Just realize that these two songs were early 1963, and A Day In The Life was only four years later. No other group or artist ever advanced so fast and so far in such a short period of time. That's the thing about The Beatles. Also realize that they never repeat themselves. Every track is different from every other track; every album is completely different from every other album. Unlike most pop artists, they don't find a successful formula and just stick with it. They are always moving on.

It's so hard today to convey the impact that songs like "I Saw Her Standing There", "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" had back when they first came out. You have to compare them with the environment they were coming into at the time in 1963. You were starting to see a new kind of energy in pop music and the Beatles were definitely at the forefront of that. Their ballads were a big step forward as well.

Lennon said that Paul was an "inspired" bass player. That is absolutely true: throughout their career Paul consistently won JAZZ polls as #1 bass player in the world.

It’s interesting to hear you describe the landscape of how you’re judging the tracks. To get a better understanding of why they were revolutionary (even in their first album) you really have to immerse yourself in the music of the 50’s and early 60’s. Then you will get a glimpse of how this album was a complete game changer from everything that came before. It’s always interesting to hear these songs called simple too, because there’s actually a lot of complexity to the arrangements, song structure, harmonies, and in some cases the chord progressions of the early Beatles which makes modern music looks quite basic in comparison. Modern music is heavily produced, but the Beatles were a 4 piece band, who learned how to cover all the hits of their day with just their instruments and their harmonies - and make them as compelling and rich as the originals without a brass band or orchestra. This is why they were masters of arrangement.

Listening to early Beatles singles were the most fun you could have with your parents being home. I love the Beatlemania years.

Hamburg. Europe’s brothel capital ~ that’s where they became the Beatles. Impossible to describe how they sounded to us back then. The one track from that time that stood out for me was There’s a Place.

Syed, I wouldn’t expect you to vibe to these early songs. As you said, they were for pop radio and I was 16 when I heard this music. NO one could have foreseen the direction that The Beatles would take music and change it….. not even they themselves. BUT, ABSOLUTELY they had an “IT” factor when they broke wide open in the US in 1963. Their sound was fresh, and even from the first year they were experimenting with dissonance and sounds that were new and challenging to their audience. (Needles and Pins for example) And they began the British Invasion. So yes, it was known pretty damn quick that they were something new and marvelous…..but no one could foresee the cultural impact they would have.

It’s incredible to me, that this album is sixty years old. It seems like yesterday when I first heard this song. I was nine and my teenage brother was so excited about this new record he brought home, by some English band. I think it’s safe to say, my life was changed forever. The Beatles became the soundtrack of my youth. Thanks for the memories!

♥ I Saw Her Standing There! An early gem

It is amazing to think how short a span of time passed between "I saw her Standing There", and "A Day In The Life"

"Baby it's you" is a brilliant cover. One of Lennon's most impassioned vocal performances. THANK YOU!

You may know this already, but they released two double compilaitons, 1962-66 & 1967-70, The red and the blue. That's pretty much how their music evolved ... two brief eras of greatness

Great, honest listen, as always. Having had the benefit of hearing these songs in the context of their time (for which I'll always be thankful), they arrived with an energy and vitality that absolutely leveled the status quo. Of no less significance was their attitude (confident and cheeky) and look (fresh, cool, and unique). Their affect on the huge demographic just younger than them was immediate and absolute. That would have been enough for a good, long career, but the fact that they evolved as artists and as people amplified their influence over time. And was unprecedented for popular artists. They invented a whole new wheel. But keep in mind that as of this first album, they ranged in age from 19 to 22. Their sheer youth was a big part of the message.

You bet Syed, they had the It Factor right from the start, I remember my older brother bringing home a single of theirs and being very excited, when they appeared on Ed Sullivan the following year, that was it for me and millions, world wide, they had a lifelong fan. No one at that time quite knew where they would go but damn, we were along for the ride. Enjoy! 🎵🎸🎤🎹🎶

A significant part of the Beatles impact was their energy and fun. This is often not captured in a simple listening of their albums .. their stage presence, live TV and radio appearances, their wit, all reached a saturation point. The Beatles were a vibe that travelled around the world like a mass hysteria. Having said that their early music was still pretty cool ... it really did stand out from everything else that was around at the time.

