By the time the Beatles broke up in late 1969, they had recorded and released more than 200 songs — most of them originals — and left dozens more in the vault. While the bulk of those unissued tracks ranged from rough demos to jams, several were completed recordings that they rejected for one reason or another.
Among them was the first song written for drummer Ringo Starr: “If You’ve Got Trouble.” Composed by John Lennon for inclusion on 1965’s Help!, the tune was a heavy riff-rocker built on a modified three-chord blues progression.
From the start of the Beatles’ recording career, Starr was given a vocal spot on each of their albums (except for 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night) in order to please his fan base. Because he wasn’t a songwriter in the group’s early years, he sang either covers — “Boys,” on 1963’s Please Please Me, and “Honey Don’t” on 1964’s Beatles for Sale — or Lennon and McCartney cast-offs like “I Wanna Be Your Man,” from 1963’s With the Beatles.
“If You’ve Got Trouble” falls into the second category. According to Ray Coleman, the former editor-in-chief of Melody Maker, Lennon knew it was not his finest work.
“I wrote it. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever done,” Lennon told Coleman, who attended the recording session for the track on February 18, 1965, and wrote about it for the magazine’s February 27 issue,. “Listen to the words,” Lennon said, laughing. “I didn’t expect anybody to want to record it.”
Despite Lennon’s disregard for the tune, the Beatles put a fair amount of effort into the recording. The basic track — drums, bass guitar and rhythm guitar, played by George Harrison on one of his Gretsch electrics, according to producer George Martin’s notes — is energetic and polished. As Coleman reported, McCartney was happy with the vibe the group was creating.
“Paul thought the sound was one of the best ever,” he wrote.
The song is notable as one of the first Beatles tracks on which McCartney played guitar, joining Harrison to perform its driving riff with his Epiphone Casino hollowbody electric. Interestingly, in the same week that it was recorded, the Beatles also cut “Ticket to Ride,” “Another Girl” and “The Night Before,” three Help! songs that were among the first to feature McCartney playing guitar solos and leads.
“Hey, listen, hear that play by Paul?” John asked Coleman at one point. “He’s been doing quite a bit of lead guitar work this week.”
McCartney’s sudden emergence as a guitarist during this week in the group’s history may help to explain Starr’s rather unusual shout out leading into the guitar solo on “If You’ve Got Trouble.” On previous recordings, he had made a habit of announcing Harrison’s solo breaks, calling out “All right, George,” on “Boys,” and “Rock on, George, one time for Ringo,” on “Honey Don’t.”
But on “If You’ve Got Trouble,” he says the rather unusual, “Oh, rock on, anybody!” Perhaps the Beatles had yet to decide whether Harrison or McCartney would play the solo; according to George Martin’s notes, Ringo’s vocals (which he double-tracked) were recorded before the solo was laid down.
That job eventually fell to Harrison, who delivered what is easily his most uninspired solo in the Beatles’ catalog. Perhaps everyone realized by the night’s end that the song was hopeless. Although the song received mono and stereo mixes on February 20 and 23, respectively, it was ultimately abandoned.
Remarkably, that February 20 mix session saw the Beatles record yet another song that wouldn’t be released for years. “That Means a Lot” was a McCartney tune played in a heavy, R&B style, with a thudding beat and a medium tempo similar to “Ticket to Ride.” It would be subjected to a remake one month later, on March 30. Dissatisfied with the results, the Beatles gave the song to American singer P.J. Proby, whose version reached number 24 on the U.K. charts that September.
“If You’ve Got Trouble” was nearly released in 1984 when former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick prepared the recording for inclusion on the group’s unreleased rarities album, Sessions. His work included cutting the first verse, thereby shortening the song by 20 seconds.
But after the surviving Beatles blocked the album, “If You’ve Got Trouble” remained unreleased until it was included in its full length on Anthology 2 in 1996. Commenting on the song, music critic Ian MacDonald called it “the only unmitigated disaster in the Lennon–McCartney catalog.”
Even George Harrison was unsparing in his criticism. “It’s the most weird song,” he commented in the Beatles’ Anthology book. “I’ve no recollection of ever recording it. It’s got stupid words and is the naffest song. No wonder it didn’t make it onto anything.”
