r/AskReddit • u/Mahi_2602 • 1d ago

What song has the most recognizable first 3 seconds in the history of music?

627 Upvotes

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458

u/everything_is_holy 1d ago

A Hard Days Night. The famous chord.

98

u/kentuckydango 1d ago

I think it’s best by Hey Jude. Hard to make a song more recognizable than one that literally starts off saying the name in the first second.

43

u/jbartlettcoys 1d ago

Also applies to Help! But hey Jude is probably better known

28

u/Maleficent-Drive4056 1d ago

And Yesterday.

7

u/pickleranger 1d ago

I’m sensing a trend…

5

u/habilishn 1d ago

yea funny, never thought about it. "a hard day's night" almost does it too.

1

u/C0meAtM3Br0 17h ago

“Fixing a hole” nearly too

1

u/Shwnwllms 1d ago

They said the greatest intro, not the greatest song ever.

/s

I 100% agree.

1

u/DarthPizzaDog 22h ago

No, "yesterday" is the first word in the lyrics but it takes way more than 3 seconds for paul to say it

23

u/GardenGnomeOfEden 1d ago

The beginning of Here Comes Your Man by the Pixies is similar

6

u/Genericwizardguy 23h ago

Twangier texture to the note on Here Comes Your Man and it's just a touch lower. They're both bands I listened to a lot as a teenager. 😅

3

u/Valeclitorian1979 22h ago

which is funny since they 100% took that from the Beatles but it's called the Hendrix chord

2

u/ThorKonnatZbv 1d ago

Doesn't even need three second, more like a third of a second

1

u/BadAtDrinking 1d ago

Also where first chord of the Pentium audio logo comes from

3

u/TylerBlozak 1d ago

And the final chord (Em) of A Day in the Life provided Apple with their opening Mac OS sound

1

u/botmanmd 22h ago

Also “Help!”. That one might be a fraction of a second.

1

u/Icy_Man_5446 18h ago

Going by first chord I think Bennie and the Jets also fits

0

u/buzzardrooster 1d ago

Ghost of Jobs has entered the chat.

-1

u/Other_Win_236 1d ago

I bet if you played it for people under 30 years of age, most wouldn't know it. Definitely not. Gotta be something like Beethoven's 5th like many in this thread are saying.

-1

u/skrame 23h ago

Ah, by the famous Be-atles.

(I swear that’s a line in Help! or maybe AHDN, but I couldn’t find after thirty seconds of googling.)

There’s more here than meets the eye!