From the 50's Big-bopper,64' Beatles to 2023'Marcelito pomoy. May I have this dance (Class of 71) Historically 🎉😊 a era.

The Help album is where The Beatles created their fingerprint: Ticket To Ride, Yesterday, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, Help. Then there's the Folk song I've Just Seen A Face, and Country song Act Naturally. I've Just Seen A Face (Simon & Garfunkel sounds like this), Tell Me What You See (The Grateful Dead sounds like this). I would disagree that Rubber Soul was their first breakthrough album of new sound because of the Help album. The rest of the songs on Help sound like their previous albums but Help is a big breakthrough. Ticket To Ride was a monster hit and game changer as well as Yesterday.

John & Paul wrote this in 1958. There's a version by the Quarrymen which was their original name.

I have been a Beatlemaniac since they were first heard in America. That said, Misery is one of their very few songs I would not listen to twice. It was pretty typical of the type of tunes that were around in the very early 60's. Then again, if "I Saw Her Standing There" doesn't impress you with it's joyful energy and impact, then you will clearly not be a fan of early Beatles. This song and others like it at the time caused a huge sensation. I myself prefer early Beatles songs (& there are soooo many in that category) to some of their later work (tho I like it all) simply for their purity of melody, harmony and the fact that yes, you can sing along with them!

Saw Her Standing There is my favorite early Beatles song! I think of them in three periods of time: Early Beatles 1962-64 Growth Era Beatles 1965-67 Mature Beatles 1968-70

Looking forward to you go through their catalog, so exciting

Every single was better than the previous one and this continued for years. Amazing.

As a drummer who's played this song in many cover bands many many times, I'm always amazed when a bass player is able to play this song and sing it. I had a guy in one of my bands who could totally nail this song on bass and vocals. It was impressive.

They were great from the start--simple isn't always worse...it had a great vitality and vocals, harmony.

It wasn't until the Rubber Soul album that their songwriting and song production took a very noticeable;e turn for the better. There are some very good early songs (pre-Rubber Soul), like "Things We Said Today," "Ticket To Ride," or "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," but it was that album which raised them above the average pop band

The opening to Saw Her always takes me back to being an 8 yr old hearing it for the first time. Then we immersed ourselves in every song we heard from them from then on. Thanks for the memories.

Syed, you can not see the importance of these first songs, compared to their later stuff, but if you were alive then and listening to the current state of popular music you would realize these guys were something new, different and exciting.

In the summer of 1963, my parents had a friend of theirs from England stay with us for a bit in California. When this lady - we called her our aunt - returned to England she sent this record called With the Beatles to me and my sister. We had never heard of them, but we took the record across the street to our friend's house to play it, as we didn't have a record player. My 13 year old self was knocked out! This album was so much better than just about anything else that was being played on the radio at that time. Two months later the world changed, and America went nuts over the Beatles, but I got that head start and I'm a lifelong fan.

Nowadays it's probably difficult to appreciate how fresh and exciting this sounded at the time. For example, Billboard's top 10 for 1963 didn't feature any electric guitar.

I am glad you found away to get passed the blocking, I wish you continued success with it. I wished those who do the blocking would realize how important reaction channels are to telling the story of the history of rock music. Leaving the Beatles out of this opportunity to tell the story of this music is absurd. They only winners here are the copyright lawyers.

The GOATs fr. Good stuff mate.

