Misery

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Misery” is a song performed by the Beatles on their album Please Please Me. It was co-written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. According to Lennon, “It was kind of a John song more than a Paul song, but it was written together.” McCartney was to say: “I don’t think either one of us dominated on that one, it was just a hacking job.“

A 1963 single by Kenny Lynch made “Misery” the first Beatles’ song to be covered by another artist.

Background

In February 1963, Helen Shapiro was Britain’s most successful female singer (having first achieved chart success two years earlier at the age of 14) and The Beatles were fifth on the bill as part of her nationwide tour of the United Kingdom. Her artist and repertoire manager, Norrie Paramor, was looking for new material for a country and western album she planned to record in Nashville, Tennessee and suggested that the Beatles compose a song especially for her. “Misery” was started backstage before The Beatles’ performance at the King’s Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, on 26 January 1963, and later completed at Paul McCartney’s Forthlin Road home. At the time, McCartney commented: “We’ve called it ‘Misery’, but it isn’t as slow as it sounds, it moves along at quite a pace, and we think Helen will make a pretty good job of it.” But Paramor considered it unsuitable, and so British singer and entertainer Kenny Lynch, who was on the same tour, recorded it instead (HMV Pop 1136), thus becoming the first artist to cover a Lennon–McCartney composition although he failed to enter the charts with it. In 1973, Lynch appeared in the cover photograph for McCartney’s album, Band on the Run.

When the Beatles needed original material for their Please Please Me LP they recorded it themselves, giving its treatment, according to writer Ian MacDonald, “a droll portrait of adolescent self-pity“. It was credited to McCartney and Lennon in that order, as were all other Lennon & McCartney originals on the Please Please Me album. The songwriting credit was changed to what would become the more familiar “Lennon–McCartney” for their second album, With the Beatles. McCartney: “It was our first stab at a ballad and had a little spoken preface. 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.” (Barry Miles. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now).

The Beatles recorded “Misery” on 11 February 1963 (marathon session) in 11 takes. Norman Smith was the engineer.

Normal studio multi-track tape speed at the time was 15 ips (inches per second), but “Misery” was recorded at 30 ips, as George Martin intended to personally add piano at a later date, and preferred playing this at half-tempo an octave below. […]

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 25 Feb 1963. edited.
UK: Parlophone PMC 1202 Please Please Me 1963.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46435 2 Please Please Me 1987.

[b] mono 25 Feb 1963.
US: Vee Jay VJLP 1062 Introducing 1963.

[c] stereo 25 Feb 1963.
UK: Parlophone PCS 3042 Please Please Me 1963.
US: Vee Jay VJSR 1062 Introducing 1963.

[c1] stereo remixed from [c] ?1980, by Capitol.
US: Capitol SHAL-12060 Rarities 1980.

The instrumental intro is shorter in [a] than the others, edited.

Whether Vee Jay uses [b] or is just a mono reduction of [c] seems impossible to determine by listening, since an unedited mono mix would sound the same. It’s been suggested that the entire Vee Jay LP is a mono reduction of the stereo mixes (except that the real mono “Please please me” was used for the reissue version of the LP), and it is hard to rule this out, although it’s also hard to say why Vee Jay would not have been sent both mono and stereo masters.

In the remix [c1] the left instrumental channel is relatively louder, which isn’t bad, but reverb has been added too especially in the intro vocal.

We were asked by Norrie Paramour (of EMI’s Columbia label) to write a song for Helen Shapiro, for her to record in Nashville. We’ve called it ‘Misery,’ but it isn’t as slow as it sounds. It moves along at quite a pace and we think Helen will make a pretty good job of it. We’ve also done a number for Duffy Power which he isn’t going to record.

Paul McCartney, 1963 – From (190) Current Paul McCartney news thread (interviews, articles, miscellaneous) | Page 567 | Steve Hoffman Music Forums

I got on great with them and John was like a brother to me. Very protective. He and Paul certainly offered ‘Misery’ to me first, through Norrie, but I didn’t know anything about it until I met them on the first day of the tour. […] Apparently he’d turned it down even though I hadn’t heard it.

Helen Shapiro, A Hard Day’s Write by Steve Turner, p.20, 1994

Last updated on August 3, 2023

Lyrics