Los Paranoias

Song facts

“Los Paranoias” is jam between John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, recorded during one of the sessions for The Beatles (aka “The White Album”); the song is credited to the four Beatles despite George Harrison not being present. It was released on the Anthology 3 in 1996, and on The Beatles 50th anniversary box set in 2018.

From Anthology 3 liner notes:

During a light-hearted recording session for I Will, Paul frequently slipped into “jamming” mode, sometimes at the behest of John and Ringo who were sitting close at hand providing the percussion that augmented his acoustic guitar track. On of the off-the-cuff pieces was Step Inside Love – written by Paul in 1967 expressly for Cilla Black to sing as the theme tune for her first TV series, Cilla, that began on the BBC on 30 January 1968. The Beatles never recorded a formal studio recording of the song, and this version, performed by the composer many months after Cilla’s recording, was simply an ad-lib re-acquaintance with the piece. Then, prompted by one of John’s comments, and preserving the frivolity of the moment, Paul led the other Beatles into a jam, Los Paranoias.

From The Beatles Bible:

The phrase ‘Los Paranoias’ was a running joke within The Beatles, and was nearly used in the lyrics of Sun King on the following year’s Abbey Road.

When we came to sing it, to make them different we started joking, saying ‘cuando para mucho’. We just made it up. Paul knew a few Spanish words from school, so we just strung any Spanish words that sounded vaguely like something. And of course we got ‘chicka ferdi’ – that’s a Liverpool expression; it doesn’t mean anything, just like ‘ha ha ha’. One we missed: we could have had ‘para noia’, but we forgot all about it. We used to call ourselves Los Para Noias. – John Lennon, Anthology

[…] After the song, McCartney can be heard mockingly announced the fictional group ‘Joe Prairies and the Prairie Wallflowers’. Lennon follows up the comment by saying ‘Los Paranoias’, perhaps in reference to Trio Los Paraguyas, who often appeared on BBC television shows in the 1950s and 60s.

With Lennon and Starr on percussion, McCartney then improvised Los Paranoias. The song lasted 3’48, but was faded out to last less than one minute when it appeared on Anthology 3. The full version was released in 2018 on the 50th anniversary box set reissue of the White Album.

Last updated on May 22, 2021

Lyrics

Variations