A previously unknown John Lennon home demo from 1965, titled "Little Girl," will be released for the first time on the upcoming Rubber Soul Special Edition, due out on 2 October. The track had never been bootlegged, rumoured or referenced before, making its discovery a rare surprise even for veteran Beatles archivists, and it offers a fresh glimpse into Lennon's songwriting during one of the band's most pressured creative periods.

Producer Giles Martin said the recording came from the Lennon Estate, believed via Sean Lennon, and was found on a tape reel with Martin splicing two sections together to create the final 2:17 version. The song, a sparse acoustic performance echoing Buddy Holly and later Beatles tracks such as "I'm Only Sleeping," can be dated to no earlier than summer 1965 because Lennon reworks a lyric from Paul McCartney's "I've Just Seen a Face." Its emergence is especially notable given the Beatles were under a tight four-week deadline that October to finish Rubber Soul at Abbey Road.