Beatles Album Opening Songs Ranked From Worst to Best

Thursday, June 19, 2025

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 "Come Together." "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.

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.

Source: ultimateclassicrock.com/Nick DeRiso