Click here to play the podcast60 years ago—July 1964 in the UK, August 1964 in the US—The Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night was unleashed, driving Beatlemania to even greater heights. Accompanying the film was the album of the same name, and its classic title cut. One of The Beatles’ finest singles, “A Hard Day’s Night” features all the elements that made The Beatles so special. On this episode, we break down this legendary track to see what makes it such a great song.
“A Hard Day’s Night” (Lennon/McCartney) Copyright 1964 Sony/ATV Music Publishing
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TRANSCRIPT:
Whether you’ve been working like a dog, or sleeping like a log. It’s time for another edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page, and twice a month here on the Pantheon podcast network, I pick one of my favorite songs, and we explore it together to discover what makes it a great song. You don’t have to be a musician, or know anything about music theory; we don’t get too technical here. All that’s needed are your ears and a little curiosity.
Back on August 11, 1964– 60 years ago this month– The Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night” debuted in America; it came out a month earlier in the UK. It’s a watershed moment in rock history, and the film is still as alive and fun today as it was 60 years ago. So we’re going to celebrate the anniversary of this classic with an exploration of the title song. A high point in the Beatles career all on its own. “A Hard Day’s Night”.
There was a tradition of pop stars performing in movies; Elvis made a whole career out of it, so it was natural for The Beatles to have their own film. Of course, being the Beatles, they weren’t going to settle for just any knockoff, formulaic film.
Their manager, Brian Epstein, signed a deal with United Artists in October 1963 for three films. For the first movie, Alan Owen was hired as the scriptwriter and Richard Lester as the director.
They started filming on March 6, 1964, and wrapped by April 24. Now, I’m not going to give you a breakdown of the script or the film, because I expect you’ve already seen it, probably multiple times. And if you haven’t seen it, please stop this podcast right now and go watch the movie. Seriously, it’s a classic!
So, the Beatles needed a bunch of new songs to perform in the film. Between the constant touring, performing, TV appearances, and acting in the film itself, there was limited time and a lot of pressure to write the new material. By mid-April, they were getting close to the end of filming, but they still didn’t have a title or a theme song for the movie.
Now, the familiar story is that one day, Ringo blurted out, “it’s been a hard day’s night”. And that’s where the title came from. However, in John Lennon’s book, “In His Own Write”, a book of short stories and poems, there’s one story called “Sad Michael”, which includes the phrase “a hard day’s night”. That book was published in March 1964, during the time that they were filming the movie, so it had to have been written sometime before that. So, who really came up with “A Hard Day’s Night” first, we don’t really know.
On April 13, director Richard Lester announces that the title of the film will be “A Hard Day’s Night”, but they still need the song. So, John Lennon goes home, and the next day– apparently he didn’t have any scrap paper available, so he grabs a leftover birthday card from his son Julian’s birthday, and on the back of that card, he scribbles down the first draft of the lyrics to “A Hard Day’s Night”.
They begin recording the song on April 16, only three days after the title was even decided. They start recording at EMI Studios, otherwise known as Abbey Road, in studio number two. They start recording, working on the basic tracks, with John playing his acoustic guitar, the Gibson J 160 E; George is on twelve-string, playing his Rickenbacker 360-12; Paul is on bass with his classic Hofner 501; and Ringo is playing his Ludwig Super Classic kit, the one with the Oyster Black Pearl finish, to be exact. John takes the lead vocals on the verses, while Paul takes lead on the bridge or middle eight. They were recording on a four-track tape machine, so the basic tracks were laid down with the twelve-string bass and drums on track one and the lead vocals and acoustic guitar together on track two. They record about nine takes this way. Let’s have a quick listen to take #1.
You can hear they’re still working out the details on the parts and the vocals there. They eventually decide that take number nine is the keeper. But let’s go back and listen to a little bit of take #6 & 7.
Now, before we go any further, we have got to talk about that opening chord– maybe the most famous opening chord in history. Now, that was part of the song from the very start. If you go back and listen to take #1 from the beginning, that chord is there; it’s not something that was an afterthought or that they came up with later. It was part of the song from the very beginning. Whether that was something that John brought in, or maybe Paul or George or even George Martin contributed, it was always a key element from the song right from the start.
But that chord has always been a bit of a mystery, a source of great debate as to what exactly they’re playing here. Well, I’m not the one to definitively answer this question, but based on quite a bit of research, this is what I think is happening here. Let’s start with George Harrison’s part. There’s always been a question on exactly what chord he’s playing, but, well, let’s ask the man himself:
GEORGE HARRISON: “To answer your question, it’s F with a G on the first string, your little finger. Sounds better on a twelve string.”
So, there you go. That’s what’s called an Fadd9 chord. I’m going to plug in my twelve-string and play that for you.
Next would be, “what is John playing?” And if anything, this would be an even more hotly debated chord. But when you listen to the isolated tracks, it sounds pretty clear to me that he’s playing pretty much the same chord as George, an Fadd9, except that John is playing it on his acoustic guitar. So here, I’ll play that on my acoustic.
And then there’s Paul McCartney’s bass. He is playing a D, probably on the fifth fret of his A string. So I’ll play that for you.
And finally, there is a piano, I assume played by George Martin. Now, I’m no piano player, but after doing some poking around online, the best explanation I can find is that the piano is playing a chord made up of these notes, D, G, E, G and C. So let’s hear what that sounds like.
