Cry for a Shadow

Cry for a Shadow is an early Beatles number, their first professionally-recorded song. It is an instrumental, credited to Harrison-Lennon (the only such song in the catalog). This historic first recording session occurred in Hamburg, in a school assembly hall, in June of 1961. The personnel were Lennon (rhythm), McCartney (bass), Harrison (lead) and Pete Best (drums).

This recording was finally released in 1964 as a Polydor single (backed by the Tony Sheridan song, Why). In November of 1994 it came out on Anthology 1. The other song taped in Hamburg that day was the vocal, Ain't She Sweet. The working title of Cry for a Shadow was Beatle Bop. Inspiration appears to have come from Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Their hit, Apache, made it into the long, Hamburg-era song lists for their concerts. Harrison, in a much later interview, seemed to dismiss this influence, saying that he and John just made up the song after experimenting with the wobble bar on the new Rickenbacker guitar.