The Beatles met Dylan in 1964 when they were staying in the same hotel. On “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” they sing “I Can’t Hide”, but Dylan thought they were singing “I Get High”, so he invited them to his room, stuffed towels under the door, and lit a joint. So they were introduced to that supposedly by Dylan, who also told Lennon he was wasting half of his power by not concentrating on his lyrics. So Dylan also got The Beatles to take their songwriting more seriously. The bass line on “I Saw Her Standing There” came from Chuck Berry’s “I’m Talking ‘Bout You”. McCartney during Silver Beatles days had sometimes gone by the stage name Paul Ramón, which is where The Ramones got their name, and this song is why they introduced a lot of their songs with the “1,2,3,4!” count-in. In the early days when The Beatles and The Stones did a lot of covers, The Stones generally had better covers. “Misery” has never done much for me. I’ve always loved “I Saw Her Standing There”. It was unique, original, creative, and a rocker. Nothing else sounded like it.

We started hearing the Beatles on the radio in late 1963. They came onto the scene playing pop/love songs like everybody else. But the Beatles were so very much better. Their melodies, their harmonies and their use of chords were unparalleled. And their covers were often better than the originals. And then for several years they showered us with new, unique, ever-changing music.

Amazing to think Paul, at 82 is still singing this.

Awwww my first favorite band. I got my first Beatles album when I was 3...Meet The Beatles. My mom said when they were on The Ed Sullivan Show and they were on there that I stood in front of the TV hypnotized(I was a year old)

SYED, ONE OF THE REASONS THAT I AM A SUBSCRIBER OF YOURS IS BECAUSE I FELT FROM THE VERY FIRST TIME I WATCHED ONE OF YOUR REACTIONS THAT YOU'RE AN HONEST AND GENUINE AND SINCERE REACTOR!! AND IN THIS CASE I CERTAINLY APPRECIATE YOUR HONESTY AND UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM!! IT'S CERTAINLY UNDERSTANDABLE THAT SOMEONE OF YOUR AGE WOULD NOT FALL HEAD-OVER-HEELS FOR THIS KIND OF MUSIC!! EVERYTHING YOU DESCRIBED ABOUT THE MUSIC IS PRETTY MUCH A 100%! IT'S SIMPLE, IT'S POP-ESQUE, IT WAS MADE FOR THE TEENAGERS OF THAT GENERATION, EARLY 60S!! WHEN THIS ALBUM WAS RELEASED I WAS SIX YEARS OLD!! I CAN STILL REMEMBER MY OLDER FEMALE COUSIN AND SISTER, WHO WERE HUGE BEATLES FANS, GETTING ALL GIDDY AND EXCITED WHEN BEATLES SONGS WOULD COME ON THE RADIO!!! WHEN I LISTEN TO THESE OLD BEATLES TUNES IT JUST GIVES ME A FEELING OF NOSTALGIA!! A FEELING OF A SIMPLER TIME!!! I WOULDN'T SIT HERE AND LISTEN TO THESE OLD BEATLES TUNES OVER AND OVER BUT WHEN I HEAR THEM I SING ALONG AND JUST FEEL GOOD!! THANKS FOR BEING OPEN AND HONEST WITH YOUR FEELINGS AND REACTION IS VERY INSIGHTFUL!!!

The Beatles, since day 1, were always ahead of their time.

The early Beatles were playing what hadn't been heard before in North America. What came before was Elvis, and a lot of groups, but nothing like this sound. You are right, it is of an era and ties into the changes taking place among young people in the 1960s, particularly in Britain, which drifted around the world and captured a generation.

As others said below, although poppy and not what they became later on just a few years later, this was revolutionary compared to what was in the USA at the time. To fully understand you would need to watch a history of the roots of rock and roll. After the initial wave with Chuck Berry, Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Louis, etc, there was an effort to suppress it and the charts were filled with crap. The Beatles and other British artists brought American black music to white America with energy. I was alive but too young to remember, but the youth of America were inspired.

OH YES! Can’t wait for this journey! This is going to be epic!

