351553,"date":"2025-12-16T06:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T06:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351553\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T06:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T06:20:08","slug":"2-new-early-recordings-by-the-beatles-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351553\/","title":{"rendered":"2 \u2018New\u2019 Early Recordings by the Beatles Discovered"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The recordings are said to be from 1963, not long after The Beatles\u2019 Jan. 1, 1962, audition for Decca Records.<\/p>\n

Hang on to your Beatle wigs! Two \u201cnew\u201d early Beatles recordings have surfaced, a solo acoustic demo of Paul McCartney\u2019s self-penned \u201cLove of the Loved,\u201d and the first recording of Lennon-McCartney\u2019s \u201cMisery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both turned up on YouTube on Dec. 10, 2025, apparently having been taken from one of the latest in a seemingly endless series of Beatles<\/a> bootleg albums. Scroll down to the bottom of this article to hear the two newly discovered tracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove of the Loved\u201d previously existed only on the legendarily shaky Beatles audition for Decca Records<\/a>, which they famously failed, from Jan. 1, 1962. The newly surfaced demo was auctioned in 1991 by Christie\u2019s, but has never appeared until now.<\/p>\n

The version of \u201cMisery,\u201d purportedly from a Jan. 30-31, 1963, rehearsal at an empty Cavern Club (the Beatles\u2019 early concert stronghold), was long reported to exist. A snippet of it was played by Beatles author Mark Lewisohn during his lecture tours, but this is the first appearance of the full song.<\/p>\n

Check out these rare Beatles photos<\/a>, taken by Mike McCartney at the Cavern in January 1963.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s yet another dramatic and significant find in the group\u2019s legacy, the most recent major discovery having probably been the group\u2019s full concert at the Stowe School For Boys of April 4, 1963.<\/p>\n

In the Decca audition, the group (with Pete Best on anemically recorded drums), assay \u201cLove of the Loved\u201d<\/a> with McCartney doing a deep, quasi-Elvis voice. The newly discovered demo features a clear, \u201cnormal\u201d McCartney vocal, backed with acoustic guitars presumably played by McCartney plus John Lennon or George Harrison (or all three). The demo is believed to have been done specifically for popular Liverpool chanteuse and Beatles\u2019 friend Cilla Black, who released it in October 1963.<\/p>\n

Listen to Cilla Black\u2019s version<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

With arrangement help from McCartney, produced by George Martin, Black\u2019s version of \u201cLove of the Loved\u201d peaked at #35 on the U.K. singles chart in October 1963. Yet the song actually dated to the first half of 1959, according to Lewisohn, written during a night-time walk home, in honor of McCartney\u2019s then-girlfriend, Dot Rhone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of those very early songs of mine I\u2019d written up in Liverpool,\u201d McCartney remembered decades later. \u201cWe performed it at our audition for Decca when they unwisely passed us up. We played the song live a few times too but didn\u2019t ever properly record it, so the song was sitting around waiting for a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: That classic video of the Beatles at the Cavern<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMisery,\u201d with full band including Ringo Starr, had been written just days prior to the newly found recording, which features different lyrics, including: \u201cThe world is treating me bad, misery\/I\u2019m the kind of girl\/who used to love the world\/The world is treating me bad, misery\u2026\u201d It was reportedly written as a request by pop star Helen Shapiro, who toured with the Beatles at the time, but she turned it down and it was released instead by one Kenny Lynch (it failed to chart).<\/p>\n

Listen to Kenny Lynch\u2019s \u201cMisery\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Renowned authority Lewisohn, author of the exhaustive biography The Beatles: Tune In\u00a0[available here<\/a>], reported that Lennon and McCartney began work on \u201cMisery\u201d Jan. 26, 1963, likely backstage before a performance at the King\u2019s Hall, Stoke-on-Trent. It was completed a day or two later at McCartney\u2019s Forthlin Road home. Said McCartney at the time:, \u201cWe\u2019ve called it \u2018Misery,\u2019 but it isn\u2019t as slow as it sounds; it moves along at quite a pace, and we think Helen will make a pretty good job of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cMIsery\u201d as performed on the BBC<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In separate interviews over the years, Lennon said \u201cMisery\u201d was more of a John song than a Paul song, \u201cbut it was written together.\u201d McCartney\u2019s take: \u201cI don\u2019t think either one of us dominated on that one, it was just a hacking job.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beatles routinely gave songs they considered second-rate to other artists, many of whom, from Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas to the Rolling Stones, had hits with them. It\u2019s hard to imagine \u201cMisery,\u201d now considered an early classic, and the inventive, unusual \u201cLove of the Loved,\u201d being thought of as second-rate.<\/p>\n

Listen to the two newly discovered recordings<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The advent of the two songs also underscores widespread fan criticism of the newly released The Beatles Anthology Vol. 4, which consists largely of bonus tracks from previously issued boxed set re-releases, or takes of songs that differ very little from official versions. It is well known among fans that there is a plethora of unreleased demos, outtakes, alternate versions and live recordings that could have made Anthology 4 a newsworthy release. An album of Beatles demos alone is considered long overdue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese two songs would have been a perfect fit for Anthology 4,\u201d said Casey Piotrowski, longtime host of the syndicated Beatles Show radio program. \u201cYou know, every time we think we\u2019ve heard the last undiscovered music from the Beatles, someone discovers more. Hank Williams died in 1953 and they were still putting out unreleased music as late as 2014. I think it\u2019ll be the same with the Beatles. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever run out of new music from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

[The 12-LP and 8-CD editions of the Beatles\u2019 Anthology Collection\u00a0are available in the U.S.\/worldwide\u00a0here<\/a>, in Canada\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and in the U.K.\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0Anthology 4\u00a0is available as a standalone 3-LP or 2-CD set in the U.S.\/worldwide\u00a0here<\/a>, in Canada\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and in the U.K.\u00a0here<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\"Rip<\/a> <\/p>\n

Rip Rense is a veteran L.A. journalist and author who has written extensively about music for many publications. He is also a Beatles specialist, and contributing editor to Beatlefan.<\/p>\n

\"Rip<\/a>Latest posts by Rip Rense (see all<\/a>) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The recordings are said to be from 1963, not long after The Beatles\u2019 Jan. 1, 1962, audition for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-351553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}