“Twist and Shout” by The Beatles

"Twist and Shout" is the Beatles tearing into a song by Phil Medley and Bert Berns on their 1963 debut album, Please Please Me, and it's John Lennon's show: he takes the lead vocal and hollers it raw, with Paul McCartney and George Harrison backing him up. Lennon and Harrison chop away on guitars, McCartney's bass bounces, Ringo Starr drives the beat, and George Martin, producing with Norman Smith engineering, has the good sense to simply capture the racket.

It's a cover, but it doesn't sound borrowed; it sounds like a band that has decided this song belongs to them now. Their version was a chart hit, too.

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