Even casual fans are familiar with the Beatles‘ album-opening songs.
Three of them went to No. 1, either in the U.K. or America, including 1964’s “A Hard Day’s Night,” 1965’s “Help!” and 1969’s “Something.” “I Saw Her Standing There” hit No. 1 in three other countries in 1963.
Tracks that were never issued as singles – 1965’s “Drive My Car,” 1966’s “Taxman,” 1967’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends” and “Magical Mystery Tour,” and 1968’s “Back in the U.S.S.R.” – have also become broadly familiar through radio and soundtrack spins.
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Yet some lesser-known items still appear on the following list of Beatles Opening Songs Ranked From Worst to Best. “No Reply” quickly disappeared as a single in 1964, for instance, but has continued to grow in critical estimation. “Two of Us,” from 1970’s Let It Be, remains one of their late era’s most congenial gems.
Which one’s best? Here’s a ranked look back at the songs that began every album by the Beatles:
No. 12. “It Won’t Be Long”
From: With the Beatles (1963)
“Please Please Me” rose to No. 2 in the U.K. and then “She Loves You” topped the charts. So they stuck with the formula: Pairing “be long” and “belong” echoed their first hit’s two-meaning title, and the Beatles’ exhilarating “yeahs” remained from the second. John Lennon said as much in David Sheff’s All We Are Saying. “It was my attempt at writing another single,” Lennon admitted. “It never quite made it.”
No. 11. “Magical Mystery Tour”
From: Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Sessions for this album-opener began just as Sgt. Pepper’s was to be released, and the results feel very much like a photocopy. Paul McCartney had another Big Concept and another scene-setting but rather flimsy introductory song. The strange accompanying film flopped, but the soundtrack was far better than its first track. Magical Mystery Tour would become a chart-topping six-times platinum album in the U.S.
No. 10. “I Saw Her Standing There”
From: Please Please Me (1963)
Paul McCartney had already come up with a title and first verse when he and John Lennon decided to ditch school in September 1962. They completed “I Saw Her Standing There” that very day – but only after Lennon suggested a key change. The original first line was: “She was just 17, she’d never been a beauty queen.” Lennon’s curt response? “Ugh.” Instead, they went with the winkingly lascivious “you know what I mean.”
No. 9. “Two of Us”
From: Let It Be (1970)
Everything you know about the first track on Let It Be is probably wrong. The warm camaraderie heard with Lennon on the duet “Two of Us” belies its genesis as a McCartney song about wandering Sunday drives in an Aston Martin with his wife Linda. Lennon’s spoken-word “Charles Hawtrey” introduction to “Two of Us” also wasn’t recorded at the same time, and didn’t originally introduce this song.
No. 8. “Help!”
From: Help! (1965)
Lennon’s long journey of self-discovery began in a most unlikely place: This song was originally commissioned for use in the Beatles’ second movie, then titled Eight Arms to Hold You. But he dug deep and something special happened. “The lyric is as good now as it was then,” Lennon told Rolling Stone. “It was just me singing ‘help’ and I meant it.” His only regret? They rocked out his former ballad to goose sales.
No. 7. “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
From: The White Album (1968)
McCartney’s Cold War-era parody of patriotic songs like Chuck Berry‘s “Back in the USA” and the Beach Boys‘ “California Girls” is dotted with little winks and nudges. “Back in the U.S.S.R.” was started during the Beatles’ pilgrimage to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India. Ironically, the Beach Boys’ Mike Love was also part of the visiting group – and perhaps unsurprisingly took belated partial credit for its creation.
No. 6. “No Reply”
From: Beatles For Sale (1964)
“No Reply” was more than an inventive song with no chorus as such. It’s one of the earliest Beatles songs with a complete story. Then, there’s Lennon’s performance: He settles into this low rumbling tone that so completely captures the mood of a scorned lover — then builds to an anguished cry (“I saw the light” becomes “I nearly DIED“). It’s an early glimpse of the pain that had been obscured in the mop-top era.
No. 5. “Drive My Car”
From: Rubber Soul (1965)
Frankly, “Drive My Car” was going nowhere. McCartney didn’t like the early lyric and Lennon initially struggled to help with breaking the logjam. Everything finally came together around a winking euphemism for sex, which they used for the title. Then they decided to flip the gender script for their early songs, with a headstrong liberated woman who’s looking to hire a chauffeur as her plaything. George Harrison suggested copying the twin guitar-and-bass lines from Otis Redding’s contemporary hit, “Respect.”
No. 4. “Taxman”
From: Revolver (1966)
The Beatles had finally begun to reap financial rewards for their success, only to see a huge portion redirected to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. “With the supertax and surtax and tax-tax, it was ridiculous – a heavy penalty to pay for making money,” George Harrison said in Anthology. Lennon helped with the lyric, then McCartney added a scorching guitar solo. (He seems to hat-tip Harrison’s growing interest in Indian music with a descending figure at the end.) Together, they completed Harrison’s best song to date.
No. 3. “A Hard Day’s Night”
From: A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The title came from another malapropism by Ringo Starr. Then director Richard Lester decided to call the Beatles’ first movie A Hard Day’s Night – and the Beatles had to leap into creative action. They finished the song in three hours, using just nine takes. Music lovers then spent decades trying to unwind its crashing opening chord. Don’t ask McCartney for help with that: “I still don’t know what it is,” he said in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “If you asked me to play it, I couldn’t. I’d have to work it out.”
No. 2. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends”
From: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
More an introduction to the faux band replacing the Beatles on this LP than a proper song, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” nevertheless sparkles with inventive musical touches before segueing into “With a Little Help From My Friends.” (A French horn quartet steps forward in a rock song?) Starr then assumes the role of Billy Shears, in a nod to earlier rumors that McCartney had been replaced by an actor with the same name after dying in a car crash. The result is a signature moment for Starr, the ultimate team player.
No. 1. “Something”
From: Abbey Road (1969)
Harrison steps out of the shadows forever with one of the Beatles’ best songs. Harrison wrote “Something” with Ray Charles in mind and the R&B great’s version of it helped this become the Beatles’ second-most covered song, after “Yesterday.” “Something” emerged from an incredible demo session on Harrison’s 26th birthday that also included “Old Brown Shoe” and “All Things Must Pass.” His creativity couldn’t be contained. By late 1970, the latter song had became the title of his triple-album post-Beatles solo triumph.
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