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Misery
From Beatles Wiki - Interviews, Music, Beatles Quotes
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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. |
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—Paul McCartney, 1963
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John and I were a songwriting team, and what songwriting teams did in those days was wrote for everyone. 'Misery' was for Helen Shapiro, and she turned it down. It may not have been that successful for her because it's rather a downbeat song... 'the world is treating me bad, misery.' It was quite pessimistic. And in the end Kenny Lynch did it. Kenny used to come out on tour with us, and he used to sing it. That was one of his minor hits. |
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—Paul McCartney, 1988
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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. |
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—Helen Shapiro, A Hard Day's Write by Steve Turner, p.20, 1994
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It was kind of a John song, more than a Paul song ... but it was written together. |
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—John Lennon, 1980
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The slightly solemn plagal introduction turns out to be an irony: for it ushers in a G major tune, sung by John and Paul, which is regular in metre and closer to the music-hall than to folk song or blues. The tune — beginning with a falling sixth, then rising up the scale, with an upward pentatonic twist and melisma on bad — is guileless, tender yet at the same time perky. |
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—Wilfrid Mellers, Twilight of the Gods: The Music of the Beatles, p.36 , 1973
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