Pinwheel Twist

Pinwheel Twist is an unreleased lost song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney before their pop group The Beatles became famous. The song was listed for recording in 1962 at EMI studio, but the list was trimmed down and the song became obscure after that.

Lyrics and Conception

The song was improvised on March 22 1962 by Paul McCartney, who was influenced by the "twist" craze of the early sixties. He would perform it later that evening. The audience response was mediocre, but nonetheless he pawned it off on then-drummer Pete Best, who sang lead while McCartney worked the drums. The song was drawn up on a list of 30 songs for a recording session at EMI, but got cut at the last minute. During the various Best performances, the Beatles had changed from leather jackets into "Beno Dorn" suits and ties, and accompanied it with the Starlighter's hit, "Peppermint Twist".

Pete Best has since recalled the main lines of the song, "Pinwheel twist going round and round / Pinwheel twist going round and round / Pinwheel twist going round and round / Hey, pinwheel twist".

Later, Beatles scholar Mark Lewisohn, while researching information on his book, unearthed further lyrics, "We’ll twist, we’ll pinwheel / Do the spin wheel / Right away, night and day, [at this point, Paul calls out: ‘two-three’] / Well come on everybody and do the shimmy-shimmy / While you’re dancing to and fro – like this! / Everybody’s doing the Pinwheel Twist." The song also in known to have a "congruous waltz" section in the middle.