3 Unreleased Albums by Beatles Members That Will Probably Never See the Light of Day

Conspiracy theorists online love to theorize about lost albums, songs, and general creative works by The Beatles. Some of these conspiracy theories are plausible, but most are just kind of silly. Still, there is quite a bit of Beatles music floating around the internet and back-alley record stores that never officially got released. In particular, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had a couple of albums lined up for their solo careers (or simply private use) that got shelved indefinitely. There is some evidence of all three unreleased albums by these Beatles members, but they’ll likely never be officially released to the general public.

1. ‘Cold Cuts’ by Paul McCartney

Back in 1974, Paul McCartney got to work on a few songs to release for a project in 1975 before Wings was set to release Venus And Mars. McCartney has even talked about how he pitched the idea to his label, but they shot it down.

“The original idea was based around a title I came up with and quite liked which was Hot Hitz And Cold Cuts,” McCartney said of the unreleased project. “I thought it would be great, you just put all your top hits on it and then some ‘cold cuts.’ But actually, when I mentioned it to my record label at the time, they didn’t like the idea of the cold cuts. They wanted everything to be hits, hits, hits! So they didn’t particularly go for that idea.”

McCartney continued to chip away at Cold Cuts through the years, but nothing has ever come of it. McCartney has even said he would find it “interesting” to release it, but it’s been decades at this point.

2. ‘One From The Nursery’ by John Lennon

John Lennon’s “lost” solo album is probably one of the most mysterious unreleased albums by a Beatles member of all time.

Auction house Gotta Have Rock and Roll launched a special rock and roll auction in 2023. It included John Lennon’s lost solo album, One From The Nursery. The album was allegedly recorded at Tittenhurst Park in the late 1960s and features four tracks. Though, the only ones listed are “John, I Love You” and “I Wish You Were My Father”. 

The music was actually not meant to be heard by the public and was more of a home recording. There is no audio evidence of the album online (that we could find), and it looks like the record sold at the auction was the only copy and explicitly listed as an artifact. So, whoever bought it won’t be able to copy it or digitize it.

3. ‘Return To Pepperland’ by Paul McCartney

Another unreleased album from a former Beatles member is Return To Pepperland by Paul McCartney. Years ago, McCartney got to work on a full album of material with Phil Ramone and Billy Joel’s band. It was supposed to include a lot of futuristic funk music, including a Beatles tribute titled “P.S. Love Me Do”. A few songs were unsuccessfully pitched to movie soundtracks and the whole thing was eventually scrapped. The remaining songs were picked apart and repurposed for McCartney’s 1989 album Flowers In The Dirt.

Photo by Frank Barrett

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