Written by: Harrison
Recorded: 11, 12 September 1963
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 22 November 1963 (UK), 20 January 1964 (US)
George Harrison: vocals, lead guitar
John Lennon: rhythm guitar, tambourine
Paul McCartney: bass, claves
Ringo Starr: drums, bongos
Available on:
With The Beatles
George Harrison's first original song was written on tour in August 1963.
Don't Bother Me I wrote in a hotel in Bournemouth, where we were playing a summer season in 1963, as an exercise to see if I could write a song. I was sick in bed.
Anthology
The song wasn't highly regarded either by Harrison or the other Beatles.
I don't think it's a particularly good song; it mightn't be a song at all. But at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing and maybe eventually I would write something good. I still feel now: I wish I could write something good. It's relativity. It did, however, provide me with an occupation.
Anthology
Don't Bother Me was meant as a plea for privacy, and the tone of the lyrics is reflected in the downbeat music. The Beatles took two sessions to get it right, ending up with a Latin-flavoured recording with percussion by Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.
A lot of the girls were mad on him, so we always wanted to give him at least one track. Then George started to catch on: 'Why should you write my songs?' And he started writing his own.
From when George first started, he would deliver one song per album. It was an option to include George in the songwriting team. John and I had really talked about it. I remember walking up past Woolton Church with John one morning and going over the question: 'Without wanting to be too mean to George, should three of us write or would it be better to keep it simple?' We decided we'd just keep to two of us.
He wrote Don't Bother Me. That was the first one and he improved from that and became very good, writing a classic like Something.
Anthology
The mood of the song was uncharacteristic for The Beatles at the time, but negativity was a trait that reappeared in Harrison's later songs, including Only A Northern Song and Think For Yourself.
Originally attempted on 11 September 1963, the band returned to Don't Bother Me the following day. After taping the rhythm track, Harrison double-tracked his lead vocals, and Lennon, McCartney and Starr added percussion.
Don't Bother Me later featured in a nightclub scene in the A Hard's Day's Night film.
[...] discovered that when searching for a phrase such as don't bother me on another of my sites returned no results. Strange, I thought, as I'd definitely used the phrase [...]
I liked the song from the very first time I heard it. Funny, even George didn't care for it, but if you listen to all the songs on With The Beatles it ranks right up there.
Razor
I know what you mean. Its one of my favourite Songs from George. The sound is really great.
It's not a great song but I really love the five-note intro. It's very different sounding...
always one of my favorite Beatle songs - regardless of who wrote/sang it - precisely because it was so out of character with their other tunes.
Years later I was in a punk band and we did a cover of Don't Bother Me - most people thought we wrote it. It was still that fresh 17 years later.