“The Night Before” by The Beatles

"The Night Before" comes from Help!, the Beatles' 1965 film and its soundtrack album, and it's mostly Paul McCartney's song, though the credit reads Lennon–McCartney. It looks back on one last night with a lover before the brush-off. Cut in February 1965 with George Martin producing and Norman Smith engineering, it was the first Beatles track with electric piano, played by John Lennon, while McCartney sings lead and plays bass and guitar, Lennon and George Harrison sing behind him and Ringo Starr adds maracas to his drums.

In the film they mime it on Salisbury Plain, shot that May. They played it live only once, on their final BBC Radio performance. McCartney rated it among his favourites from Help! and among the band's best recordings to date; critics have been split, but plenty of fans rank it with the best of early Beatles.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.