Watching Rainbows

"Watching Rainbows" is an unreleased song by the Beatles recorded on 14 January 1969 during the Get Back sessions at Twickenham Studios. It features John Lennon on lead vocal and electric piano, Paul McCartney on electric guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums. No bass guitar was present as McCartney was filling in for the absent George Harrison, who had temporarily left the group at that stage of the sessions. The song is played in two chords and has since been compared to "I Am the Walrus" and "I've Got a Feeling" for the similarities in the song's lyrics and structure.

"Watching Rainbows"
Song by the Beatles
Released	Unreleased
Recorded	14 January 1969
Studio	Twickenham Studios
Length	4:08
Songwriter	Lennon–McCartney
Producer	George Martin

A riff from the song was integrated into the Plastic Ono Band song "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)", which was released later in 1969.^[1]

Composition and background

"Watching Rainbows" is an improvised song written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was never officially released and circulates only through bootlegs. The performance was recorded on 14 January 1969 at Twickenham Film Studios during the early Get Back sessions, when the Beatles were being filmed for what would become the Let It Be documentary.^[2]

The session took place shortly after George Harrison had temporarily left the group, resulting in Paul McCartney playing lead guitar alongside Lennon's improvisation.^[2] The piece is built around a simple two-chord riff and evolves from a structured opening into an extended jam.^[3]

"Watching Rainbows" is rooted in a loose blues rock framework, driven by a repetitive two-chord vamp that allows Lennon to improvise freely over McCartney's guitar figures. Unterberger describes the performance as a "mid-tempo, riff-based jam" shaped by Lennon's rhythmic electric-piano patterns and McCartney's clipped lead-guitar responses.^[3] The harmonic simplicity recalls other Lennon sketches of the period, while the song's improvised structure—moving from verse fragments into an open-ended instrumental passage—is typical of the Beatles' Twickenham-era experiments, when the group frequently used extended grooves as a basis for spontaneous composition.^[4]

Several related works were explored on the same day, including Lennon's "Mean Mr. Mustard" and the unreleased "Madman", though all three pieces were ultimately abandoned after a handful of run-throughs.^[5][3]

Musically and structurally, "Watching Rainbows" has been associated with McCartney's "I've Got a Feeling", released on Let It Be in 1970.^[3] The improvised performance begins with McCartney playing that song's distinctive lead-guitar motif, prompting Lennon to join in and improvise three loosely connected verses before the piece expands into a freer jam.

Several lyrical fragments in "Watching Rainbows" recall earlier Beatles material and later solo works. The line "Standing in the garden, waiting for the sun to shine" echoes the imagery of “Sitting in an English garden, waiting for the sun” from "I Am the Walrus".^[2] Lennon's repeated use of the phrase "shoot me" foreshadows its appearance at the opening of "Come Together".^[3][2] The song also includes a brief reference to a troubled maternal relationship, a theme Lennon would revisit in his 1970 solo track "Mother".^[6]

Overall, "Watching Rainbows" offers insight into Lennon's mid-January creative approach, blending spontaneous lyric invention with familiar musical motifs from both his Beatles-era and later solo work.

Reception

In a negative review, author Richie Unterberger dismissed it as "uninteresting" and "chunky", furthermore calling the track a "throw-away".^[3] In a positive review, David Marchese of Vulture called the song "another playful, jammy track from the Let It Be sessions".^[7]

Personnel

According to Kenneth Womack:^[2]

• John Lennon – electric piano, lead vocals
• Paul McCartney – lead guitar
• Ringo Starr – drums