FEATURE:
The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night at Sixty
PHOTO COURTESY: Bruce and Martha Karsh/The New York Times
A Turning Point and Explosion for the Band
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EVEN though the anniversary…
is a while ago, I am writing a few more features about The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night. The Beatles’ third studio album was released on 10th July, 1964 (in the U.K.). I am looking ahead to its sixtieth. I have published another features though, for this one, I wanted to talk about the album and accompanying film – released on 7th July, 1964 – and how it was this explosion and real turning point for the band. Even though the album was released earlier in the U.S., I wanted to focus on the U.K. release date. There will be celebration and developments as we head towards the anniversary. I know there are going to be special events and podcasts put out marking sixty years of one of The Beatles’ most important moments. One reason why A Hard Day’s Night is so important is because the album marked the first time Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote all the tracks. It was a real development of their songwriting partnership. I am going to come to some information and reviews for the album and film. 1964 was a year when The Beatles conquered America. The reaction and hysteria that greeted them when they visited the U.S. earlier in 1964. After that, their lives would never be the same again. It is amazing how fast everything came together. The album was recorded between 29th January and 2nd June, 1964. The band were set to film their first major feature film on 2nd March 1964. Wikipedia take up the story:
“According to historian Mark Lewisohn, the band were set to record songs for both the film and a tie-in LP, of which the songs from the film were completed first. On 25 February—lead guitarist George Harrison's 21st birthday—the band were back at London's EMI Studios, recording John Lennon's "You Can't Do That" for release as the B-side of "Can't Buy Me Love". The band also attempted "And I Love Her" and "I Should Have Known Better" on this day and again the following day, with the former finalised on 27 February. Two more songs from the film, "Tell Me Why" and "If I Fell", were recorded on this day”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Ringo Starr
I want to lead on to some quotes and reviews of the A Hard Day’s Night album. If the band were popular and had a loving fanbase before then, when their third studio album came out, there were known and loved around the world. The band had no idea how their lives would take off:
"EVEN THOUGH WE FELT, 'YES, WE'RE ESTABLISHED AND WE'VE CONQUERED ALL THESE COUNTRIES AND WE'VE SOLD A LOT OF RECORDS AND THEY ALL LOVE US', IT WAS NOT A THOUGHT, 'IT'S GOING TO END TOMORROW', OR, 'IT'S GOING TO GO ON FOR EVER'. I NEVER SORT OF HAD THAT THOUGHT. IT WAS JUST HAPPENING NOW, YOU KNOW. IT WASN'T LIKE MAKING PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. IT WAS JUST ON THIS ROLL AND WE WERE ALL IN OUR EARLY TWENTIES AND WE WERE JUST GOING WITH IT."
RINGO
"IF YOU LOOK AT OUR ITINERARY SOME OF THOSE YEARS WHERE WE DID MAYBE A TOUR OF ENGLAND, A TOUR OF EUROPE, A TOUR OF AMERICA, TWO ALBUMS AND ABOUT FOUR EPS, AND THREE SINGLES, AND MADE A MOVIE ALL IN THE SAME YEAR - YOU THINK, 'OH JESUS, HOW DID WE DO THAT?'"
GEORGE
"WE OFTEN COULD RELY ON RINGO FOR TITLES COS RINGO HAD THIS HAPPY KNACK OF GETTING THINGS WRONG - LITTLE MALAPROPISMS - AND IT WAS ALWAYS BETTER THAN THE REAL ONE. SOMEONE SAID TO HIM, YOU KNOW, YOU LOOK A BIT TIRED TODAY. HE SAID, 'YEAH, I'VE HAD A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, YOU KNOW'. HE MEANT IT, AND WE ALL WENT, 'HARD DAY'S NIGHT, THAT'S GREAT!'"
PAUL
"I HAD ONE MIND THAT WROTE BOOKS OR FUNNY STORIES AND ANOTHER MIND THAT CHURNED OUT THINGS ABOUT I LOVE YOU AND YOU LOVE ME, COS THAT'S HOW PAUL AND I DID IT, YOU KNOW. LIKE, 'OH, YOU KNOW, LET'S WRITE ANOTHER OF THEM'."
