"Don't Bother Me" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1963 UK album With the Beatles. It was the first song written by George Harrison, the group's lead guitarist, to appear on one of their albums. An uptempo rock and roll song, it was originally released in the United States on the 1964 album Meet the Beatles! In 2018, the music staff of Time Out London ranked "Don't Bother Me" at number 47 on their list of the best Beatles songs. Composition Between 19 and 24 August 1963 the Beatles held a residency in Bournemouth, England with Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas and Tommy Quickly. Feeling sick one day, George Harrison was prescribed tonic and bed rest by a doctor. With nothing to do in his room at the Palace Court Hotel, he began writing a song, recording himself on a portable tape recorder. The surviving recording includes him working on the bridge and whistling through the song's melody, likely because the song did not yet have lyrics. Besides the 1958 song “In Spite of All The Danger” – co-written with McCartney, and the 1961 instrumental "Cry for a Shadow" – co-written as Lennon–Harrison, "Don't Bother Me" was Harrison's first composition. Liverpool journalist Bill Harry claims that he encouraged Harrison to write a new song, and that Harrison's response of "Don't bother me" served as inspiration for the song's title. In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison describes the song "as an exercise to see if I could write a song.... I was sick in bed – maybe that's why it turned out to be Don't Bother Me." Published by the Dick James–Brian Epstein partnership, Jaep Music, this predated the five-year contract Harrison signed with Northern Songs on 9 November 1963. After "Don't Bother Me", it was not until 1965's Help! album that any more Harrison-penned songs ("I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much") would appear on record. "You Know What to Do" was recorded in 1964, but was not released at the time. Musical structure The sullen mood and desolate lyrics—"So go away, leave me alone, don't bother me"—were unusual for the Beatles at the time but would become characteristic for Harrison. The song follows the E Dorian mode: the Em of "since she's been gone" shifting to a v (Bm chord) on "gone" then an IV (A chord) on