Harrison lyrics sell for $300K US

The late George Harrison's handwritten lyrics to While My Guitar Gently Weeps were sold for $300,000 US on Monday through an Arizona memorabilia auction house.

Coopers Auctions, in Scottsdale, Ariz., did not reveal the buyer. The sale price was less than the $500,000-$800,000 the auction house had estimated.

The lyrics are the earliest known version of the song and contain lines not included in the Beatles' version, recorded on the so-called White Album in 1968.

The working draft features corrections handwritten by Harrison and, on the reverse side of the paper, lyrics to Hey Jude handwritten bythe British group'sroad manager, Mal Evans.

A picture of a bird drawn by John Lennon when he was 11 sold for more than $30,000 US at the same auction.

Harrison, who died in 2001 at age 58, wrote one or two songs on each of the Beatles' albums.

The lines omitted from the final version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps read:

I look from the wings at the play you are staging,

While my guitar gently weeps,

As I'm sitting here doing nothing but aging,

Still my guitar gently weeps.