More Than a Feeling

Scholz wrote it, and it took him five years to finish. It was released as the lead single in August 1976 with Smokin' on the B-side, entered the Hot 100 on 18 September and peaked at number five. Scholz plays the guitars and bass, Delp sings and Hashian plays drums. Scholz names The Left Banke's Walk Away Renee as the main inspiration, and the chord progression after the line about Marianne walking away comes from it. The song has been described as being about the power an old song can have in your life.

Scholz said of the recording that it was a couple of weeks of him laying down the guitar tracks the way he had on the demos. For AM Top 40 radio the second verse was cut, while FM stations played it whole. Paul Elliott of Classic Rock put it first in a list of ten Boston songs, pointing to the riff that Nirvana echoed in Smells Like Teen Spirit. Rolling Stone placed it at number 212 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs.