Carol

The Beatles, all of them, greatly admired Chuck Berry. It was natural, then, that they would cover his song, Carol, during their early performance career. Berry released it in 1958. Once the Beatles had released their first albums for EMI, they stopped recording covers of other singers' compositions and restricted their performances to songs that could be purchased on records. For this reason, the only surviving recording of the Beatles' version of Carol appears on Live at the BBC, the 1994 collection of recordings made in 1963 for BBC broadcasts. In this case, the performance was recorded on July 2, 1963 and aired two weeks later, on July 16. This was when recording began in earnest for their second album, With the Beatles. It is likely that Carol was being considered for the album, and so they tried it out two weeks earlier for the BBC. Curiously, the Rolling Stones also recorded this Chuck Berry cover, releasing it in 1964 on their debut album. Their 1970 album, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!, includes a live performance of Carol by the "Stones."