Several early songs from the writing collaboration between Paul McCartney and John Lennon eventually saw the light of day — save for their very first, a song called “Just Fun.”
The pair met as teens at a local church event, with McCartney eventually joining Lennon’s skiffle group, called the Quarrymen. Their initial songs came together during writing sessions at McCartney’s childhood home, at the Liverpool Institute or at the resident of Lennon’s Aunt Mimi.
“One After 909” is perhaps the best known of these early works, having appeared on 1970’s Let It Be. “Hello Little Girl,” said to be the first song Lennon ever wrote, was included as part of the Beatles failed audition for Decca. That track, and the 1960 Lennon-McCartney track “You’ll be Mine,” both eventually found a home on 1995’s Anthology 1.
“When you think about it, we weren’t trained,” McCartney tells Howard Stern. “We were just young kids. I’d written a couple on my own, and then I met John. I would say to people: ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve written a couple of songs.’ That was my little boast — and people would go: ‘Oh, wow, really?’ But he said: ‘So have I!’ (Laughs.) He was the only person who ever said that. So, then we got together, and ‘Just Fun’ came out. It wasn’t very good, and we plowed on.”
Curious fans can hear a snippet of “Just Fun” performed on January 4, 1969, during the fifth day of rehearsals for the album that would become Let It Be. That day also included initial run throughs of “One After 909,” as well as “Don’t Let Me Down,” “Two of Us” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.”
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