I was thirteen when this album was released everybody knew that there was something different, something special about the Beatles. I saved up and bought "With the Beatles" , one of the first albums that I bought. I'm not sure how much if any of the tracks on that particular album can be attributed to Lennon and McCartney but I loved it just the same. Their expertise at playing their instruments improved immeasurably in a very short time. You can see that from the George Harrison riff which was ok but not wonderful. He became an excellent player. I had "A Day in the Life" stuck in my head all day a couple of days ago and it wouldn't go away. If you haven't seen the film "Yesterday", I can really recommend it. I've seen it a dozen times at least and it makes my eyes leak every time. 😁I love your reaction videos. Please keep them going.👍

The first thing you have to remember is that back in those days there was no Internet and no Music Television; to be heard, you had to write a song with a catchy melody and nice lyrics, and that song had to be somewhere in the 2:30 to 3-minute range. Anything longer than 3:30 minutes usually wouldn't be played by the AM radio disc jockeys (Had to get those commercials in to sell their products). Most bands were happy to have one song that was played a lot on the radio, and they hoped people would hear it and want to buy it. Individual songs were printed on vinyl records we called 45s (45 revolutions per minute on the turntable) and could be bought for about 1 pound British Sterling or 1 dollar American. For that price, you got two songs: The hit song on side A, and the 2nd best song on side B. Since the LP or Long-playing vinyl record held about 22 minutes of music on each side (it ran at a speed of 33 1/3 revolutions per minute), a band could write 14 three-minute-long songs (7 per side) on their album. Well, like I said, many groups were happy to write 1 or 2 hit songs per album, but the Beatles were a Pop Songwriting Machine. Both sides of their 45s were hits, and as many as 9 of the 14 songs on the album made it somewhere on the top 100 of the 1964 music charts. Oh, and these recordings were mono (stereo became more prominent later in the 60s), which means they usually used a 4-track recording system: one microphone on the drums, one on the guitars, and one on the vocals, mixed down onto the 4th track and printed onto the vinyl to be heard through just one speaker. There was no auto-tune, and no special effects. This was very primitive analog recording...no 32-track digital. Now, take all that into consideration and listen to it, again. Damn...they were really good.

When The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, 73 million Americans tuned in. They estimate that that was 40% if all Americans at that time.

The world needed the sheer JOY that the music the Beatles brought to us. 1962-63 I spent 2nd and 3rd grade doing nuclear bomb threat drills in the halls of my school. 11/1963 Kennedy was assassinated. I cannot state strongly enough how BLACK that period was that we kids were picking up from the adults. Suddenly......JOY JOY JOY of the Beatles. That night watching Ed Sullivan.....wow. The Beatles were the soundtrack of my life....adding Simon and Garfunkel. But always. ALWAYS the Beatles. Even still......

The harmonies, right! Something the Beatles did extremely well was to add idiosyncrasies that took mundane lyrics and made them more interesting. In the first song here, the "WOOOO!" thrown in is an example and would become a bit of an early trademark which was due to get the young ladies screaming. Another example is in "I feel fine". There is the lyric, "baby said she's fine. She tells me all the time. " not much. But they dress it up as "Baby said she's fine, you know, She tells me all the time, you know. She said so!" Unexpected, more interesting and definitely more rhythmic. That's the type of thing that I see genius in.

To paraphrase another of your great commenters, @Lee Kennison, this album is when the second call in US history went out "The British are coming, the British are coming". And it was so exciting! To get the full experience though, Syed, you need a bunch of 13 year old girls behind you screaming and fainting. The Beatles contribution to the change of the music soundscape of the time was evident immediately. The early Beatles do sound dated now, but I still think they are important. So happy to see you found the work around, this will be so much fun.

