The Beatles gave away this song to another act but weren't impressed so they decided to record it themselves

Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote a number of songs that were recorded by other artists in the 1960s

Paul McCartney and John Lennon went on to write a number of songs that were recorded by other artists in the 1960s.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon formed one of music's most successful partnerships while in The Beatles.

But it wasn't just their band who benefited from their songwriting prowess during the 1960s.

The ECHO has recently looked at how John and Paul wrote The Rolling Stones' first hit - I Wanna Be Your Man for them, as well as giving songs to bands like Badfinger (Come and Get It) and Peter and Gordon (A World Without Love), which turned into huge successes for them.

The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein knew that John and Paul were incredibly talented and he would commission them to write songs, or give away songs they'd already written, to be recorded by other artists he managed. One of the acts who benefited from this was Bootle-born Billy J. Kramer and his band The Dakotas.

Billy shot to fame in the early 1960s with a string of hits written by John and Paul. This included the song Bad to Me, which became a UK number one in 1963.

There are differing accounts as to how the song came to be. In a 1964 interview, he said that he wrote it with Paul while they were in the back of a van.

However, in his 1980 interview with Playboy, John said it was written by himself while he was on holiday with Brian in April 1963. John told the magazine: "I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time.

"I am experiencing this, you know. And while he was out on the tiles one night, or lying asleep with a hangover one afternoon, I remember playing him the song ‘Bad To Me’.

"That was a commissioned song, done for Billy J. Kramer, who was another of Brian’s singers. From Liverpool."

The song was recorded at Abbey Road studios in June 1963, produced by Beatles producer George Martin and with Paul looking on. It was released as a single the following month with I Call Your Name, another John and Paul composition, as its B-side.

John said he had written the track before The Beatles were formed. He was said to be unimpressed with Billy's recording of the song so he decided the Fab Four should do it justice themselves.

He recalled: "That was my song. When there was no Beatles and no group. I just had it around. It was my effort as a kind of blues originally, and then I wrote the middle eight just to stick it in the album when it came out years later.

"The first part had been written before Hamburg even. It was one of my first attempts at a song."

The Beatles recorded it on March 1, 1964 and the idea was to include the song in their film A Hard Day's Night and its accompanying soundtrack. However it ended up being released in America on The Beatles' Second Album that April and on the EP Long Tall Sally in the UK in June.

About the track, Paul said: "We worked on it together, but it was John’s idea. When I look back at some of these lyrics, I think, wait a minute. ‘What did he mean?’

"'I call your name but you’re not there.' Is it his mother? His father? I must admit I didn’t really see that as we wrote it because we were just a couple of young guys writing.

"You didn’t look behind it at the time, it was only later you started analysing things."