Her artist and repertoire manager, Norrie Paramor, was looking for new material for a country and western album she planned to record in Nashville, Tennessee and suggested that the Beatles compose a song especially for her.

[6] "Misery" was started backstage before The Beatles' performance at the King's Hall, Stoke-on-Trent, on 26 January 1963, and later completed at Paul McCartney's Forthlin Road home.

[3] At the time, McCartney commented: "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.

"[7] But Paramor considered it unsuitable,[4] and so British singer and entertainer Kenny Lynch, who was on the same tour, recorded it instead (HMV Pop 1136[8]), thus becoming the first artist to cover a Lennon–McCartney composition[4][3] although he failed to enter the charts with it.

When the Beatles needed original material for their Please Please Me LP, they recorded it themselves, giving its treatment, according to writer Ian MacDonald, "a droll portrait of adolescent self-pity".