JOHN
"HARD DAY'S NIGHT WAS THE FIRST BIG ONE THAT I DID. I HAD THE BENEFIT OF HAVING A DIRECTOR WHO WAS A MUSICIAN - DICK LESTER - WHO WAS QUITE A GOOD PIANIST. AND OF COURSE WE RECORDED THE SPECIAL SONGS FOR THE FILM AS, AS WE JUST DO ORDINARY RECORDINGS, AND DICK USED A LOT OF THE SONGS I'D ALREADY RECORDED, YOU KNOW, THE PAST ALBUMS. CAN'T BUY ME LOVE HAD ALREADY BEEN RECORDED, FOR EXAMPLE."
GEORGE MARTIN
IN THIS PHOTO: George Harrison
Released on 10th July, 1964, the Beatles third album in less than eighteen months was timed to coincide with the cinema opening of their first movie.
Of the album's 13 tracks seven were featured in the soundtrack of the film. One single had been released ahead of the album that being "Can't Buy Me Love"/"You Can't Do That" which had been issued on 20thMarch. It was also quite remarkable that for the first time on a Beatles album that all of the titles had been composed by John and Paul.
Since the release of With The Beatles, the previous November, their UK success had started to spread around the world. Their first US single via Capitol Records - "I Want To Hold Your Hand"/"I Saw Her Standing There" had topped the US charts for seven weeks, leading to their former US distributor reissuing 'She Loves You' and 'Love Me Do' both of which also reached the # 1 spot. In fact such was the group's popularity that in the first week of April, 1964 they held all top five positions in the Billboard chart with a further seven titles it's Hot Hundred.
Despite their success, their workload did not ease up, in fact within hours of returning from a triumphant visit to the US, which had included concert performances and three appearances on the Ed Sullivan TV show, the guys were in a TV studio in London rehearsing and recording another guest appearance.
The Spring and early Summer of 1964 saw The Beatles filming and recording new material both for the movie and their next album. They also filmed a TV special, and played a few UK dates prior to jetting off on a 27 day tour that visited Denmark, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. They eventually returned to Britain on 2nd July and four days later attended the world premiere of "A Hard Day's Night" at the London Pavilion.
The album reached no.1 in the UK charts towards the end of July and occupied the top spot for 21 of the 38 weeks that it spent in the Top Twenty.
In the USA, A different album was issued to that at home. The US version (issued in late June) was a soundtrack which as well as featuring a number of the songs from the UK album also included four instrumental pieces from the film's soundtrack performed by George Martin's Orchestra. A month later Capitol Records released "Something New" an all-Beatles album that included eight songs from the UK release along with a further three tracks not previously released in the US. Both albums achieved enormous success. The soundtrack album enjoyed a 14-week stay at #1 and despite the crossover of titles, "Something New" spent nine of those same weeks at #2”.
I will move on to the film soon. Before that, a couple of reviews that show why A Hard Day’s Night is such a celebrated and genius album. Pitchfork explain and explore why A Hard Day’s Night was such an impactful and important album. I don’t think the world had seen anything like it. A globe-conquering moment for The Beatles. The songs on the album seem so fresh sixty years later:
“Pop in 1964 was part of showbiz: Once the Beatles hit a certain level of box office, there would never have been any question over making a film. Pop music meant teenagers, which meant fads, which meant the clock was running on the band's fame. The jazzman George Melly, who was writing about pop in the UK press at this time, remembered being convinced several times that the Beatles had hit a peak and their fans would soon desert them. I doubt this was an unorthodox opinion.
A film career might extend the fame a little, and smooth the band's inevitable transition to light entertainment. If the film was an enjoyable romp, so much the better-- John Lennon asked for A Hard Day's Night director Richard Lester on the basis of a comedy short he'd made (later referenced in the film's famous "Can't Buy Me Love" sequence), but Lester had also helmed 1962's It's Trad, Dad!, a snapshot of the British pop world just pre-Beatles (Tagline: "The newest, most frantic fad!"). He knew how to mix music and feelgood filmmaking to commercial effect.
