Misery, and its incredible recording process revealed here and now.

The taping of this song took place during the day-long session in which they recorded the bulk of their first British album “Please Please Me”, on February 11th, 1963. It was the fifth of ten songs recorded on this day, being the last one recorded during the afternoon session of 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. Noting that there were multiple takes recorded of four other songs during the afternoon session before “Misery”, it can be estimated that the eleven takes of this song were recorded during the last hour, or between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. The Beatles all played their usual instruments during this recording.

“Take One” of the song was complete and performed with great vocal enthusiasm. Ringo even puts in a little drum fill after the second verse which he dropped later. Already in place was the ending with John and Paul’s alternating “ooohs” and “la-la-las,” although they sounded fresher and more vibrant this first time around. The only fault in this take was George Harrison’s rhythmic guitar run in the bridges of the song, which weren’t in time. Probably for this reason alone, they were asked to try it again.

Just before “take two” begins, George practices his guitar run by himself, and it sounds as if he’s perfected it. This take starts a little rough, though, with the band’s timing being off just after John and Paul’s vocal introduction. They quickly recovered from this and put in a spirited performance only to have producer George Martin stop the recording just as the second verse was beginning. Martin noticed that Harrison’s guitar sounded louder and somewhat more distorted, so he asked him if he changed guitars. “No…I probably changed the tone,” is what George Harrison explained, although he probably just turned up the volume. Being the gentleman that he was, Martin asked him to “clean it up a bit, and a little less volume, George” and then they were ready to try it again.

After a bit more practicing on their guitars, “take three” began, only to fall apart just after the first verse started because of John forgetting to switch guitar chords. “Take four” got a little farther, but just into the second verse John sang “she won’t…” instead of “I won’t see her no more,” which called this try to a halt as well. “Take five” ended at the same spot because, as John was concentrating on getting the words right, he forgot to change chords again. They took a little time to drill the words into John’s head before the next take began.

Except for another slight timing issue at the beginning, “take six” was off to a good start. They had added a few interesting touches to the arrangement by this time; the first noticeable one was Paul’s added grace notes on his bass guitar sprinkled here and there. The big surprises here are on the fourth measure of the bridges where, in addition to Harrison’s guitar run, Ringo adds a snare drum roll (not unlike what he’d perform a month later at the end of “Thank You Girl”). The eighth measure of the bridges also contains this snare drum roll along with a newly constructed guitar riff from Harrison that segues nicely back into the verse. The end of the song also features Ringo’s snare drum rolls whenever either John or Paul sings their “ooohs” or “la-la-las.” The timing wasn’t perfect, but we see them being very adventurous with the arrangement, possibly at the suggestion of George Martin.

However, Martin must have instructed them to simplify the arrangement again, instructing Ringo to just play a straight 4/4 drum beat throughout the song and for George to only play the first guitar run in the bridges, dropping the second run during the vocal "only one, lonely one." They implemented these changes for "take seven,” which was also a complete performance of the song. John changed his “oooh” at the end of the song to a loud hum but still insisted on the “la-la-la” as the song eventually would be fading away.

It was probably at about this point that George Martin decided that he himself would add a piano overdub at a later date to replace Harrison’s guitar run, which he was asked not to play because of his not being able to get the timing right. He apparently began recording the next "take" at a speed of 30 ips, instead of the usual 15 ips, to facilitate this future overdub work.

While “take eight” broke down just as the first verse began because of John flubbing the lyrics (“you’ve said the wrong words” Paul points out to John), “Take nine” was a complete version and was deemed “best" at that time, "Misery" considered complete as far as The Beatles performance was concerned. It was now 6 pm and time for a break to gear up for recording six more songs by 11 pm.

February 20th, 1963, was the date that George Martin chose to record his piano overdubs onto “Misery,” thereby putting the finishing touches on the song. Since EMI only used twin-track (or 2-track) machines for Beatles recordings at this early stage, minimal overdubs occurred because of the need to "bounce" additional mixes to create more recording space, each bounce reducing the quality of the original recording. "I found with The Beatles," George Martin explains in the book "Maximum Volume: The Life Of Beatles Producer George Martin," "that if I recorded all of the rhythm on one track and all of the voices on the other, I needn't worry about losing the voices even if I recorded them at the same time. I could concentrate on getting a really loud rhythm sound, knowing that I could always bring it up or down afterwards to make sure the voices were coming through." This being the case, George Martin completed his piano overdubs for "Misery," assured the clarity of The Beatles' original performance was still quite good.

The Beatles were not present on this day because of travel amid their Helen Shapiro tour, but from 10:30 am to noon in EMI Studio One, these piano overdubs occurred. George Martin experimented with adding piano overdubs onto "take nine" but, upon listening to The Beatles performance, decided that the first half of the song sounded flawed in various ways, such as a speeded-up tempo at the end of the first verse and a flubbed bass note from Paul at the beginning of the song. 

