Ranking every Beatles album opener from worst to best
Every classic album tends to start off with a bang. Although some of the best artists in the world know how to perform a good slow-burning song, it takes a master’s touch to grab the listener by the throat and make them pay attention to what’s going on. The minute that any Beatles album started, though, it practically felt like the Fab Four were inviting their audience to the album.
From their debut all the way through to Let It Be, The Beatles always understood the importance of leading with your best foot forward. Across every one of the songs cited below, the band was breaking new ground and paving the way for the newer sounds fans were going to hear unfold on the rest of the album.
For all of the great music that’s on this list, some songs needed a little getting used to. Although a creation like Revolver might be seen as a classic these days, rock fans were still reeling when they heard the Fab Four dipping their toes into psychedelia so prominently. These albums took the fans on a thrill ride, and the tracks prepped the music world for the brilliance that would come later.
The trend only continued as the years went on. As The Beatles paved the way for the album as an art form, fellow artists like The Beach Boys took note of album sequencing and how to make a good first impression from the word go. Every album opener should set the tone for what will unfold on the rest of the album, and whenever a Beatle counted off the song, fans knew they were witnessing something special.
Ranking every Beatles album opener:
‘Yellow Submarine’ – Yellow Submarine
Yellow Submarine is the closest thing to an underrated album The Beatles can boast in their discography. In between making mammoth tracks on The White Album, the Fab Four were commissioned to fulfil a soundtrack for their animated picture, being filled out by some of their most lighthearted songs to date. Although the movie acts as a good menagerie of great Beatles songs, it’s underwhelming when fans have already heard the opening track.
For most devotees, ‘Yellow Submarine’ was an old song from Revolver, which opens up this album strictly because it’s the opening theme of the movie. Although Ringo Starr does an admirable job delivering this whimsical romp, there isn’t much substance to make it a great album opener.
If anything, Starr’s ode to living in the titular submarine works more in the confines of the album Revolver, giving a sort of respite to the sonic innovations going on left and right on the rest of the project. This might be a song that little kids can listen to when first being exposed to The Beatles, but there’s no chance it beats out anything else on this list.
‘Two of Us’ – Let It Be
The road to making Let It Be was a disaster before it was even announced. This is material that none of the band members wanted their fans to hear, having moved on to making Abbey Road the official last stamp on their career. And if The Beatles didn’t have any say in the matter, the opening track doesn’t exactly pack a huge punch.
In the first few seconds, fans are treated to John Lennon speaking his usual gibberish like some carnival barker before Paul McCartney’s ‘Two of Us’ begins. Although Lennon’s speech grabs the listener’s attention, it’s snuffed out when it builds to this song, with McCartney talking about the joys of spending time with the one he loves.
This might not have been the best foot forward for the project, but it does its job as an album opener, in that it’s attention-grabbing, memorable, and it gives fans an idea of The Beatles getting back to their roots across the rest of the project. Whereas other Beatles albums might start off with a bang or build to some grand climax by the end of the track, this song just happens without any rhyme or reason.
‘It Won’t Be Long’ – With the Beatles
Second albums are always tricky in the world of pop music. Although artists might have made a big splash on their first release, this is the record in which bands must prove that they’re worth hanging around past a few decent singles. After knocking their first album out in record time, does ‘It Won’t Be Long’ measure up to the Beatles’ standard? Well…hell yeah.
Echoing the same energy of their first album, this song wastes no time, as John Lennon sings the chorus with all of his might as his bandmates trail in behind him. While The Beatles had been known as one of the hottest bar bands at the time, this is a bit of a different turn, as Lennon wears his influences from Motown acts like Smokey Robinson on his sleeve.
There are also a few chordal tricks that kept listeners on their toes, like the bridge of the song’s chromatic walk down that borders on jazzy chords under Lennon’s melody. Please Please Me may have given fans a snapshot of what The Beatles’ post-Fab career was like, but this single song was an indication of what bold new ideas they would be doing in the future.
‘No Reply’ – Beatles For Sale
After going through the whirlwind of Beatlemania, the band were completely spent. From the opening picture of Beatles for Sale, all of the smiles are gone and replaced with vacant stares towards the camera, completely fed up with the artificial happiness they had to give night after night. Once the needles hit the vinyl, though, fans were treated to one of the most laid-back openers The Beatles ever made.
For all of the great rock songs they had in their arsenal, this is a far more downtempo groove, almost the antithesis of what happened on ‘It Won’t Be Long’. While ‘Long’ jolted fans awake, this was a subtle invitation to the album, which was more indicative of the flirtations with folk-rock that they were making at the time.