The Beatles literally started the biggest music revolution the world has ever seen. No musical act has ever been as huge. There's some great songs in the early Beatles music. However, in comparison to what would follow, the first several Beatles albums seem more ordinary now than they were when they were released. Their album, Rubber Soul was when their creative genius really began to flourish. Bob Dylan was a key influence on the Beatles in expanding their songs' subject matter, and their rivals, the Rolling Stones had plenty of anger in their songs as well. The Beatles were endlessly imaginative, and their growth as a studio band between 1963 and 1969 is astonishing. Sayed, Im afraid you're going to be a little bored at times with early Beatles albums. I think you'll find a lot to like once you listen to Rubber Soul and the following album, Revolver, which imo is their greatest album of all. It's a journey worth taking, but perhaps you'll enjoy it more if you instead focus on the best several songs from each of their earlier albums.

I reme.ber .going to Cathy's house to listen when it first came out. I was 12 years old

I was 9 when this came out, and 17 was an older woman then. In America, we were still getting over the Kennedy Assassination in Nov. ‘63 when they appeared on Ed Sullivan in February ‘74, and over 70 million of us watched these 4 lads turn the world upside down. I still get that charge when I see the old films of their early performances. They changed music in so many ways, especially in the recording aspect. I owe so much to them for turning me on to music.✌️❤️🎶

That their first LP was #1 nonstop for 30-something WEEKS already says they were ahead of the pack. That it was replaced at #1 by their second LP makes one sit up and take notice -- again. They were ahead of the pack from their first single. And when they hit the US they booked it -- and everyone else chased but never caught them. They consolidated at #1 worldwide by mid-1965. But they never peaked -- they continued to grow and evolve until they broke up. They were LARGE -- which is BIGGER than HUGE.

My uncle was a huge Beatles fan... Heard them allllllll my life. 58 years

The transition begins with the Rubber Soul album, continues thru Revolver, Sgt Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour.

She was 17, and when he write this he was 19 or 20. People freak out about the difference of one in high school and the other just out age difference now, but in those days, that was an acceptable or even a good age difference. Esp if you were working class, dating a guy those few years older should mean he had a job, he was past his apprenticeship or boot camp or his basic most entry level/on the job training level job. Or nearly out of college. Because getting married was the goal and you can’t do that unless he has a ‘good’ job. Boys your own age were too young, they had no ‘prospects’ yet.

Been watching your channel since the beginning. Stellar work. The Beatles are my favorite artists, but I'm not super into the first few albums. Still, I'll be here for every video, and am interested in seeing if what the Beatles mean starts to resonate a bit more over the course of this deep dive. You seem to get Bob Dylan intrinsically. The Beatles aren't Dylan or Pink Floyd when it comes to lyrics. But once their juggernaut started chugging, they made a string of masterpieces where nearly every song was different and unique, arguably spawning multiple new subgenres per album. Melody, harmony, and feel. Comedy, beauty, and empathy. Experimentation, innovation, and knocking open doors to new worlds. But those are all just words; will the songs and musical styles make a believer out of Syed? Only time will tell.

In the attic of the first house we moved to in the U.S. I found three albums (the White Album, In A Gadda Da Vida and Led Zeppelin II) along with a stack of Playboy magazines. I spent a lot of time in the attic - got my taste for rock music there as well.

There 's a video on YT of a Top of Pops from the mid sixties. Many of the great British bands performed. The Stones, The Animals, Van Morrison, The Searchers and many more. When The Beatles took the stage it was like a light was turned on. Their stage presence was off the charts incandescent. I would say their genius was on display in spades. For an album to remain 30 weeks at the top is another indicator as pop music of any generation is filled with fleeting songs. After all, the music industry needs new songs coming out all of the time.

their voices togeether is something special...one goes down while the other one goes up

To date, the Beatles have sold 1.6 BILLION singles in the US and world wide album sales of 650 million. And they are still selling, over fifty years after breaking up!

You are doing the early stuff. You are my hero! Thanks and God Bless!

Fabulous video! Thank you for playing it for us!!

I was in the 8th grade in the USA when the first US album was released. It was a cataclysmic change from what preceded the Beatles.

