The Band Who...Needed No Introduction

So here I am working my way through With The Beatles and I’m blown away all over again by the Beatles' economy when it comes to intros. Here’s a survey of what happens before the vocals come in.

2 songs have no intro whatsoever

It Won’t Be Long – (song starts with chorus vocals)
All My Loving - (song starts with verse vocals)

6 more tracks have only a single note before the vocals enter

She Loves You – ½ bar drum fill (0.5 sec)
I’ll Get You – one bass note
Please Mr Postman* – single hi-hat
All I’ve Got To Do – single free time guitar chord
Not A Second Time – single piano bass note
I Wanna Be Your Man – single guitar string bend

The rest have intros ranging between 1 and 17 seconds. 

5 of these (including the 3 longest) are cover versions*.

Hold Me Tight – band intro (1 sec)
Don’t Bother Me – guitar solo (4 sec)
Little Child – harmonica solo (6 sec)
I Want To Hold Your Hand – band intro (6 sec)
Devil In Her Heart* – guitar solo (6 sec)
Till There Was You* – guitar solo (7 sec)
This Boy – band intro (9 sec)
You Really Got A Hold On Me* – band intro (14 sec)
Money (That’s What I Want)* – band Intro (15 sec)
Roll Over Beethoven* – guitar solo (17 sec)

Author Jay Frank devotes a whole chapter in his FuturehitDNA book to explaining why intros got progressively longer after the 60s (longer intros suited radio ident jingles) and peaked in the early 90s when the rise of mp3s and the 'skip' function in streaming once again began to reward shorter intros.

Chapter 2.4 With the Beatles - I'll Get You The Covers

So in the new faster moving more streamlined ‘I want to get through all the songs before 2014’ style here’s the first overview of chapter 2 of the Beatles catalogue.

She Loves You 

is a classic, which I’ve already covered in great detail here.

B-side 

I’ll Get You

is an aimless song with no real spark at all. 

Update 29/06/10 - I do like the minor 5 chord (Ticket 44) on "it's not like me to pre - tend" and some of the melody flows really nicely, but it's all too fragmented... 

It’s also a strong contender for the top 10 worst Beatles lyrics (watch out for that post!).

Onto the 6 cover versions.

The Hot

Motown songs Money (That’s What I Want) and You Really Got A Hold On Me and Broadway show tune Till There Was You are all classics & though the first two may not yield much we can steal, songwriting wise, the latter is fascinating. It sounds like something McCartney could have written himself a few years later, all clever melodic cleverness and twee lyrics. Definitely one to pick over at a later date.

The Not

Chuck Berry’s was the Beatles most covered artist (after Elvis) but Roll Over Beethoven is pretty unremarkable, as is Please Mr Postman. Whereas Harrison’s soloing on Till There Was You sounds effortlessly classy, his cack handed attempt at the Roll Over Beethoven intro makes an average song cringeworthy.

Devil In Her Heart is a totally stock doo wop effort notable mainly for the occurrence of the 4, m4, 1 chord change that the Beatles used so often in their own songs.

Overall the Beatles are covering some better crafted songs than they tackled on Please Please Me.

Next time we’ll look at the original tunes.

Part Two: I Wanna Be Your Man, Little Child

Part Three: All My Loving, It Won't Be Long