A Hard Day's Night, in other words, is a crucial inflection point in the Beatles' career. Coinciding with their leaving Liverpool and moving to London, this could easily have been their first step on a road of crowd-pleasing predictability: Instead, both film and this soundtrack album are a testament to how fabulous pop can be when you take care over doing it.
The album is most famous now for being the first all-original record the band put out-- and their only all Lennon-McCartney LP. Formidably prolific at this point, the pair had been creating songs-- and hits-- for other performers which must have given them useful insight into how to make different styles work. There's been a particular jump forward in ballad writing-- on "And I Love Her" in particular, Paul McCartney hits a note of humble, open-hearted sincerity he'd return to again and again. His "Things We Said Today" is even better, wintry and philosophical before the surprising, stirring middle eight.
But the dominant sound of the album is the Beatles in full cry as a pop band-- with no rock'n'roll covers to remind you of their roots you're free to take the group's new sound purely on its own modernist terms: The chord choices whose audacity surprised a listening Bob Dylan, the steamroller power of the harmonies, the gleaming sound of George Harrison's new Rickenbacker alongside the confident Northern blasts of harmonica, and a band and producer grown more than comfortable with each other. There's detail aplenty here-- and the remasters make it easy to hunt for-- but A Hard Day's Night is perhaps the band's most straightforward album: You notice the catchiness first, and you can wonder how they got it later.
The best example of this is the title track-- the clang of that opening chord to put everyone on notice, two burning minutes thick with percussion (including a hammering cowbell!) thanks to the new four-track machines George Martin was using, and then the song spiraling out with a guitar figure as abstractedly lovely as anything the group had recorded. John Lennon's best songs on the record-- "A Hard Day's Night", "Tell Me Why", "When I Get Home", "You Can't Do That"-- are fast, aggressive, frustrated and spiked with these moments of breathtaking prettiness.
The Hard Day's Night film itself was also a triumph in its way-- Lester's camerawork capturing the frenzy of Beatlemania and the way the group's music was feeding off it. It had the happy effect of introducing the group's millions of new global fans to their world-- the fire escapes, boutiques, bombed-out spaces, and well-preserved salons of 60s London. In fact the film's knowing dialogue and pop-art cinematography has a level of surface sophistication that the Beatles' records don't approach for another year or two (though they were already far more emotionally nourishing).
Watching the film you're reminded that what the Beatles had set in motion was pop music's catching up with the rest of British popular culture: In art, in TV satire, in film and fashion and literature, the 60s were already a boom time. Pop had been left behind-- tastemakers looked instead to jazz and folk to soundtrack this creativity. What the Beatles had-- accidentally-- unlocked was pop music's potential to join, then lead, the party-- though it wasn't yet a given that they'd be the band to realize said potential. A Hard Day's Night is an album of an era when pop and showbiz were inseparable-- and if it doesn't transcend that time, it does represent its definitive peak”.
I will come back to the album soon. Before getting to the film, this is what AllMusic had to say about A Hard Day’s Night. A number one smash in the U.S. and U.K., it was an instant and astonishing success. With singles such as A Hard Day’s Night and Can’t Buy Me Love ensuring its immortality, this album will be celebrated and heard for decades more. I do wonder exactly what is going to come about on the sixtieth anniversary. Whether there will be a reissue or special edition from producer Giles Martin:
“Considering the quality of the original material on With the Beatles, it shouldn't have been a surprise that Lennon & McCartney decided to devote their third album to all-original material. Nevertheless, that decision still impresses, not only because the album is so strong, but because it was written and recorded at a time when the Beatles were constantly touring, giving regular BBC concerts, appearing on television and releasing non-LP singles and EPs, as well as filming their first motion picture. In that context, the achievement of A Hard Day's Night is all the more astounding. Not only was the record the de facto soundtrack for their movie, not only was it filled with nothing but Lennon-McCartney originals, but it found the Beatles truly coming into their own as a band by performing a uniformly excellent set of songs. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums had coalesced into a bright, joyous, original sound filled with ringing guitars and irresistible melodies. They had certainly found their musical voice before, but A Hard Day's Night is where it became mythical. In just a few years, they made more adventurous and accomplished albums, but this is the sound of Beatlemania in all of its giddy glory -- for better and for worse, this is the definitive Beatles album, the one every group throughout the ages has used as a blueprint.
