Twist And Shout - Remastered 2009

The Beatles' rendition of "Twist and Shout" was released on their first UK album "Please Please Me", based on the Isley Brothers' version. John Lennon provided the lead vocals and initially felt ashamed of his performance in the song "because I could sing better than that, but now it doesn't bother me. You can hear that I'm just a frantic guy doing his best." A second take was attempted, but Lennon had nothing left, and it was abandoned. The Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout" has been called "the most famous single take in rock history."

The song was released as a single in the US on March 2, 1964, with "There's a Place" as its B-side. It was released by Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records on the Tollie label and reached No. 2 on April 4, during the week that the top five places on the chart were all Beatles singles. It was the only million-selling Beatles single in the U.S. that was a cover song, and the only Beatles cover single to reach the Top 10 on a national record chart. The song failed to hit No. 1 because the group's own followup single "Can't Buy Me Love" held the spot.

In the UK, "Twist and Shout" was released by Parlophone on an EP with "Do You Want to Know a Secret", "A Taste of Honey", and "There's a Place" from the "Please Please Me" album. Both the EP and album reached No. 1. In Canada, it became the title track to the second album of Beatles material to be issued by Capitol Records of Canada on February 3, 1964.

The song was used as a closing number on Sunday Night at the London Palladium in October 1963 and at The Royal Variety Show in November 1963; the Royal Variety performance was included on the "Anthology 1" compilation album in 1995. The Beatles performed the song on their Ed Sullivan Show appearance in February 1964, and they continued to play it live until the end of their 1965 American tour. Additionally, they recorded "Twist and Shout" on nine occasions for BBC television and radio broadcasts, the earliest of which was for the Talent Spot radio show on November 27, 1962.

In 1986, Matthew Broderick lip-synced to the Beatles' version of it in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Coincidentally, the Rodney Dangerfield film Back to School (released two days after Ferris) also featured the song, this one sung by Dangerfield himself and patterned after the Beatles' arrangement. The use in the two films helped propel the single up the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at No. 23 at the issue date September 27, 1986, giving the group their second chart single of the 1980s (the other being "The Beatles Movie Medley" in 1982).

In November 2010, 47 years after its recording, the Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout" made a debut on the UK Singles Chart. The highest charting Beatles track in the aftermath of their new availability on iTunes, it entered the charts at No. 48.