10 Rock Covers That Improved Classic Songs

Most of the Beatles' early career consisted of them just cutting their teeth playing their own warped version of American rock and roll. As Paul McCartney tells it, the Fabs got by during some of their early shows by going into record stores and learning some of the more obscure rock and roll tunes to perform onstage for 8 hours at a time. So when they finally recorded their debut record, they were able to knock out something like Twist and Shout without even breaking a sweat.

There is one little caviat to this version of Twist and Shout though....and that's that John Lennon sort of hated it. While the Isley Brothers' original is still a nice little piece of early rock and roll, John was dealing with cold during the recording of the album Please Please Me and had reserved this song for last because he knew he wouldn't be able to sing anything else afterward.

By the time they wrapped up a near 12 hour day though, Lennon's voice was almost completely gone, and his vocal track shows it, as he hollers into the microphone and goes for broke on the song without a care in the world. Though John always maintained that he could have sung it better than that, this wasn't just a fumbling of a rock classic. That was the sound of reckless abandon that would kick off the British Invasion.