The songwriting ingenuity of The Beatles has almost always been attributed to the collaborative relationship between Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Though not all of them were written as a duo, the Lennon-McCartney partnership boasts many of the Fab Four’s most beloved hits, from the frequently covered ‘Yesterday’ to the tender ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’.
While Lennon and McCartney were certainly the driving force behind the band’s songwriting, George Harrison also tried his hand at penning lyrics for the band. In 1963, bedridden on tour, he resolved to join his bandmates in their craft. The result was ‘Don’t Bother Me, ‘ a pessimistic track that would mark his first song to feature on a record by the Beatles.
Harrison’s lyrics for the song lament the loss of a relationship, wallowing in sadness and regret. “But ‘til she’s here please don’t come near, just say away, I’ll let you know when she’s come home, until that day don’t come around, leave me alone,” the lyrics declare before repeating the titular phrase. His despairing lyrics contrast with the fairly idealistic rock and roll instrumentation.
Though the lyrics seem to chart a break-up, Harrison was inspired to write the track during a bout of illness while on tour in Bournemouth. Bed-bound, he resolved to prove to himself, and perhaps to his bandmates, that he could write a song. He called it “an exercise to see if I could write a song.”
“I was taking that stuff and in bed, all feeling weak and tired but trying to reserve my energy so I could get out of bed each night to do the concert,” Harrison recalled to Timothy White, “So it was the first thing I thought of, really as a lyric. And I never really thought it was a great song. I was quite happy that I had written it, because that was the thing. I just thought, ‘I’m going to see if I can write a song because they’re writing them.’”
Though Harrison may not have been immediately stunned by his own songwriting capabilities, he still managed to write a song, even while sick in bed. Though he would never become a primary songwriter for The Beatles, Harrison has gone on to pen some beautiful pieces of music, such as his collaboration with Bob Dylan on ‘I’d Have You Anytime’.
Despite his own uncertainty surrounding his first venture into Beatles songwriting, ‘Don’t Bother Me’ still holds up. Even Tom Petty was a fan.
Revisit ‘Don’t Bother Me’, the first song George Harrison wrote for The Beatles, below.
