Beatles’ Unreleased 1963 Demo Up for Auction: Listen

Michelle Kim
Updated
Hear a snippet of their early “What Goes On” demo

A rare unreleased Beatles demo is now up for sale on eBay via Parlogram, as Billboard points out. The 1963 demo version of “What Goes On” predates the recording sung by Ringo Starr, which appears on 1965’s Rubber Soul. John Lennon sings on the demo instead, and it features different lyrics from the officially released version. Listen to a snippet below. The eBay listing also states that the demo features Lennon on guitar and Paul McCartney on harmony. According to Kenneth Womack's book The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four, Lennon has said that he wrote the song in the band’s earliest days. “That was an early Lennon, written before the Beatles when we were the Quarrymen or something like that,” said Lennon. The auction ends October 1.

Earlier this year, the Beatles released a 50th anniversary reissue of their 1967 classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band which featured previously unreleased studio takes of each song.

Find out where the Beatles land on Pitchfork’s List and Guide to “The 200 Best Albums of the 1960s.”