A Review of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night CD
The soundtrack to the Fab Four's first film.
Aug 17, 2009
Following the release of Please Please Me and With the Beatles, the Beatles had established themselves as the number one musical force on the planet, surpassing everyone from Crosby and Sinatra to Elvis and Cliff Richard to dominate popular music. At one point, the band had the top five singles in the US Top 100. It was therefore inevitable that a movie would not be long in coming.
What was surprising (at the time) was the quality of the songs that accompanied the film. The soundtrack LP was split in two: side one featuring songs from the film and side two additional material the band had recently written.
A Hard Day's Night Film Songs
The LP starts with one of the most recognisable chords in pop music history. George Harrison’s chiming twelve string guitar sings out in a mixture of joyous celebration and startling defiance. No one else started records like that and that was, of course, the point. The song A Hard Day’s Night was a stunning confirmation of what everyone was coming to realise; there was no one to touch them.
The twin vocals of John and Paul tear into the song with a level of abandon that was both thrilling and joyous. Issued as a single, it was a million-selling number one, but perhaps more importantly it was another leap forward in song writing. The middle-eight exhibited a further increase in Lennon/McCartney’s self-confidence as composers which was mirrored in the playing, especially in Harrison’s guitar sound that would soon influence many new bands, notably the Byrds.
The level of energy is maintained through the second number, I Should Have Known Better with its fast becoming trade mark swelling harmonies.
It was the next song that was the first side’s real revelation. If I Fell was a ballad of such maturity that it takes a few plays to realise just how powerful the song is. Building on the harmony singing of the earlier This Boy (a B-Side), If I Fell begins with John singing solo then Paul and George come in and their three voices form a vocal tapestry that is breathtaking. It manages to both set the band apart from all their competitors while simultaneously establishing them as leaders of a new movement.
Then there’s And I Love Her. It was almost too much. A ballad of such simple beauty as If I Fell would have been a career highlight for most bands, but to follow it just two tracks later with And I Love Her banished any lingering doubt as to the talent of the band. An instant standard, the use of twelve string acoustic guitar brings a level of sophistication that seems incredible for a band who had been playing the Cavern Club just 18 months earlier.
The first side concludes with the lesser-known Tell Me Why featuring some thrilling falsetto harmonies and the earlier single Can’t Buy Me Love.
A Hard Day's Night - Songs Not Included in the Film
Such was the Beatles’ level of productivity at the time that they had an entire side of songs that did not make it into the film. The first thing that strikes the listener today is the sheer quality of the tracks. The opener, Any Time at All gets proceedings off to a strong start. Invigorating harmonies, a driving beat and great playing make the track as enjoyable as many other band’s best singles.
Things We Said Today is another example of mature song writing hiding behind the mop top image. The strumming guitar pattern that falls in and out of minor keys gives the track a sense of brooding that is exploited by the major key chorus to great effect. It’s a song McCartney continues to return to in his live act.
I’ll Cry Instead and When I Get Home can now feel a little formulaic - especially when we know the heights the band would soon climb - but even these tracks have many rewards. The simple truth was that at the time, the Beatles were so far ahead of everyone that even these lesser items are simply great joyous music.
The album’s closer, I’ll Be Back was a lovely Lennon ballad, symbiotically linked to McCartney’s Things We Said Today and a thrilling sign of what lay ahead.
A Hard Day's Night - The American Version
Capitol Records clearly were not going to have problem issuing the album in American, but what had now happened was a complete turning of the tables. Realising what a huge cash cow they had on their hands, the label released the album without any of the non-film tracks, instead filling the space with George Martin Orchestra instrumentals. The other tracks were spread out to make more albums, forcing fans to pay twice as much for the same songs UK buyers were getting on one album.
It was a situation not rectified until the CD release of 1987. On 09/09/09 the CD will be issued in a new re-mastered version and will include the first ever Stereo CD version.
Summary
A Hard Day’s Night was the first album to be made up solely of Lennon/McCartney songs (due to the emergence of Harrison’s song writing it would be the only one). At the time, this was unheard of and the album singled the moment when the Beatles passed a point where popularity and ability met that would never be equalled.
As with all the band’s first six albums (up to and including Help!), A Hard Day’s Night has been overshadowed by the group’s latter work. But this should not deter anyone from aquatinting themselves with its content. It is an album that brims with self-confidence, passion, fun and most of all great tunes.
A Hard Day’s Night is a joyous, exciting window into a time when pop music was beginning to assert itself as a culture-defining popular movement. It was also the album that confirmed the Beatles as that movement’s leaders.
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