The Beatles Best Cover Songs

They Recorded Many, But These Are My Favs…

In the music business, cover songs are a new recording or performance of a song by an artist other than the original composer or performer. They are essentially reinterpretations of existing songs.

Like most new artists, the Beatles were heavy users of cover songs in their early years due to a lack of their own original songs, but except for A Hard Day’s Night in 1964, that ended in 1965. In total, from 1962 to 1970, they recorded 25 cover songs (re: on their studio albums) compared to 188 original songs. During this 8-year span, they released an average of 23 original songs per year or roughly one every 2 weeks! This article details why they were the best.

The Beatles began their recording career in 1961 as a one-time backing group named the Beat Brothers for Tony Sheridan, an up-and-coming English musician. He met the Beatles originally in 1960 in Hamburg, Germany where they were booked for at a club for an extended 48-night gig. It was on their second extended booking in 1961 that they agreed to record with Tony. The Beatles recorded “Ain’t She Sweet”, an old 1920’s Tin Pan Alley standard and “Cry For A Shadow” an instrumental written by Lennon/Harrison, which was first titled “Beatle Bop”. The album was titled In The Beginning and included 12 songs, the best of which was “My Bonnie”, which was…