Lennon also structures this song a lot better, being one of the few Beatles tracks in which he strikes out with a woman, constantly calling her up and getting more upset when she doesn’t answer her phone. The Beatles pre-1965 were nothing but your average good pop-rock band, but ‘No Reply’ provided a bit more intrigue into where they were headed as Beatlemania swept the nation.
‘Help!’ – Help!
Towards the beginning of 1965, The Beatles had no time for their public image anymore. Though the screaming girls may have been fun while it lasted, the feeling of being confined to hotels and stages night after night was seriously starting to take its toll on John Lennon. As their next movie was right around the corner, Lennon used the opener ‘Help!’ to cry out in pain.
Seeing how he was known by many as the ‘Intellectual Beatle’, Lennon puts a lot of verbose words in this song, making non-pop lyrics like “independence” and “insecure” work fine over his melody. Lennon wasn’t looking to write the next hit song for his band, though, taking most of these lyrics as an excuse to ask someone for help around him, whether that be his bandmates or one of his childhood friends.
While Lennon would go on to call this song one of the most revealing of his career, it played perfectly into the Fabs’ madcap spoof on James Bond movies. Lennon may have been calling out for help to anyone who would hear, but there were only three other people who knew what his problems were like, and they were all onstage next to him.
‘I Saw Her Standing There’ – Please Please Me
The Beatles were not always meant to be the studio lab rats that they were at the end of their career. Before they had a proper record deal, the Liverpudlians were still a decent band playing the streets of Liverpool until George Martin decided to make an album of songs. Although most of the LP was a way to capture their live sound, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ roared with excitement from the minute fans heard it.
Starting off with Paul McCartney’s iconic count-in, the entire song is a rave-up rock and roll tune about how McCartney loves to watch his lover move on the dancefloor. While there are plenty more where this song came from throughout Please Please Me, that simple count-in gets the blood pumping, almost like The Beatles are playing a live gig that just happens to be in the studio.
As time went on, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ remained a fan favourite, becoming one of their go-to live tracks and surviving all the way through to McCartney’s solo tours. The Beatles have released songs that were miles better than what Please Please Me had to offer, but fans never forget their first.
‘Magical Mystery Tour’ – Magical Mystery Tour
Amid the everglow of Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles seemed to be living 24 hours a day in psychedelia. With the ‘Summer of Love’ in full swing, the Fabs were on their to bigger and better things before Brian Epstein passed away from a drug overdose. Though the rest of the band was lost in the woods, Paul McCartney decided to get them out of their funk by writing plans for another movie.
While the Magical Mystery Tour film was a bust critically, the opening track was a better indicator of what the movie was trying to do. Operating as a thrill ride on a bus taking its passengers to new lands, McCartney is at his most festive on this track, barking like a ringleader of a circus calling everyone to check out what he has to offer.
The album continues with that same element of fun, from the serious turns like ‘A Fool On the Hill’ to the absurdity behind ‘I Am the Walrus’. The movie might have had all the elements of a basic variety show, but this album opener actually feels like it can deliver on those promises.
‘Come Together’ – Abbey Road
After the aborted Get Back sessions, The Beatles needed to regroup. Since they wanted to leave their audience on a high note, they contacted George Martin and were convinced to make the old-fashioned album that their fans wanted to hear from them. After one head trip after another for the past few years, ‘Come Together’ let the fans know the band members could still play.
While starting off as a complete lift from the Chuck Berry song ‘You Can’t Catch Me’, the real power behind ‘Come Together’ is its swampy vibe, with Paul McCartney delivering an iconic bassline over John Lennon’s nonsensical verses. Though the track sounds fine, it doesn’t exactly leave the best first impression for the rest of the album.
It may act as a strong start to the album, but Abbey Road was about to give listeners one of the best rides of the Beatles’ career, going from orchestral suites on the back half of the record to some of the most beautiful singles in their career like ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and ‘Because’. There might be a better way to get an audience ready for an album like this, but ‘Come Together’ at least shows them having fun playing together again.
‘Back in the USSR’ – The White Album
Whatever was going to come out of the sessions for The White Album, fans were expecting a lot. The Beatles had spent the last few months on retreat in India meditating, and when they arrived back home, they had more songs than they knew what to do with. After announcing their plans for a double record, McCartney’s ode to Soviet living set the tone perfectly.
