John Lennon and Paul McCartney were still relatively novice songwriters in 1963. Although the duo had been writing different tunes for more than half a decade by that point, relatively few of their compositions were deemed good enough to make it into the band’s repertoire. But with a newly signed contract with EMI Records and a strong dedication to writing their own material, it was time for The Beatles to kick it up a notch and bang out some new songs.
Anywhere could be an appropriate place for a songwriting session. For Lennon and McCartney, it was becoming increasingly necessary to work in between shows and promotional appearances. While hanging out backstage as a supporting act for 16-year-old singer Helen Shapiro, the duo were approached by Shapiro’s manager and asked to compose a new song for a potential country album.
On the spot, Lennon and McCartney began composing ‘Misery’. Since they were writing with another singer in mind, neither Lennon nor McCartney pushed the song toward one of their respective directions. “It was kind of a John song more than a Paul song, but it was written together,” Lennon recalled to David Sheff in 1980.
“It was our first stab at a ballad and had a little spoken preface,” McCartney remembered to Barry Miles in the book Many Years From Now. “It was co-written. I don’t think either of us dominated on that one, it was just a job, you could have called us hacks, hacking out a song for someone.”
“We’ve called it ‘Misery’, but it isn’t as slow as it sounds,” McCartney said in 1963, later reprinted in Keith Badman’s The Beatles Off The Record. “It moves along at quite a pace, and we think Helen will make a pretty good job of it.”
When Lennon and McCartney eventually finished ‘Misery’ and showed it to Shapiro’s manager, however, they were rebuffed. “She turned it down,” McCartney recalled. “It may not have been that successful for her because it’s a rather downbeat song. It was quite pessimistic.”
With no immediate use for the song, The Beatles decided to hand ‘Misery’ off to another artist who was touring with Shapiro at the time, Kenny Lynch. “He was another lad with an eye for an opportunity, and he had a minor hit with it,” McCartney claimed. “He used to do it on tour with us… not amazingly well.” Despite McCartney’s recollections, Lynch’s version of ‘Misery’ didn’t actually chart.
Two weeks after writing ‘Misery’, The Beatles entered EMI Studios to cut their debut album, Please Please Me. With ten hours of studio time booked, the band recorded nearly every song that they could think of. Despite being purposefully written for another artist, The Beatles decided to record their own version of ‘Misery’ with both Lennon and McCartney sharing lead vocals. With a George Martin piano overdub a few days later, the final version of ‘Misery’ was complete.
