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A Hard Day's Night
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12 November 2012
9.04pm
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IMDeWalrus
Terrace BC Canada
Abbey Road
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Of all the amazing achievements in The Beatles’ matchless career, I think this song is the most remarkable.

A Hard Day’s Night ” was also proof to the world that The Beatles were bona-fide professional performers, not just the “above-average bar band” that Dick Clark and many others in the American music establishment at the time were writing them off as.

Imagine :  The Beatles were at the very apex of Beatlemania — taking time off their grueling tour schedule to film their first movie, with Lennon & McCartney writing 12 new songs for the album (plus a 13th — “I Call Your Name ” — for an EP) — and then John Lennon was taken aside by the producer, Walter Shenson, who says “John we need another song — it has to be up-tempo — and it has to be called ‘A Hard Day’s Night ‘ because that’s the name of our movie”).   

According to Shenson, the next morning “there were John and Paul with guitars at the ready and all the lyrics scribbled on matchbook covers. They played it and the next night recorded it. It had the right beat and the arrangement was brilliant. These guys were geniuses.”

With little rehearsal and no prior performances, John and Paul took the new song and with George and Ringo — and George Martin — they recorded, in three hours, a world-wide number one.   George Harrison came up with one of his most memorable guitar performances (augmented by Martin, Lennon & McCartney) — John and Paul gave their usual strong vocal performances, and Ringo’s drumming was excellent (listen to the heavy drum beat he hammers out as Paul wraps up his middle-eight vocal part the second time around, as the song goes into the final verse).   

Walter Shenson was right — these guys were geniuses!

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GOOD MORNING!

GOOD MORNING!!

GOOD MORNING!!!

13 November 2012
1.42am
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Funny Paper
America
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That repeating part where Paul sings “When I’m hoooooooome, everything seems to be rah-ight…” — is so beautiful it almost evokes Mozart.

 

Almost.

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13 November 2012
1.02pm
Ben Ramon
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I agree. If you condense the Beatles down into their most primal incarnation as a pop band, then A Hard Day’s Night  is emblematic of their absolute finest early songwriting. A relentlessly driving, melodic, memorable tune with thunderous performances from all vocal and instrumental angles, an intelligent lyric with a title that gently prefigures the surrealism seen in their later work, and also a large step towards some unorthodox and experimental elements that bend the rules of what the 2.5 minute single should be (the opening chord, the jangling fade-out coda that comes out of nowhere). It’s easy to tout She Loves You or I Want To Hold Your Hand as the crowning singles of the period, but AHDN is really far more ambitious than either.

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13 November 2012
3.28pm
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frankdialogue
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Yes,, this song was the epitome of Beatlemania, and it didn’t even use an Aeolian cadence or onomatopoeia.

27 May 2015
9.27am
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Ahhh Girl
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Perhaps the beginning of Hi Hi Hi owes a little bit to the beginning of A Hard Day’s Night .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?…..AM55FPpHpU

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27 May 2015
11.00am
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Georgous
Valinor
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yeah i can hear the resemblance, but its just as likely to not be influenced by the song. Off Topic, you’d listen to this song after a hard days night! 

27 May 2015
8.04pm
Wigwam
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Ahhh Girl said
Perhaps the beginning of Hi Hi Hi owes a little bit to the beginning of A Hard Day’s Night .

More than a little……. A respectful nod to his past I reckon……

Never noticed before.

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Ahhh Girl
20 January 2016
7.47pm
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Derek_Francis
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This is a great single.  One of their better earlier works for sure.  And, I can definitely relate to coming home to someone I love after a hard day of work.

23 January 2016
10.38pm
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Expert Textpert
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So, Friday I was watching a bonus feature on an Elvis DVD. The bonus feature was this Elvis documentary transferred from VHS. I think it was dated 1990. Anyway, at the inevitable point in the documentary where they talk about Elvis’s fame being usurped by The Beatles, there was a commercial for the movie, “A Hard Day’s Night .” In the commercial, along with footage from the film, was a version of the song, “A Hard Day’s Night ,” that I had never heard before. The backing music was different, but it was clearly The Beatles singing the song. I want to say the music was at a slightly slower tempo.  Does anyone know what I am talking about? Have you heard this alternate version?

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

24 January 2016
8.07am
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meanmistermustard
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Haven’t seen what you descibe @Expert Textpert? Was it the common vocals that are on the released version or were they different? Could very easily be a live performance to try and get around copyright laws.

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

24 January 2016
4.41pm
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Expert Textpert
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The sound quality was very good. It sounded like (to my knowledge) an unreleased alternate studio take. Everything was the same vocal-wise. You could hear John singing very prominently, but the backing music was different and maybe a slower tempo.

I suppose it’s possible they did a mashup to avoid copyright, but if so, they used John’s vocals. It sounded legitimate to me.

"If you're ever in the shit, grab my tit.” —Paul McCartney 

24 January 2016
5.22pm
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meanmistermustard
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All the outtakes have been booted and John sang live on each. Strange and would be interesting to hear. Maybe someone out there will know its origins.

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

16 August 2017
4.01pm
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Ahhh Girl
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A post for @Bongo!!!

10 songs that feature awesome cowbell

While Buddy Holly may have been one of the first to use the cowbell in modern pop music, it was The Beatles who made it a cool thing to incorporate. And they certainly did that with their 1964 cut “A Hard Day’s Night.” Ringo Starr smacks the idiophone object like it was going out of fashion, switching up the pattern of it for the verse and bridge sections. This inventive playing style is how you utilize the instrument to perfection.

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16 August 2017
5.41pm
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Flyingbrians
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I have to say, the cowbell in A Hard Day’s Night is pretty awesome. At the top of my head, I can’t think of any other Beatles songs with cowbell. Do correct me if I’m wrong though a-hard-days-night-paul-8

"And life flows on within you and without you" - George Harrison

16 August 2017
6.34pm
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The Hole Got Fixed
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17 August 2017
1.31am
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meanmistermustard
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I was going to say ‘Everybody’s Got A Monkey To Hide Something Except Me’ but that was a firebell apparently

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"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

17 August 2017
2.30am
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Shamrock Womlbs
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"I Need You by George Harrison"

17 August 2017
4.00am
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QuarryMan
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I’m not a huge fan of the rest of the song but the guitar solo is just ridiculously awesome. 

I've been up on the mountain, and I've seen his wondrous grace,
I've sat there on the barstool and I've looked him in the face.
He seemed a little haggard, but it did not slow him down,
he was humming to the neon of the universal sound. 

6 November 2017
5.09pm
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Ron Nasty
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An interesting look at, and history of, the opening chord based on a mathematical analysis, ghost notes and all.

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7 November 2017
1.47am
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Pineapple Records
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Ron Nasty said
An interesting look at, and history of, the opening chord based on a mathematical analysis, ghost notes and all.  

Fascinating.  There’s also this video of two guys who tried to figure it out — basing their efforts on the mathematician mentioned in Ron Nasty’s article:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?…..RtMr4zb2TI

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