A Hard Day's Night (album)

A Hard Day's Night
Studio album by The Beatles
Released	10 July 1964
Recorded	29 January, 25–27 February, 1 March & 1–4 June 1964, EMI Studios, London, and Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris
Genre	Pop rock,pop
Length	30:45
Label	Parlophone
Producer	George Martin
The Beatles chronology
With The Beatles (1963) A Hard Day's Night (1964) Beatles for Sale (1964)
Singles from A Hard Day's Night
"Can't Buy Me Love"/"You Can't Do That" Released: 19 March 1964 "A Hard Day's Night"/"Things We Said Today" Released: 10 July 1964

A Hard Day's Night is the third studio album by the Beatles, released on 10 July 1964, with side one containing songs from the soundtrack to their film A Hard Day's Night. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. This is the first Beatles album to be recorded entirely on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

While showcasing the development of the band's songwriting talents, the album sticks to the basic rock and roll instrumentation and song format.^{[citation needed]} The album contains some of their most famous songs, including the title track, with its distinct, instantly recognisable opening chord, and the previously released "Can't Buy Me Love"; both were transatlantic number-one singles for the band.

The title of the album was the accidental creation of drummer Ringo Starr. According to Lennon in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine: "I was going home in the car and Dick Lester [director of the movie] suggested the title, 'Hard Day's Night' from something Ringo had 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 Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny ... just said it. So Dick Lester said, 'We are going to use that title.'"

In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day's Night at number five in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2012, A Hard Day's Night was voted 307th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Contents

A Hard Day's Night by The Beatles (side one) - Parlophone yellow and black label

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Blender
Consequence of Sound
The Daily Telegraph
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Paste	100/100
Pitchfork Media	9.7/10
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Rolling Stone Record Guide
Sputnikmusic	4.5/5

Musically, A Hard Day's Night eschews the rock and roll cover songs of the band's previous albums for a predominantly pop sound.Sputnikmusic's Dave Donnelly observes "short, peppy" pop songs characterized by layered vocals, immediate choruses, and understated instrumentation. According to Pitchfork Media's Tom Ewing, the lack of rock and roll covers allows listeners to "take the group's new sound purely on its own modernist terms", with audacious "chord choices", powerful harmonies, "gleaming" guitar, and "Northern" harmonica. Music journalist Robert Christgau writes that Lennon–McCartney's songs were "more sophisticated musically" than before.

Side one of the LP contains the songs from the movie soundtrack. Side two contains songs written for, but not included in, the film, although a 1980s re-release of the movie includes a prologue before the opening credits with "I'll Cry Instead" on the soundtrack.^{[citation needed]}

A Hard Day's Night is the first Beatles album to feature entirely original compositions, and the only one where all the songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon dominates the song writing being the primary author of ten out of the thirteen tracks on the album, all except "And I Love Her," "Can't Buy Me Love," and "Things We Said Today." This is also one of three Beatles albums, along with Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, in which Starr does not sing lead vocal on any songs. Starr sang the lead vocal on "Matchbox" during the sessions; it appeared instead on the Long Tall Sally EP single.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural influence

According to music critic Richie Unterberger, "George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade The Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the US market for fellow Brits like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney."

Reissues

On 26 February 1987, A Hard Day's Night was officially released on compact disc in mono, along with Please Please Me, With the Beatles, and Beatles for Sale. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the 13 track UK version of the album was also issued in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. Stereo mixes of "A Hard Day's Night", "Can't Buy Me Love" and "And I Love Her" had been made available on the first compact disc issue of 1962–1966 in 1993. The rest of the tracks appeared in stereo on compact disc for the first time with the release of the box set The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 in 2004.

On 9 September 2009, a remastered version of this album was released and was the first time the album appeared in stereo on compact disc in its entirety. This album is also included in The Beatles Stereo Box Set. A remastered mono version of the original UK album was part of The Beatles in Mono box set.

Track listing

All tracks credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Side one
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"A Hard Day's Night"	Lennon and McCartney	2:34
2.	"I Should Have Known Better"	Lennon	2:43
3.	"If I Fell"	Lennon and McCartney	2:19
4.	"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"	Harrison	1:56
5.	"And I Love Her"	McCartney	2:30
6.	"Tell Me Why"	Lennon	2:09
7.	"Can't Buy Me Love"	McCartney	2:12

Side two
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"Any Time at All"	Lennon	2:11
2.	"I'll Cry Instead"	Lennon	1:46
3.	"Things We Said Today"	McCartney	2:35
4.	"When I Get Home"	Lennon	2:17
5.	"You Can't Do That"	Lennon	2:35
6.	"I'll Be Back"	Lennon	2:24

Sales

Year	Chart	Position
1964	UK Albums Chart	1
1965	Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart	1
2009	Finnish Albums Chart	27