That’s a strange take. It wasn’t just the pop music of that time. As my Dad says, “We had never heard anything like it. Not even close. It could have come from outer space it was that revolutionary.” Songs were short because radio stations limited songs to 2 minutes. And seemingly “simple” in terms of the amount of instruments they could record at that time. But still revolutionary! And I still play all their early stuff and I wasn’t alive for it either. I’ve asked you before but please make a video on why the heck you’re still a “Hip Hop” fan. I’m genuinely curious. I was a huge Hip Hop fan in the 90s but the genre no longer exists. It really is crap rap now (says the girl who has been in TV and entertainment biz her whole life.) It’s sad.

I can tell you that as a young kid at the time, when I heard these early songs I thought "this is what music is supposed to sound like".

The thing that stands out to me on these tracks is tension : on I Saw Her Standing There, the harmony between Lennon and McCartney is not a sweet harmony, there's something slightly atonal that gives it an edge, a wildness. On Misery, it's the minimalism on the piano. It doesn't play all the notes you expect it to, which creates a tension that otherwise wouldn't be there. Compare these songs to other pop songs of the time - Beach Boys, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Andy Williams, The Singing Nun,, etc. There is a rawness to the Beatles sound that is done entirely on purpose,

Good observation on Lennon & McCartney's voices meshing so well. Paul said that they would sing face to face to synchronize.

Their music was revolutionary from the beginning. I went to see them when this album was still new. It was pandemonium. They brought new life to the fading music of the 50s.

I was 16 in 1963 and, as someone who experienced the impact of the Beatles firsthand, I can say in all seriousness that yes, it was clear from the very start that they were re-writing the rules. Hearing theses tracks now, they seem very naive and 'ordinary', but when heard in the context of the music of the late '50s and very early '60s, they were fresh and exciting.

Hamburg, they played in Hamburg 😎👍🏽

I think that the best introduction to early Beatles is not the albums but the movie "A Hard Days Night." It's one of the top 10 best films of that decade. And they are simply amazing in every way in that film. Then Jump to Rubber Soul. So do a Movie Reaction!

The first one that got me was Please Please Me.

They were the first rock band to use a lot of minor and 7th chords with their harmonies. This produced a totally new sound. It helped that they had a great sense of humor and wit. They loved playing with the media of the time which was not normal in the few music interviews of the time, plus they had a semi-rebel look with the suits and long hair for the day.

"Misery" is one of my favorite Beatles songs.

I would suggest you listen to the ten biggest songs of 1961 and 1962 and then listen to this again and you will hear how different they were and how they changed music

I never tire of listening to this musical parfait, perfect in every way, with each Beatle just killing their part, fortified by countless performances in Hamburg, Germany. How the universe ever came up with the improbable nexus of these four incredibly talented lads is one for the cosmologists. I'm just thankful I was there when it happened,

Even though it may be perceived as 'simple', what Lennon & McCartney had from the get go was an instinct for a catchy melody, something that has been sadly lacking in contemporary music for so long. Memorable tunes one after the other for a whole decade, and an astronomical progression from this style to the studio experimentation of the 'Revolver' album in just 3 years. You knew you'd arrived when you'd hear the postman whistling your latest release, they appealed to a very wide age group, having 3 generations of a family all appreciating the same pop music was pretty unprecedented.

Thank you for going to the beginning. So many reactors are starting The Beatles with Sgt Pepper or The White Album and think it is amazing, ignoring where the Boys came from.

This song was revolutionary in its day compared to the rest of what was on the radio and the charts at the time. The countoff at the beginning grabs your attention and the pronounced bassline propels the song into a danceable tempo. The only other song in 1964 other than Beatle music that grabbed my attention was Roy Orbisons Oh Pretty Woman with that noticable drumbeat opening the song and that legendary guitar riff and of course Roy's lecherous growell after the first verse. It's one of those deals when you had to be there listening to the radio and knowing in terms of music what's been done and heard before.

I think if you saw a film like back beat which highlights their time in Hamburg and the excitement it generated at the time, you might begin to see the revolutionary impact they had even then.