George Martin decided to perform an edit of two different "takes" to get the finished master of The Beatles' performance; the first half of "take seven" and the second half of "take nine." Upon listening to the original recordings of both "takes," it appears that the main edit occurs just as the third verse begins (at the word "shend") while George's guitar run in the first bridge of "take seven" must have been edited out as well. With this complete, George Martin went back to work in performing his piano overdubs onto what was now "take 11," playing the exact riff that Harrison was playing on the guitar, only in octaves and, of course, with perfect timing. He also played a piano arpeggio on top of George’s introductory guitar chord and added two accent notes in between the lyrics in the final two measures of each bridge. It took five takes for him to complete these overdubs to his satisfaction (takes 12 through 16). This becomes the first of many songs during their career on which George Martin accompanies The Beatles musically.

Engineer Geoff Emerick, who was present on this day for his first history of sessions he would engineer for The Beatles, details his witnessing of George Martin's overdubs for "Misery." That session was my first exposure to George Martin's signature 'wound-up' piano, piano recorded at half-speed in unison with the guitar but played an octave lower. The combination produced a kind of magical sound, and it was an insight into a new way of recording - the creation of new tones by combining instruments and by playing them with the tape sped up or slowed down. George Martin had developed that sound years before I met him and he used it on a lot of his records. Overdubbing a half-speed piano is not the easiest thing to do either, because when you're monitoring at half speed, it's hard to keep the rhythm steady. There certainly were more than a few expletives coming from George as he struggled to get the timing down while overdubbing onto the song 'Misery,' on both the spread chord that opens the song and on the little arpeggios and chord stabs that play throughout."

All of the original mixes of “Misery” took place on February 25th, 1963 in the control room of EMI Studio One by George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and A.B. Lincoln. They made two mono mixes on this day, the first having a chopped off introductory chord (which appears on the original British “Please Please Me” album). The second mono mix, with the full introductory chord, was sent to Vee-Jay Records in the US for inclusion on the “Introducing…The Beatles” album. For some reason, two stereo mixes were also made on this day, possibly to supply a version with slightly more reverb for the American market. All of these mixes, though, did have a slight touch of reverb added.

An amusing note to add concerning the recording of “Misery” is the most noteworthy example of the Beatles pronouncing the consonant “s” as “sh.” This slightly detected sound snuck in on other Beatle songs of 1963, such as “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (“…when I shay that shomething…”), but it definitely can be heard in “Misery” (“…shend her back to me…”). Add to this the comedic “la,la,la,la,la,la” during the fade-out of the song, and it is apparent that the song was viewed by the band as an album filler, being recently rejected by Helen Shapiro. But, for our benefit, this adds a comedic touch which adds to its charm and gives us a hint of the fun-loving Beatles we were soon to get to know in their movie “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Song Structure and Style

The song runs in one of the most established formulas of popular music of its time, written in the 'verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse' style (or aaba) which does not have a repeatable chorus. The songwriting style of many of The Beatles favorite artists of the time copy a similar song structure, such as Fats Domino and Arthur Alexander. The title, or hook-line, of the song, lay at the end of each verse, which helps listeners to remember the title of the song. In this case, The Beatles opted not to include a solo of any kind, which, after the last verse, allows for an immediate repeating of the bridge and final verse. After the guitar strum/piano arpeggio, Lennon and McCartney sing a partially a cappella introduction of the key phrase of the song. The true tempo of the song then appears as both John and Paul sing all of the song's lyrics together, mostly in unison. Only when the words “in misery” are sung does McCartney sing a higher harmony.      

Ringo plays metronome-style drums for this song, sticking strictly to the hi-hat with the right hand for the entire song. Except for the small drum intro at the beginning of Ringo's appearance, no drum fills are played at all until the song fades. This is strong evidence, not of Ringo's lack of skill, but of his performing what is suitable to the song while recording. In actuality, take six of "Misery" shows that Ringo originally planned on performing energetic drum fills during the bridge, but later vetoed in favor of the simple drumming we hear on the song. It was easily discernable at the time that a Keith Moon-like drumming style was not required here, but he surely did cut loose on other tracks recorded that day, such as “Boys” and “I Saw Her Standing There,” which shows the versatility Ringo had. He definitely wasn’t a “showboat,” but a group player.                         

The rhythm guitar style used in this song was one that was used quite regularly in the early Beatles recording career (“From Me To You,” “There’s A Place,” “She Loves You” etc.) and which appears here for the first time. Both John and George confined themselves to rhythm guitar in the song, which is primarily shifting our focus on the vocals and lyrics. Take six of the song also shows the guitar phrases that Harrison intended for the bridge of the song which was left off in the end in favor of the similarly sounding phrases played on piano by George Martin.      

A minor surprise in “Misery” is the changed lyrics in the second bridge. “Can’t she see she’ll always be the only one, only one” is replaced with “She’ll remember, and she’ll miss her only one, lonely one.” Usually, in Beatles songs, as well as the established song structure of the day, the bridge is identical when repeated.      

It’s also interesting to note that the lyrics, although quite “downbeat,” are accompanied by a very cheerful melody line and chord structure. Even within the lyrics, it is noticeable that the heartbreak sung about isn’t taken quite that seriously. After we hear about the singer losing his girl “for sure” and unable to see her anymore, we next hear “it’s gonna be a drag”! which helps make the listener feel he’s not taking this breakup so hard after all.

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