Listening to the album, it's easy to see why. Decades after its original release, A Hard Day's Night's punchy blend of propulsive rhythms, jangly guitars, and infectious, singalong melodies is remarkably fresh. There's something intrinsically exciting in the sound of the album itself, something to keep the record vital years after it was recorded. Even more impressive are the songs themselves. Not only are the melodies forceful and memorable, but Lennon and McCartney have found a number of variations to their basic Merseybeat style, from the brash "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Any Time at All," through the gentle "If I Fell," to the tough folk-rock of "I'll Cry Instead." It's possible to hear both songwriters develop their own distinctive voices on the album, but overall, A Hard Day's Night stands as a testament to their collaborative powers -- never again did they write together so well or so easily, choosing to pursue their own routes. John and Paul must have known how strong the material is -- they threw the pleasant trifle "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" to George and didn't give anything to Ringo to sing. That may have been a little selfish, but it hardly hurts the album, since everything on the record is performed with genuine glee and excitement. It's the pinnacle of their early years”.
Alongside the album came the classic A Hard Day’s Night film. I still think it is the band’s best film. Even though Help! (1965) is seen as one of their best film outings, few can argue against A Hard Day’s Night being their finest outing. Their first feature film, it captured life during Beatlemania. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison playing fictionalised versions of themselves. You can see and feel the natural charisma and screen gravitas of the band. They look so natural through the film. Here are some quotes from the band about the film:
"WE WERE THE SONS OF THE GOON SHOW. WE WERE OF AN AGE. WE WERE THE EXTENSION OF THAT REBELLION, IN A WAY."
John
"EVERYONE IN LIVERPOOL THINKS THEY'RE A COMEDIAN. JUST DRIVE THROUGH THE MERSEY TUNNEL AND THE GUY ON THE TOLL BOOTH WILL BE A COMEDIAN. WE'VE HAD THAT BORN AND BRED INTO US."
George
"I THINK BECAUSE I LOVED FILMS I WAS LESS EMBARRASSED THAN THE OTHERS TO BE IN ONE; JOHN REALLY GOT INTO THE MOVIE, TOO. I FELT A LOT OF THE TIME THAT GEORGE DIDN'T WANT TO BE THERE. IT WAS SOMETHING HE WAS DOING BECAUSE WE WERE DOING IT."
Ringo
"ALUN (SCREENWRITER) PICKED UP A LOT OF LITTLE THINGS ABOUT US. THINGS LIKE: 'HE IS LATE BUT HE IS VERY CLEAN, ISN'T HE?' LITTLE JOKES, THE SARCASM, THE HUMOUR, JOHN'S WIT, RINGO'S LACONIC MANNER; EACH OF OUR DIFFERENT WAYS. THE FILM MANAGES TO CAPTURE OUR CHARACTERS QUITE WELL."
Paul”
I am going to wrap up soon. I want to bring in a review from Movieweb. They write how the film revolutionised pop culture and the Rock musical film genre. A Hard Day’s Night is one of my favourite films of all time. It is so charming! You cannot help but love the band. I also feel sympathy that, in 1964, their lives were radically changed. They were unable to get any privacy or space. That opening scene of them being chased by girls down the street seems to be a slightly heightened version of their reality. How they could not walk down the street without being mobbed:
“While the popularity of the Beatles had steadily grown within the United Kingdom throughout 1963, in October 1963, the British press attached the term “Beatlemania” to band members George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr. By early 1964, the Beatle's concerts were accompanied by mass hysteria.
International superstardom for the Beatles came in February 1964, when the band made its North American television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, which resulted in immediate domination for the band on the American music sales charts. In March 1964, the Beatles began filming the groundbreaking musical comedy film A Hard Day’s Night, which was primarily intended to be a promotional tool for the upcoming album of the same name.
However, the film, which was released virtually in tandem with the album in July 1964, eventually transcended the cynical commercial motivation that inspired it. A Hard Day’s Night redefined the rock musical genre, which had previously been most clearly identified with Elvis Presley, whose insipid stream of comedy musical film vehicles in the late 1950s and 1960s were primarily interesting for how increasingly unhappy Elvis seemed to be to have to star in these films.
