The songs
The title of A Hard Day's Night had been coined by Ringo Starr, and first appeared in John Lennon's short story Sad Michael in his first book In His Own Write.
When film director Richard Lester announced it would be the title of The Beatles' first film, Lennon took up the challenge to write the theme song. At the time he and Paul McCartney were in competition to write the group's singles, and Lennon was entering a particularly productive songwriting phase.
I was going home in the car and Dick Lester suggested the title A Hard Day's Night from something Ringo'd said. I had used it in In His Own Write, but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringoism, where he said it not to be funny, just said it. So Dick Lester said we are going to use that title, and the next morning I brought in the song. 'Cause there was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the A side, who got the hit singles.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
The genesis of the song was later recalled by Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave, who was a friend to The Beatles.
One day I picked John up in a taxi and took him to Abbey Road for a recording session. The tune to the song A Hard Day's Night was in his head, the words scrawled on a birthday card from a fan to his little son Julian: "When I get home to you," it said, "I find my tiredness is through..." Rather a feeble line about tiredness, I said. "OK," he said cheerfully and, borrowing my pen, instantly changed it to the slightly suggestive: "When I get home to you/I find the things that you do/Will make me feel all right." The other Beatles were there in the studio and, of course, the wonderful George Martin. John sort of hummed the tune to the others – they had no copies of the words or anything else. Three hours later I was none the wiser about how they’d done it but the record was made – and you can see the birthday card in the British Library.
Lennon was the sole composer of the title track, along with I Should Have Known Better, Tell Me Why, Any Time At All, I'll Cry Instead, When I Get Home and You Can't Do That. He also wrote the majority of If I Fell and I'll Be Back, and collaborated with McCartney on I'm Happy Just To Dance With You.
It comes and goes. I can't believe it goes away for ever... but you can never be twenty-four again. You can't be that hungry twice. That can never, never be.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
McCartney's contributions to the album were hardly slight either: his highlights were the classic ballads And I Love Her and Things We Said Today, as well as the single Can't Buy Me Love.
When we knew we were writing for something like an album [John] would write a few in his spare moments, like this batch here. He'd bring them in, we'd check 'em. I'd write a couple and we'd throw 'em at each other, and then there would be a couple that were more co-written. But you just had a certain amount of time. You knew when the recording date was and so a week or two before then we'd get into it.
It didn't seem like pressure. It was - I suppose you'd have to think it was but I don't remember it being a pressure. It was fun, it was great. I always liken songwriting to a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Now you see it, now you don't. If I now pick up a guitar and start to conjure something out of the air, there's a great magic about it. Where there was nothing, now there is something. Where there was a white sheet of paper, there's a page we can read. Where there was no tune and no lyrics, there's now a song we can sing! That aspect of it made it a lot of fun. We'd be amazed to see what kind of rabbit we'd pulled out that day.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
A Hard Day's Night is one of only three Beatles albums to contain no lead vocals by Ringo Starr. The others are Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour.
Related articles:
- US LP release: A Hard Day's Night
- Mixing: A Hard Day's Night, Things We Said Today
- Mixing: A Hard Day's Night
- Mixing: I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, Tell Me Why, And I Love Her, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, I Call Your Name
- UK single and LP release: A Hard Day's Night
This was the first of the remasters that I purchased as I had yet to hear most of the songs in stereo.
The remaster did not disappoint. This is clearly the best of their pre-Rubber Soul albums. And not just because it's all originals and no covers, but in spite of that fact. The Beatles weren't exactly going through the motions when they did covers but most of the material on this album was as good or better than any cover version they had recorded to date...
Quite a thrill finally hearing that opening chord in stereo for the first time!
haha john keeps on hogging the writing, being credited for all songs except two
Interesting that their only (pre-Pepper) album without a Ringo spotlight is also their only LP with 13 songs instead of 14. Maybe they eventually decided against including Ringo's "Matchbox" cover for the sake of preserving the all-original Lennon-McCartney purity?
They probably dropped matchbox to keep it all original
However the day Ringo got tonsillitis they were going to record a fourteeth track
Wow, I didn't know that! Too bad they hadn't recorded "Matchbox" a year earlier: If so, then they could've used it on WTB in place of "I Wanna Be Your Man"; and reserved THAT one for AHDN. Result = 14 MacLen originals, including one each for George & Ringo. Or, hmmm, maybe they could've taken "I Call Your Name" from the 4-song "Long Tall Sally" EP and added the two German songs in its place, thereby turning a 4-song EP and 13-song album into a 5-song EP and 14-song album - albeit one without a Ringo vocal...
UNLESS...John relinquished "I'll Cry Instead" for Ringo to sing, which I'm sure he would've done quite nicely! It's got that C&W/rockabilly feel, and of course that was Ringo's specialty.
Yeah, I'd say you're right.
John really wanted this to be totally original.
This album proved that they didn't need the covers that filled in the first two efforts. Also, it shows the competitive nature of Lennon & McCartney with each other to top the other's effort, with "A Hard Day's Night" being put out to no doubt match what Paul had did just before it with "Cant Buy Me Love".
However, the album as a whole is John at his best across an entire Beatle album. "If I Fell" is one of his strongest efforts & "You Can't Do That" could have easily been another #1 if released as a single. Add in "Ill Be Back" and you have John's voice & songwriting flow at it's very best in his pure rock singer phase of the early Beatle work.
This is John's album. Sgt pepper is Paul's
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that one, Liam. On AHDN, Lennon sang lead vocals on 9 of the 13 tracks. On Pepper, Lennon sings lead or has a major vocal contribution to 7 of the 13 songs, Paul 8. The two best songs on the album (arguably, of course) are Lennon's: "Lucy..." and "A Day in the life." Hence, Lennon is all over Pepper, even on Paul's songs: superb vocals on "Sgt. Pepper," co-writer of "With a Little Help," middle-eight of Getting Better, co-writer and beautiful vocals on "She's leaving home." Given that, it might be somewhat accurate to call AHDN
John's but Pepper is definitely not `Paul's.' AHDH is a great album.