With The Beatles (1963)
1.It Won't Be Long
2.All I've Got To Do
3.All My Loving
4.Don't Bother Me
5.Little Child
6.Til There Was You
7.Please Mr. Postman
8.Roll Over Beethoven
9.Hold Me Tight
10.You Really Got A Hold On Me
11.I Wanna Be Your Man
12.Devil In Her Heart
13.Not A Second Time
14.Money
In many respects, With the Beatles follows the exact structural formula laid down by its predecessor, Please Please Me. This is not to its detriment. If anything, the familiarity of the format—half original songs, half covers, a brisk runtime, and a strong emphasis on vocal interplay—provides a kind of reassuring continuity. Yet With the Beatles does more than simply mirror its forerunner. It expands upon it, offering a clearer sense of identity and intent. If Please Please Me was the sound of a band breaking through, With the Beatles is the sound of that same band leaning into its strength with sharpened focus and conviction.
The sequencing again follows a near-identical blueprint: the album opens with a vibrant original (It Won’t Be Long) and closes with a rousing cover (Money). The energy is infectious throughout, but what distinguishes this second offering is a more deliberate commitment to rock & roll as both genre and attitude. The performances feel tighter, the production more assured, and the band’s confidence utterly unshakable.
George Harrison makes his first compositional contribution with Don’t Bother Me, a minor-key number whose lyrical moodiness and melodic structure mark an intriguing contrast to the more buoyant Lennon/McCartney material. It’s a promising debut, if not quite a masterpiece. Ringo Starr again takes the microphone for I Wanna Be Your Man, a boisterous stomper famously gifted to—and popularized by—the Rolling Stones. Here, it serves as a vibrant showcase for Starr’s affable vocal delivery and the group’s ability to fuse pop accessibility with rock attitude.
Among the original tracks, All My Loving stands tallest—a timeless McCartney melody buoyed by crisp harmonies and Lennon’s brisk rhythm guitar. It remains one of the band’s most beloved early efforts, and for good reason. Few tracks better capture the Beatles’ early balance of polish and passion. Not every song hits its mark with the same intensity. Covers like Devil in Her Heart and Not a Second Time arguably pale in comparison to the album’s more inspired moments. Yet these slight dips never derail the momentum. Even the weaker cuts are executed with professionalism and charm, a testament to the band's emerging sense of quality control.
There are also the usual stylistic left turns—most notably Till There Was You, lifted from Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man. On paper, such an inclusion might seem incongruous with the rest of the album. In practice, it offers a moment of restraint and delicacy, beautifully arranged and sung with McCartney’s characteristic flair. The Beatles had a knack for taking schmaltz and spinning it into sincerity. It is worth noting, too, the complications of the album’s various U.S. iterations. The American release Meet the Beatles—issued with the same cover photo but a different track listing—has caused no end of confusion among collectors and fans. Such quirks were endemic to the 1960s music industry, particularly when exporting British acts to the American market.
In sum, With the Beatles is less a revolution than a consolidation—a follow-up that maintains the freshness of the debut while subtly refining its methods. It is a confident step forward, laying the groundwork for the more adventurous and sophisticated material that would follow. If not quite the thunderclap of their arrival, it is the sound of an empire quietly beginning to rise.