With A Hard Day’s Night, director Richard Lester merged the continually evolving Beatles phenomenon with various stylistic and technical innovations to create a joyous, original rock musical film that forever altered how musical performances were filmed.
Of course, A Hard Day’s Night also represents a poignant document of the unbridled exuberance of four indescribably talented musicians who were then simply enjoying being at the height of their creative and physical powers, oblivious to the dark times ahead.
A New Cinematic Language
Nearly sixty years after its initial release, A Hard Day’s Night seems ageless. It has transcended both the rock musical film genre that it galvanized and the music video format that it essentially invented.
From an opening electric guitar riff from the film’s titular song, A Hard Day’s Night begins to stand apart from all previous rock musical films. As “A Hard Day’s Night” plays, the film opens with the Beatles' quartet being chased by a horde of screaming fans, mostly girls, while trying to board a train for London, where they are scheduled to make a televised concert appearance.
While the blending of action and music in A Hard Day’s Night wasn’t unique to the film, the frenzied energy generated in this opening scene establishes a tone of creative freedom and inventiveness that extends throughout the rest of the film. Through the blending of action and music, this scene, like others in the film, takes the form of a short film.
Moreover, through black-and-white photography, close-up shots of the musical performances and cutaway shots of the audience, handheld and multi-camera filming techniques, jump cuts, and seemingly random bursts of absurdist humor, A Hard Day’s Night captures the Beatles with a level of intimacy and spontaneity that’s typically reserved for documentary films.
Indeed, the documentary approach in A Hard Day’s Night makes it seem like the film is an omniscient observer of the band’s gag-filled, rapid-fire interactions, which have the feel and tone of improvisation.
Springtime for the Beatles
The period of relative peace and innocence celebrated in A Hard Day’s Night is especially poignant when considering how the inexorable pressures of fame and life conspired to splinter the Beatles over the ensuing decade.
After manager Brian Epstein’s untimely death in 1967, the band formally dissolved in 1970. Later, of course, the cruel forces of circumstance and fate intervened with the 1980 murder of John Lennon and the 2001 death of George Harrison.
However, despite these events, and maybe because of them, A Hard Day’s Night remains an infectiously enjoyable and undeniably influential cinematic and pop culture landmark, which is rightfully regarded as being one of the greatest films ever made.
A Hard Day's Night Changed the World
While A Hard Day’s Night is deservedly praised for the film’s rampant creativity and technical excellence, perhaps the most consequential aspect of A Hard Day’s Night, specifically in terms of the legacy of the Beatles, is how the film defined the essential persona of the Beatles and established the band members as four distinctive individuals.
Indeed, as the Beatles were essentially introduced, both in the film and within their musical careers, as virtual clones with matching clothes and hairstyles, this is an impressive achievement. The band members were purposefully given small amounts of dialogue in the film in case their lack of acting experience endangered the film. Regardless, the band members are clearly distinguishable in the film as George, John, Paul, and Ringo, the band’s unofficial practical joker.
Moreover, A Hard Day’s Night captures the Beatles at a fateful moment in time in which the band members were coming to terms with the fact that they were poised to become the best band in the world, if not the greatest band in history, assuming that the Beatles hadn’t already reached this pinnacle during the filming of A Hard Day’s Night.
A Hard Day’s Night shows the Beatles dealing with this astonishing realization as well as can be expected. Fame hasn’t yet spoiled them. They haven’t become too cynical. They don’t seem to be under the influence of alcohol and drugs. They’re simply having fun. They were the real deal”.
In July, we mark sixty years of The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night. The album and film will go down in history. It was the moment when The Beatles became the biggest band in the world. The album is among their very best. Incredible songwriting from John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I am excited to see how the sixtieth anniversary is marked. Whether the film is shown again at cinemas. If there is an album coming out. Giles Martin looking through the archives for demos and alternate takes. It would delight fans and give us insight into this classic album came together. The film is a masterpiece and pivotal moment in pop culture. Sixty years later, we can see how they both changed the world. Back in July 1964, A Hard Day’s Night was…
A true explosion.