So let’s mix all of those together and play it back. Now, keep in mind that I’m not trying to recreate the sounds exactly. I’m using different guitars, different amplifiers, different mics; I’m recording digitally, not onto tape. So it’s not going to sound exactly the same as the Beatles. But in terms of that intro chord itself, I think this is pretty close.
That’s my take on it anyway. Now let’s go back to the recording sessions in April 1964.
So, they’ve decided that take #9 is their best version. They’ve recorded guitars, bass, drums and vocals on tracks 1 and 2 of the four-track tape. So using that take, on track number 3, they double-track the lead vocals. Both John and Paul double track their vocals. Also, on the same track, mixed in, they add a cowbell played by Ringo and bongos, played by engineer Norman Smith. Let’s listen to just those double tracked vocals.
Paul comes in here with his harmony vocal.
All right, let’s go back to the top and listen to the final mix, through the first verse. Listen for some of those individual elements that we’ve been talking about so far: The electric twelve string guitar, the acoustic guitar, those bongos, the double tracked vocals, and of course, starting with that iconic first chord.
Now, one more important point to mention here is that from this point forward, when I play the final mix, I’ll be using the mono version. It may be true that you can pick out some of the individual instruments a little better in the stereo version, but the fact is that the mono version best represents what The Beatles and George Martin were aiming for, what they were happy with. When they were completing the final mixes, they made ten passes at the mono version to settle on the one they were most happy with. They made only one pass at the stereo version, which just shows you which version they were more concerned with. So, here’s the mono mix.
Here’s the second verse. And this time, let’s focus on John a little bit. Let’s just hear his vocal and acoustic guitar.
Here comes the middle eight, or the bridge. And this is where McCartney takes over the lead vocal. So let’s just hear his vocal part.
I love the way that the vocals overlap there. When John comes back in, you really get the feeling of the two of them singing this song together.
The middle eight is also where the cowbell is overdubbed and it’s particularly prominent on the stereo mix. So let’s listen to the instrumental tracks without the vocals for the bridge from the stereo mix.
Next is a repeat of the first verse. Let’s hear a little bit of George Harrison’s twelve-string guitar here.
And this time let’s zoom in on the vocals.
I love both John and Paul screaming at the end there.
Next to come is the guitar solo, or actually a guitar and piano solo. They tried recording it a number of times, but they just weren’t happy with the way it came out, so producer George Martin, as always the brilliant problem solver that he was, came up with the idea to slow the tape down to half speed. Then the two Georges– George Martin playing piano, and George Harrison on his Gretch country gentlemen guitar, or perhaps his Gretch Tennessean, we’re not really sure exactly which guitar he played, but we do know it’s definitely not the Rickenbacker twelve-string– the two of them play the solo together at half speed and octave lower.
Then once it’s on tape, they play it back at normal speed. And that’s the sound of the solo that we’re all familiar with. Here’s what it actually sounded like when recorded at half speed.
Speeded back up to normal speed. Here’s what it sounds like in the final version.
The guitar solo leads into a short tag from the second verse before McCartney repeats the middle eight again.
And while we’re talking about McCartney, let’s touch on his bass part here. Paul McCartney is, in my opinion, one of the greatest bass players of all time. He didn’t play like the Motown players, or like a jazz player, or like a standard rock bassist, either. He essentially invented a whole style, a very melodic approach to the bass. But on this track, he sticks to the basics. It’s probably one of the simplest bass parts that he ever played. So let’s hear just a little bit of his bass part on this last verse.
Let’s give Ringo some love, because he’s playing his heart out on this song. Here’s Ringo’s drum track on this last verse.
And then at the end, rather than fading the song out or having an abrupt ending, they overdubbed George Harrison playing arpeggios on his twelve-string Rickenbacker. That was laid down onto track number 4, along with the guitar and piano solo. Here’s that twelve-string guitar part.
And here’s the full ending in the final mono mix.
The Beatles – “A Hard Day’s Night”
One of their greatest hit singles, along with one of the greatest songs ever written for a movie. And to think the song was written and recorded in just a couple of days. That, my friends, is genius at work.
Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast, here on the Pantheon Podcast Network. New episodes of this show are released on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so don’t worry, I’ll be back soon. But if you can’t bear to wait for the next new episode, you can always catch up on all of our previous shows on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or follow us on your favorite podcast app. And it’d be great if you left a review wherever it is that you listen to the show, because that always helps. But even better, share this show with your friends, your family, your neighbors. Your word-of-mouth support is by far the best advertising that we could get. So thanks for that, and thanks for listening to this episode on “A Hard Day’s Night” by the Beatles.
REFERENCES:
The Beatles
https://www.thebeatles.com/
A Hard Day’s Night (film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058182/
Pantheon Podcast Network
https://www.pantheonpodcasts.com/
John Lennon’s book “In His Own Write
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48573.In_His_Own_Write
United Artists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists
Alan Owen (scriptwriter)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Owen
Richard Lester (director)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lester
EMI Studios (Abbey Road)
https://www.abbeyroad.com/
Gibson J-160E (acoustic guitar)
https://www.gibson.com/Guitar/ACCEKJ966/J-160E
Rickenbacker 360/12 (guitar)
https://www.rickenbacker.com/model.asp?model=360/12
Hofner 500/1 (bass guitar)
https://www.hofner.com/bass-hofner-violin-bass.html
Ludwig Drums
https://www.ludwig-drums.com/
George Martin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Martin
In His Own Write” by John Lennon
https://www.amazon.com/His-Own-Write-John-Lennon/dp/0684868075
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