Yup Paul has an amazing voice. But growing up on them is what taught me the importance (and difficulty-and uniqueness) of that *low* harmony part….of which Lennon was a master. Speaking from personal experience….YES, we could tell they were special! The sound… not just because of the “moptops”. Volumes have been written about their musical uniqueness back in the day, so I’ll leave it at that.

One thing to remember is that they mostly didn’t put their singles in the album. So many of their number one songs don’t appear on any album. It’s to to listen to the corresponding singles from the same times to understand the impact and growth. Those songs are on the two Beatles Past Masters albums

It's so much fun watching them do "I Saw Her Standing There" live. 💙💙

Something to look for as you go through their catalogue: songs that end with three of the same line. This starts it off for us!

A good way to measure the 'genius' of the Beatles, and how different this 1st album was from what was existing at the time, is to listen to the songs that were popular at the time and compare. 'It's My Party' by Leslie Gore, Blue Velvet' by Bobby Vinton, 'Hey Paula' by Paul & Paula and 'Surfin USA' by the Beach Boys.

My parents were in HS during the birth of rock n roll in the mid to late 50s, I know a bunch of folks from their generation who really liked the early Beatles like this, but not so much their later stuff.

Every girl wanted to be that 17 yr old that caught a Beatles eye when he saw standing there🤩😍

If you listen to what else was around at exactly the same time you can see how more there was to them than their contemporaries. Plus they’re writing their on songs, mostly at this time. Plus they we’re still very young. Best in mind they were still in their twenties when they spilt up.

Nothing had sounded this way before. They were really fresh at the time.

A day in the life was made after 4 years of these two songs. Imagine that

They were made on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg playing long hours every night in the Indra Club and the Star Club for a couple of years.

There’s so much great Beatles stuff ahead of this. But I saw her standing there is the first one you hear. And from start to finish there’s only a few other songs as good as it.

I still get a charge when I hear that song . Man what a wake up call that was .

Dead right. Pop music for the time - 1963. Great songs, but in the general style for that era. It didn't take them long to figure out how important it was to develop and grow, as history shows.

First time I've Ever heard ' Misery ' .. Thanks

Love that you're making your way through their albums. Each one is different and they get better as they go on. Once you hit 1965 and their second album of that year, Rubber Soul, things really start to take off. By then they know their way around the studio and are starting to have more time to write and record. You'll have a blast!

I don't think I've heard Misery before. I liked it a lot because the vocal harmonies stood out so much because they were up front, while the instruments were in the back, yet keeping the rhythm and the song going.

There's something you need to understand about this period of time. Prior to The Beatles, bands, especially white bands, didn't write their own songs. Songwriters wrote songs for recording artists/bands. That's not to say that there weren't a few great recording artists, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, etc., who wrote their own songs, but none of them were as prolific and successful in the Rock N'Roll era as Lennon, McCartney and Harrison. They were models for singer/songwriters in other British Invasion bands like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Pete Townsend, and all the bands that followed them. The Beatles listened to early black Rock N'Roll artists, Skiffle, and Blues. You can hear those early influences in Beatles music.

If you read "Tune In" by Mark Lewisohn you would get an idea of the world before the Beatles and how revolutionary they were. You just heard the beginning - no one could have imagined what was to come.

Some of the tracks on Please Please Me are definitely of their time and don't necessarily age as well as other songs on the album. However, to get an idea of how fresh and new The Beatles sounded to the listeners of their time, check out some of the Top 40 hits of 1962-63, both in the US and the UK, and then come back to this album. They really were a whole new ball game. The "revolutionary" stuff didn't start right away, but even in 1963 they were new and different compared to everything else around them.

You just got a new subscriber -- and I predict you'll gain a LOT more as you explore the Beatles catalog.😁

Check out Ask Me Why from their first album. There's a lot going on there musically and you get a good sense of their early song writing chops on that one.