The Beatles
With The Beatles

THE REVIEW

The four guys with the ridiculous haircuts and on-stage movements release another album – less amateurish than “Please, Please Me”. The progress is evident and deserves a pass, even if it isn’t “A Hard Day’s Night” or “Help!”.

1. Original Tracks

“It Won’t Be Long”, by Lennon, was even appreciated by the great Leonard Bernstein for the complex initial chord progression. However, the complexity of chords doesn't determine the depth of a song. And this pleasant song, despite the compositional creativity, doesn't have much depth.

“All My Loving”, by Paul. Lennon adored it and would have liked to write it. I've never particularly liked it.

“All I Have Got To Do”, a beautiful ballad by John, underrated by the author himself. Here Lennon creates a wonderful melody. Ringo does a great job accompanying, and the backing vocals in the change are beautiful. Too bad about the lyrics.

“Not a Second Time”, by John, isn't exceptional, but it isn’t a trivial song, and for me, it has a beautiful piano solo, which is a shame not to hear in some of their masterpieces. A critic appreciated the chord progression and compared it to those in Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde”.

“Don’t Bother Me” is by Harrison. The beginning seems like it’s going to be a trivial song. Then the song picks up and gains its strength, with a nice change. Nothing extraordinary, but not to be dismissed.

There are two bad songs. The first is “Hold Me Tight” by Paul. It was supposed to be included in “Please, Please Me”. And you can tell.

“Little Child”, by John, can challenge the previous song in a contest of awfulness.

2. Covers

“Please Mr. Postman”, a splendid cover of a group called “Marvelettes”, sung greatly by John. It might be a trivial song, but I adore it and prefer it much more to “Twist and Shout”.

“You Really Got a Hold on Me” and “Devil in Her Heart” don't reach the beauty of the previous one, but are very pleasant.

“Till There Was You” is an excellent slow song by Paul, but, for my tastes, far below “A Taste of Honey” from the previous album.

“Money”, what the Beatles wanted. John sings excellently, and the song listens well.

“Roll Over Beethoven” is a Chuck Berry piece. Great song, but sung very poorly by George, who can't stamp it as he should, and therefore fails to reach the listener. This song should have been John's.

You might wonder why, when talking about Chuck Berry, they didn’t do a cover of “Johnny B. Goode”. But maybe the guitar work on that song was far above their skills at the time.