What was the first Beatles song to be covered by someone else?
By now, The Beatles are one of the most covered artists of all time. It would be tough to find someone who couldn’t at the very least sing a few na na nas from ‘Hey Jude’ or the chorus of ‘All You Need Is Love’ as the band’s timeless anthems exist in the world’s songbook. But when was the first officially recorded and released cover of one of their songs?
According to the Guinness World Records, ‘Yesterday’ is the most-covered song of all time. With over 1,600, the band’s 1965 track, written by Paul McCartney, is a song the world can’t get enough of as countless artists, including Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Elvis Presley, and many more, have shared their version.
But in a list of the most covered songs ever written, the Fab Four take up a lot of real estate. Their tracks ‘Blackbird’, ‘Something’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘And I Love Her’ also score high as artists still today turn their voices to these beloved 1960s tracks.
Covering songs by other artists is a long-held tradition that The Beatles themselves did a lot. At the start of their career, songs by other artists were a cornerstone of their early existence. At their earliest gigs, they’d do covers of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard songs, establishing their own musicality by borrowing from others. On their first albums too, they officially recorded some of these covers, such as their take on Berry’s ‘Rock and Roll Music’ and ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, or a redone version of ‘Kansas City’ mixed with Little Richard’s ‘Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’ on Beatles For Sale.
Especially back in The Beatles days of the 1950s and ‘60s, the idea of a ‘standard’ was a respected musical tradition. Certain songs were considered so good and so perfect that rather than writing their own, other artists would share their version. In the world of jazz, this is a major thing as tracks are passed around by singers and groups as if they’re tests an act has to pass to prove their worth by delivering a great rendition. In the early days of rock and roll, the same test was put to these emerging acts. The Beatles passed with flying colours but soon, their own original songs were being replicated.
So, what was the first cover of a Beatles song?
Almost immediately after The Beatles emerged, there were copycats in 1963, after the release of their debut album Please Please Me, hoards of covers of their songs popped up, including Del Shannon’s take on ‘From Me To You’ and Billy J Kramer and The Dakota’s cover of ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’.
However, the first cover of a Beatles song actually came before the Beatles could release their own original version. Once their first singles ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘Love Me Do’ had established Lennon and McCartney as songwriters to note, people started getting in touch.
At the same time as these strong first singles were being released, the band were on a tour with eleven other emerging acts. One of them was Kenny Lynch, a singer from London. Lynch had heard the boys’ track ‘Misery’ and liked it, so he asked if he could record the song.
So, while Lynch’s version of the track is the first-ever cover of a Beatles song, he actually beat them to it. His take on ‘Misery’ was released on March 15th, 1963, while The Beatles’ own didn’t arrive until March 22nd that same year as an album track on their debut.
