[22] On 18 April in EMI's Room 65, another stereo remix was made by Martin, Smith, and Phil McDonald for the film company United Artists, but it was never used.

[27] According to music scholar Terence J. O'Grady, the "most notable" element of the song's composition is the I–♭VII–IV–V chord progression used in the verses, as the Beatles had never used it before despite it being very popular among their contemporaries.

[30] O'Grady writes that the verse's "blueslike intensity" is contrasted by the more complex melody in the bridge,[24] which peaks with a high A note[27] on the line, "It makes me wanna cry".

[40] "She's a Woman" is also used in the scene, as the character Ahme is shown attempting to trick the cultists by playing it on an underground tape recorder surrounded by dynamite.

[45] In a contemporary interview, McCartney said that "The Night Before" was one of his favorite songs from the film and that the band struggled deciding whether it or "Ticket to Ride" should have been the lead single.

[47] In his book Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald criticizes the song's musical and lyrical content as "only fair mainstream pop of its period.

"[2] Mark Hertsgaard dismisses it as a "throwaway"[48] while Patrick Humphries and Peter Doggett deem Lennon's use of electric piano to be the only novel element of the song.

[49] Conversely, Richie Unterberger of AllMusic considers "The Night Before" to be a "first-rate romantic pop-rock song"[25] and Kevin Courrier praises it as one of McCartney's underappreciated compositions.

[33] Rolling Stone ranked it at number 49 in a list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs, the editors writing: "For any other band, a pop gem as magnificent as 'The Night Before' would have turned into a career-making hit single, if not the foundation of a legend.

[52] As well as being the band's last performance for a music programme,[53] it was their only BBC session to feature electric piano, used on "The Night Before" along with "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.

[56] New wave singer Josie Cotton recorded a cover of "The Night Before" in 1986 – featuring vocals from Stray Cats guitarist Brian Setzer[57] – for her album Everything Is Oh Yeah, which went unreleased until 2019.

[50][60] Thomas Connor of the Chicago Sun-Times described it as one of "several unexpected cuts" from the tour,[61] while Bernard Perusse of the Montreal Gazette wrote that its inclusion appealed to "real Beatle geeks" and drew "delighted gasps" from the audience.