I know there are probably some Beatle fans out there that still can listen to songs like I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves You, but the earliest tune I can still enjoy is I’ll Follow The Sun Paul’s tune from the Beatlle’s 1964 album “Beatles For Sale”.
How early a Beatle song do you still enjoy listening to?
Love Me Do.
Well, you asked.
And, quite seriously, the Please Please Me album is waaay better than Beatles for Sale.
" When Johnny played his first Beatle song…".
“Revolution #9 I think it was, and from there it didn’t take him long…”
“The Long and Winding Road”. I was just starting to like them and wouldn’t you know it, they broke up.
There’s no Beatles song I “can’t” (or wouldn’t want to) listen to, so the answer would be “Love Me Do,” “My Bonnie,” or “In Spite of All the Danger,” whichever you consider their real first song.
Cry for a Shadow
Like with most music, it kinda depends upon my mood.
Please Please Me is a great song.
I love the early Beatles stuff. By the way, the OP might find it interesting that “I’ll Follow the Sun” was actually a song written way earlier, when Paul was around 16. Paul dusted it off when they were scrambling a bit for songs (Beatles for Sale was released the same year as the album Hard Day’s Night; they needed to hit a December deadline, which is also why there are so many covers on it).
So, “I’ll Follow the Sun” actually pre-dates the “antiques” referenced by the OP, “She Loves You,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” In fact, it’s one of the earliest songs written by a Beatle to be recorded on a Beatles album–perhaps older than “Love Me Do,” for example (or as old), from the perspective of when it was written.
Please Please Me is my favorite Beatles song, period. But One After 909 rocks, too.
I sort of think their early songs were better. As time (and I guess, drugs) went on, their songs got weird and stopped making sense. I mean, Revolution Number 9? Octopus’s Garden? Maxwell’s Sliver Hammer? Give me “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “A Hard Days Night” anyday.
Twist & Shout
Well, of all the songs on*** Please Please Me,*** the following still hold up very well:
“I Saw Her Standing There”
“P.S. I Love You”
“Do You Want to Know a Secret”
“Twist and Shout”
I can listen to pretty much any Beatles song all the way back to the beginning. “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “My Bonnie,” “Twist and Shout,” whatever.
I’ll vote if anyone can provide a chronology of the early stuff.
Hey, I’m old. I was there.
“I Lost My Little Girl”.
I did not know that.
But even so, I am puzzled by the OP’s choice of “I’ll Follow the Sun” as if it marked some sort of transition in their style. It may be one of the best songs on Beatles for Sale (which ain’t saying much, in my opinion), but, apart from having, with a couple of exceptions, markedly crappier songs (for reasons that Stratocaster’s post explains), Beatles for Sale does not, to my ear, differ noticeably in style or general sound from the albums that preceded it. You do begin the hear a stylistic difference - a greater variety of types of songs, a more produced sound, and more experimentation - in some of the material on the next album, Help!, and the transition continues through Rubber Soul and the singles of that period, being more or less complete by the time of Revolver. It seems to me that someone who only liked the later Beatles (I position I can understand, though I do not share it) would choose a song off one of those three albums as their transition point, or maybe a single such as “We Can Work it Out” or “Paperback Writer”. Those sound different to what went before. “I’ll Follow thr Sun” does not.
Beatles For Sale was certainly not a seismic shift, but the songwriting on it was a deliberate attempt on Lennon and McCartney’s part to be a bit more dark, more “bluesy,” more mature. “No Reply,” “I’m A Loser,” “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party,” “Baby’s in Black”–these were a (perhaps subtle) shift from the general cheeriness of the prior efforts, the “June, Moon” stuff as McCartney described it. You can definitely trace the progression that njtt describes, through this album into the next ones, more fully realized on Help! and then the real seismic shift on Rubber Soul, where the “Merseybeat” had largely evaporated and the Beatles produced songs that constantly surprised, now not just for their composition but for the breadth of styles. By the time Revolver came out, parents overhearing the songs would probably have had a much more difficult time picturing the lovable mop-tops innocently shaking their heads and “ooohing” to an arena of shrieking (but well-groomed!) teenagers.
So, I also generally agree with you, njtt, regarding the line most people would mentally set between “early” and “later” Beatles. I’d guess most folks marking the boundary would pick something on Rubber Soul or Revolver as an example of the start of the later stuff. Maybe even as late as Sgt. Pepper. “I’ll Follow the Sun” would fit nicely on Please, Please Me, I think. Again, I have no line before which the Beatles’ sound is so “early” that the songs are unlistenable. It’s all great.
Personally, I love the Beatles For Sale album, for what it is. The originals are outstanding, and indeed evident of a maturing perspective. Add to those mentioned “Eight Days a Week,” “Every Little Thing,” and “What You’re Doing.” And it’s the same number of covers as their first two albums, and I like the covers too: “Kansas City / Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey,” “Rock and Roll Music,” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” are standouts to my ear (heck, I don’t even mind the much-derided “Mr. Moonlight”).
Seriously! Did the OP really expect anyone to really have any concept whatsoever of in what order the Beatles songs were released?
For the record, the very first Beatles song, “I Saw Her Standing There” I have no problem listening to. The earliest song I really love, from the same year, is I wanna Hold Your Hand (although possibly I’m swayed by subsequent cover versions).
Actually, from that list, it looks like in general I prefer early Beatles stuff to later Beatles stuff.