Other songs
We are fortunate to be able to identify or guesstimate the genesis of practically all the pre-fame songs which have survived. However there are three more which are impossible to date with any certainty, and so these are listed below:
[56]
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i'll wait 'til tomorrow (mccartney ?)
Little is known of this track, which turned up during the Get Back sessions of 1969. On recordings from January 3, McCartney turns his attention from “One After 909”, mentioning that Pete Shotton had recently reminded him of this song. Accordingly he leads off singing, with Lennon joining in, during a session where oldies were very much on their minds.
Given its style and the fact that McCartney leads, it seems reasonable to assume that it is his song – although nothing else can be inferred. Some sources, including Walter Everett and Mark Lewisohn, name the song as “If Tomorrow Ever Comes”, as per some bootlegs. (Lewisohn implies it was written in 1958, as he names it alongside other period songs.) |
[57]
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you're in my little book (writer unknown)
Very little is known of this song, but we have McCartney’s word for it that it existed. In a 2001 interview for Reader’s Digest, he is quoted as follows: “There were a few unpublished ones before the Beatles. There’s ‘You’re In My Little Book,’ which I wish I could find. There was [also] one called ‘Just Fun’. There were a couple that never saw the light of day.”
This title is new to us, but the fact that McCartney mentioned that he was hoping to “find” it suggests there might be an early tape in existence. We know a 1962 tape is rumoured to exist (see Appendix 4) but informed opinion holds that it probably doesn’t. (Or does it...?) We list the song here, confident that it was a Lennon and/or McCartney song written before the group was fully established. Hopefully at some stage, more information will come to light. |
[58]
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TELL ME WHO HE IS (McCARTNEY)
In 2021, Paul published his book, The Lyrics, in which he discussed many of his life's compositions. Among them was a brief song he'd written, "probably early sixties", which over the years he'd forgotten about, but which he subsequently found written down in an old notebook.
The accompanying text notes the song as "written in the late 1950s or early 1960s", and so it is a strong contender for a pre-fame composition and we can definitely confirm its existence since the original hand-written lyrics are reproduced on page 702. It's interesting to note that the metre of the surviving verse, and the way some of the words fall, are a rough match to Tell Me If You Can, written by McCartney and Tony Sheridan in 1961 (see corresponding entry), indicating the two songs are somehow connected. |