Opening with the sound of a jet engine coming down, ‘Back in the USSR’ is one of the most straight-ahead rockers they had made in a while. Keeping in the Chuck Berry tradition, McCartney pens this song about the joys of being in Russia, talking about how the girls from Moscow make him sing and shout and dropping one of his token guitar solos in the mid-section.
The tone sustains itself all the way to the end, while also acting as a good lead-in to the next track as the faint guitar picking of ‘Dear Prudence’ brings the album back down to Earth. Granted, the rest of the album was bound to be all over the place after this song, with each member practically making their own solo material with their fellow bandmates. Outside of the tonal whiplash on the rest of this record, The Beatles were still going to leave fans satisfied by the time the song was over.
‘Drive My Car’ – Rubber Soul
At the end of 1965, The Beatles had started to garner some competition in the rock scene. Although they had led the British Invasion, acts like The Rolling Stones and The Animals were popping up left and right, trying to lay claim to the throne the Fab Four had built. The rest of the rock scene might have been progressing, but The Beatles were still curious to see what other sounds were out there.
Starting off with an off-kilter guitar riff, ‘Drive My Car’ is the essence of cool for The Beatles, riding a smooth guitar lick influenced by the soul music they were listening to when touring The States. There’s also tongue-in-cheek sexuality to the lyrics as well, with the car maybe being a euphemism for…something else, depending on how listeners choose to look at it.
This song serves as a preview for some of the more daring leaps The Beatles were making across the rest of the record, from the folk-rock beauty of ‘Norwegian Wood’ to George Harrison’s chiming guitar part on ‘If I Needed Someone’. The rock scene might not have had time for ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ anymore, but The Beatles weren’t even in the same area code as their old selves anymore.
‘Taxman’ – Revolver
George Harrison had mentioned seeing Revolver as a sequel record to what they were doing on Rubber Soul. While their last albums had flirted with folk-rock, this was the deep dive into psychedelic rock, informed by the mind-altering effects of LSD. And just as Rubber Soul started with a cool flirtation with soul, the Quiet Beatle got his first official start to a Beatles album.
Riding a few stabs from distorted guitar, ‘Taxman’ was a change lyrically for them, as Harrison talked about the amount of money they were giving away in taxes. Since the last few Beatles songs had to deal with different kinds of love, Harrison was expanding the vocabulary The Beatles could sing about other than traditional ‘I love you’ tropes.
The lyrical focus would continue straight on through the record, as Paul McCartney painted melancholy pictures of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and John Lennon eventually bringing the huge head trip to a close on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. This might have been some scary territory for some new fans, but the music was always in good hands as long as a Beatle was counting it off.
‘A Hard Day’s Night’ – A Hard Day’s Night
While it sounds strange, The Beatles were coming close to sounding like a one-trick pony. Although they had conquered both sides of the Atlantic, their brand of R&B-infused rock and roll was starting to become tired over the next few months. Something needed to change if they were going to last, and their first foray into feature films gave us magic from the very first chord.
Though the style of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ is tonally ambiguous, it helps paint the picture of the mayhem that is going to ensue in both the movie and the film. When the official song starts, fans are treated to the lovable moptops that lit a fire in the hearts of girls around the world, as John Lennon sings about feeling satisfied when he gets home knowing that his lover will be there for him.
While there might have a bit of a cynical slant in the lyrics, it’s impossible to separate the hustle of the tempo and the image of the Fabs being chased by throngs of fans while going through a train station. Capping things off with Harrison’s guitar figure as the song fades, The Beatles packed all of the punchiness of their first film into a neat three-minute package.
‘Sgt. Peppers’ – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Allow your humble author to set the scene. The Beatles have retired from the road and uncharacteristically quiet for the past few months. Critics have been thinking they have dried up creatively, until Sgt. Peppers hit shelves in the summer of 1967. As the needle hits the grooves, the sound of a marching band warming up paves way for one of The Beatles’ definitive musical statements.
After being kept in the dark, Paul McCartney’s booming voice sets the scene for The Beatles’ first concept album, announcing a new fictional band that’s going to be giving fans a cornucopia of different sounds, as Harrison’s distorted guitar evokes the sounds of Jimi Hendrix (who would go on to cover the song a few days after the album’s release). Before fans can catch their breath, they transition into the next song ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, presenting the vicious and lighthearted side of the record.
Across every song, The Beatles live up to McCartney’s promise in the intro, giving a different sonic avenue on every track, which finally builds to Lennon and McCartney’s greatest musical achievement on ‘A Day in the Life’. McCartney extended his hand for fans to come and see the show, and when they followed, they heard the future of what rock music could be.
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