By Stig Editor 
“It’s the Most Weird Song–I’ve No Recollection of Recording It”: The Bizarre John Lennon Track the Beatles Buried
London, UK – Even in a catalog as legendary and dissected as The Beatles’, few stories are as strange or as telling as the saga behind one of John Lennon’s most unusual recordings: a song so odd, even Lennon himself once claimed, “I’ve no recollection of ever recording it.”
The track in question? “What’s the New Mary Jane” an avant-garde, psychedelic fever dream that teetered on the edge of absurdity. Featuring jarring sound effects, cryptic lyrics, and an almost maddening loop of disjointed piano and nonsense vocals, the song was originally recorded during the prolific White Album sessions in 1968. But despite its chaotic charm or perhaps because of it the song never made it to any of the Beatles’ core albums.
Lennon’s Forgotten Experiment
Lennon, along with Yoko Ono, created the track as an experimental counterpunch to the more structured songs the Beatles were producing at the time. With lyrics like “Lift up your skirt and fly” and unsettling screams layered over musique concrète textures, “What’s the New Mary Jane” pushed every sonic boundary.
But the strangest twist? Lennon, years later, disavowed any memory of it.
“It’s the most weird song,” he said in a 1980 interview. “I’ve no recollection of ever recording it. It just turned up one day. It’s like someone else did it.”
Was he joking? Perhaps. But many fans and scholars have interpreted the quote as both an indictment of his heavy drug use during that period — and a revealing glimpse into how disjointed the Beatles’ later years had become.
Buried by the Band
Despite Lennon’s enthusiasm for the track in the late ’60s, Paul McCartney and George Harrison reportedly weren’t fans. The song was considered for The White Album and later Anthology 3, but was consistently vetoed, languishing in the vaults for decades.
In an era where even the Beatles’ throwaway studio chatter has been canonized, it’s remarkable that “What’s the New Mary Jane” was shelved for so long. When it finally surfaced in the 1990s on Anthology 3, it was met with confusion, laughter, and a renewed appreciation for just how far Lennon was willing to go in exploring sound and surrealism.
A Cult Favorite, Reborn
Today, “What’s the New Mary Jane” enjoys cult status among hardcore Beatles fans a sonic artifact from the height of the band’s psychedelic period. Some see it as a precursor to Lennon and Ono’s Unfinished Music projects. Others see it as proof that even musical geniuses sometimes follow a creative thread into complete chaos.
Still, the song stands as a haunting reminder: even icons can create things so strange, they forget them entirely.
Beatles Legacy: Imperfectly Perfect
The Beatles’ story is often told as one of seamless brilliance and global impact, but tracks like “What’s the New Mary Jane” show a different side the experimental, the unfinished, the moments of madness that shaped their genius.
And perhaps that’s the most Lennon thing of all: creating a song so bizarre, so ahead of its time, that even he couldn’t quite believe it was his.