and the track as a whole is only fair mainstream pop of its period." Tim Riley calls it "a piece of formula pop" with "nothing as rich harmonically as 'Another Girl' on [side one of Help!] nor as precocious as 'Yesterday' on side two." Authors Patrick Humphries and Peter Doggett deem Lennon's electric piano playing to be the only novel element of the song. Conversely, Richie Unterberger of AllMusic calls the track "a first-rate romantic pop-rock song" and cites it as an example of McCartney "excell[ing] at haunting melodies". In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked "The Night Before" at number 49 in a list of the Beatles' 100 greatest songs, and a 2014 readers' poll conducted by the magazine ranked it as the ninth best Beatles song from the pre-Rubber Soul era. Other versions British law in the 1960s compelled BBC Radio to play material recorded especially for the medium. In keeping with this practice, the Beatles played "The Night Before" for the BBC Light Programme The Beatles (Invite You to Take a Ticket to Ride) on 26 May 1965. This would be the group's only live rendition of the song in their entire career. Broadcast on 7 June, the performance was their final music programme contribution, as they no longer had the desire or need to record sessions exclusively for the BBC. It was also their only BBC session to feature electric piano, used on "The Night Before" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". Of the songs performed during this session, EMI only included "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Ticket to Ride" on the 1994 album Live at the BBC, although the entire broadcast has appeared on bootlegs. George Martin included "The Night Before" on his 1965 album, also titled Help!, which consists of instrumental versions of Beatles songs. American jazz flautist Herbie Mann recorded cover versions of "The Night Before" and "Yesterday" for his 1966 album Today! New wave singer Josie Cotton recorded a cover of "The Night Before" in 1986 – featuring vocals from Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer – for her album Everything Is Oh Yeah, which went unreleased until 2019. Country band Restless Heart covered the song for their 2004 reunion album Still Restless, with music critic Al Campbell writing that it "sounds more like mid-'70s America than the Fab Four." McCartney performed "The Night Before" in concert for the first time on 15 July 2011 at Yankee Stadium,