North American release

A Hard Day's Night
Soundtrack album by The Beatles and George Martin
Released	26 June 1964
Recorded	29 January, 25–27 February, 1 March & 1–4 June 1964, EMI Studios, London and Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris
Genre	Rock, pop
Length	29:29
Label	United Artists UAL-3366 (mono) UAS-6366 (stereo)
Producer	George Martin
The Beatles North American chronology
The Beatles' Second Album (1964) A Hard Day's Night (1964) Something New (1964)
Singles from A Hard Day's Night
"A Hard Day's Night"/"I Should Have Known Better" Released: 13 July 1964 "And I Love Her"/"If I Fell" Released: 20 July 1964 "I'll Cry Instead"/"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" Released: 20 August 1964

The American version of the album was released on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records in both mono and stereo, the fourth Beatles album in the United States. The album went to number one on the Billboard album chart, spending 14 weeks there, the longest run of any album that year.

All seven songs from the film, the first side of the UK album, were featured along with "I'll Cry Instead", which, although written for the film, was cut at the last minute. The American version also included four easy listening-styled instrumental versions of Lennon and McCartney songs arranged by George Martin conducting an orchestra of studio musicians: "I Should Have Known Better," "And I Love Her," "Ringo's Theme," and "A Hard Day's Night." As with the Vee-Jay and Capitol albums issued during 1964, there are different label variations of the United Artists album, as well. Some of the labels misspell the titles of two of the songs: "Tell Me Why" appears as "Tell Me Who", and "I'll Cry Instead" as "I Cry Instead". After EMI acquired United Artists Records, this album was reissued on 17 August 1980 on the Capitol label, catalogue SW-11921.

While the stereo version of the album included the instrumental tracks in true stereo, the Beatles' own recordings appeared as electronically rechannelled stereo recordings made from the mono releases. The 1980 Capitol Records release used the same master tape as the original United Artists stereo release, despite the availability of several tracks with official stereo remixes by that time. True stereo versions of most of the songs appeared on the Capitol Records album Something New, released in July 1964. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better" finally appeared in stereo versions on the Apple Records compilation Hey Jude in 1970. The song "A Hard Day's Night" did not appear in a stereo version in the US until the LP Reel Music in March 1982. In 2004, unauthorized copies of the United Artists album began appearing in foreign countries in a 40th anniversary edition on compact disc. This version features the same twelve songs in the same running order but with all of the tracks appearing in true stereo together for the very first time, including the eight Beatles songs. This marks the first time that the full-length, true stereo version of "I'll Cry Instead" was released since its original issue on the 1980 "Casualties" LP. The American version of "A Hard Day's Night" has yet to be released officially on compact disc in the United States.

Track listing

Side one
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"A Hard Day's Night"	John and Paul	2:33
2.	"Tell Me Why"	John	2:10
3.	"I'll Cry Instead"	John	2:06
4.	"I Should Have Known Better"	instrumental	2:10
5.	"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"	George	1:59
6.	"And I Love Her"	instrumental	3:46

Side two
No.	Title	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"I Should Have Known Better"	John	2:44
2.	"If I Fell"	John and Paul	2:22
3.	"And I Love Her"	Paul	2:29
4.	"Ringo's Theme (This Boy)"	instrumental	3:10
5.	"Can't Buy Me Love"	Paul	2:12
6.	"A Hard Day's Night"	instrumental	2:06

Personnel

• John Lennon – vocals; acoustic and electric (six and twelve-string) guitars; piano; harmonica; tambourine
• Paul McCartney – vocals; acoustic and bass guitars; piano; cowbell
• George Harrison – vocals; acoustic and electric (six and twelve-string) guitars; claves
• Ringo Starr – drums and percussions
• George Martin – piano on "A Hard Day's Night"

Preceded by Hello, Dolly! by Louis Armstrong	Billboard Top LPs number-one album 25 July – 30 October 1964	Succeeded by People by Barbra Streisand
Preceded by The Rolling Stones by The Rolling Stones	UK Albums Chart number-one album 25 July 1964 – 19 December 1964	Succeeded by Beatles for Sale by The Beatles

References

• Badman, Keith. The Beatles Off the Record. 
• Hook, Chris (2 May 2005). "The "A Hard Day's Night" Chord - Rock's Holy Grail". 
• Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1. 
• Spignesi, Stephen J.; Lewis, Michael (2004). Here, There, and Everywhere: The 100 Best Beatles Songs. New York: Black Dog. ISBN 978-1-57912-369-7. 
• "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever". Q. June 2000. Retrieved 20 November 2007. 
• Collett-White, Mike (7 April 2009). "Original Beatles digitally remastered". Reuters. 
• "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 1 November 2003. Archived from the original on 24 October 2010. Retrieved 22 November 2010. 
• Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4. 
• Unterberger, Richie (2009). "The Beatles Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 25 September 2009. 
• Whitburn, Joel (2001). Top Pop Albums 1955–2001. Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research. 
• "Suomen virallinen lista". 

External links

• Beatles comments on each song
• Recording data and notes on mono/stereo mixes and remixes