"Cry for a Shadow" is an instrumental rock piece recorded by the Beatles on 22 June 1961.

They recorded the song at Friedrich-Ebert-Halle within the gymnasium, Hamburg, West Germany while they were performing as Tony Sheridan's backing band for a few tracks, under the moniker the Beat Brothers.

It was written by George Harrison with John Lennon, as a pastiche of the Shadows' style[1] (the Shadows, who backed Cliff Richard, were the biggest British instrumental rock & roll group at the time of the recording).

This instrumental is the Beatles' first recording of an original song commercially released when, in January 1962, it was included on Tony Sheridan's French EP entitled "Mister Twist".

[3] In mid-1963, as the Beatles were gaining popularity, Polydor decided to rerelease this EP in Germany as "Tony Sheridan With The Beatles",[4] and in early 1964, "Cry for a Shadow" was released in Britain, Germany and Australia (where it reached number 32)[5] as a single with "Why" changed to the B-side,[6] while in North America, Sheridan's song was designated as the A-side.