Shortly after the release ofWith the Beatles (1963),the Beatles were at EMI Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris on 29 January 1964 for their first recording session outside of London. Here, they recorded German-language versions of their two most recent singles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You", titled"Komm, gib mir deine Hand" and "Sie liebt dich", respectively. According to their producer,George Martin, this was done as "they couldn't sell large quantities of records [in Germany] unless they were sung in German".[5] Also recorded—in English—wasPaul McCartney's "Can't Buy Me Love", which was completed in only four takes.[5] Shortly afterward, the band gave their first live performance in the United States onThe Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February. They gave more US performances before returning to the United Kingdom on 22 February.[6]
The Beatles were set to begin filming their first major feature film on 2 March 1964. According to historianMark 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.[7] On 25 February—lead guitaristGeorge Harrison's 21st birthday—the band were back at London'sEMI Studios, recordingJohn Lennon's "You Can't Do That" for release as theB-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.[7] Two more songs from the film, "Tell Me Why" and "If I Fell", were recorded on this day.[7]
On 1 March 1964, the Beatles recorded three songs in three hours: "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" for the film, featuring Harrison on lead vocal; a cover ofLittle Richard's "Long Tall Sally"; and Lennon's "I Call Your Name", which was originally given toBilly J. Kramer andthe Dakotas the previous year.[8] Mono and stereo mixing was carried out over the following two weeks. The "Can't Buy Me Love" / "You Can't Do That" single was released on 16 March and topped charts worldwide.[8] Taking a break for filming,[9] drummerRingo Starr coined the phrase "a hard day's night", providing the film with its title. Lennon and McCartney wrotea song based on the title, which was recorded at EMI on 16 April and mixed four days later.[10]
On 1 June, with the film completed and the band returning from holidays, the Beatles returned to EMI, recording the remaining songs for the tie-in LP, with outtakes appearing on theLong Tall SallyEP.[11] Covers ofCarl Perkins' "Matchbox", with Starr on lead vocals, andLarry Williams' "Slow Down", appeared on the EP, while Lennon's "I'll Cry Instead" and "I'll Be Back" appeared on the LP. The following day on 2 June, the band completed Lennon's "Any Time at All" and "When I Get Home", and McCartney's "Things We Said Today".[11] The band spent the remainder of June and July touring internationally.[12]
Musically,A Hard Day's Night eschews therock and roll cover songs of the band's previous albums for a predominantly pop sound.[13] Sputnikmusic's Dave Donnelly observes "short, peppy" pop songs characterised by layered vocals, immediate choruses, and understated instrumentation.[14] According toPitchfork'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.[13] Music journalistRobert Christgau writes thatLennon–McCartney's songs were "more sophisticated musically" than before.[15] It also features Harrison playing a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar, a sound that was influential onthe Byrds and other bands in thefolk rock explosion of 1965.[16][17]
Side one of the LP contains the songs from the film soundtrack. Side two contains songs written for, but not included in, the film, although a 1980s re-release of the film includes a prologue before the opening credits with "I'll Cry Instead" on the soundtrack.[18] The title of the album and film was the accidental creation of Starr.[19] According to Lennon in a 1980 interview withPlayboy magazine: "I was going home in the car and [film director]Dick Lester suggested the title, 'Hard Day's Night' from something Ringo had said. I had used it inIn His Own Write, but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of thosemalapropisms. 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.'"[20]
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 Lennon–McCartney.[21] Lennon is the primary author of nine of the thirteen tracks on the album, as well as being the lead singer on these same nine tracks (although Paul McCartney sings lead on the title track's middle-eight). Lennon and McCartney co-wrote "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You", sung by Harrison,[22] while McCartney wrote "And I Love Her", "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Things We Said Today". It is one of three Beatles albums, along withLet It Be andMagical 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 theLong Tall Sally EP.) It is also one of three Beatles albums, along withPlease Please Me andBeatles for Sale, in which Harrison does not contribute to the songwriting.
George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads [onA Hard's Day's Night] were hugely influential; the movie helped persuadethe 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 English bands likethe Rolling Stones,the Animals, andthe Kinks, and inspired young American groups likethe 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.[31]
In his bookYeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé,Bob Stanley identifiesA Hard Day's Night as the album that best captures the band's early-career appeal. He writes:
If you had to explain the Beatles' impact to a stranger, you'd play them the soundtrack toA Hard Day's Night. The songs, conceived in a hotel room in a spare couple of weeks between up-ending the British class system and conquering America, were full of bite and speed. There was adventure, knowingness, love, and abundant charm.[32]
A Hard Day's Night was included in the list of "100 Essential Rock Albums" compiled by musicologistsCharlie Gillett andSimon Frith forZigZag magazine in 1975, and is one of the "Treasure Island albums" featured inGreil Marcus's 1979 bookStranded.[citation needed] In 2000,Q magazine placedA Hard Day's Night at number 5 on its list "The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever".[33] That same year, it appeared at number 22 inColin Larkin's bookAll Time Top 1000 Albums.[34] In 2012,Rolling Stone ranked it 307th on the magazine's list of the500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[35] In the 2020 revision, it rose to number 263.[36] In 2000, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[37]
On 26 February 1987,A Hard Day's Night was officially released on compact disc in mono, along withPlease Please Me,With the Beatles, andBeatles 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 of1962–1966 in 1993. Most of the rest of the tracks appeared in stereo on compact disc for the first time with the release of the box setThe 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 inThe Beatles: Stereo Box Set. A remastered mono version of the original UK album was part ofThe Beatles in Mono box set.[38] A 60th anniversary reissue of the album was released on 19 October 2024 to celebrate National Album Day.[39]
The American version of the album was released on 26 June 1964 byUnited Artists Records in both mono and stereo, the fourth Beatles album in the United States. The album went to number one on theBillboardalbum chart, spending 14 weeks there, the longest run of any album that year.[40] United Artists rushed the album into stores over a month before the film's US premiere; as a result, the Beatles had both the number-one album and number-one single in the country whenA Hard Day's Night opened on 11 August 1964.
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 orchestral instrumental versions of Lennon and McCartney songsarranged by George Martin conducting an orchestra of studio musicians: "I Should Have Known Better", "And I Love Her", "Ringo's Theme" (featuringVic Flick on lead guitar[41]), and "A Hard Day's Night". AfterEMI acquired United Artists Records, this album was reissued in 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 1980Capitol Records reissue used the same master tape as the original United Artists LP release in fake stereo, despite the availability of several tracks with official true stereo remixes. True stereo versions of most of the songs had been issued on the Capitol albumSomething New, released in July 1964. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better" finally appeared in stereo on the 1970Apple Records compilationHey Jude. The song "A Hard Day's Night" did not appear in true stereo in the US until the 1982 Capitol compilation albumReel Music. In 2014, the American version of the "A Hard Day's Night" album was released on CD individually and in aboxed set of all the other US Beatles albums to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles first US visit. This CD reissue features all of the songs in both true stereo and mono mixes. .
In 2000, the 1964 North American release ofA Hard Day's Night byThe Beatles on the United Artists label was inducted into theGrammy Hall of Fame.[42]
John Lennon – lead, harmony and backing vocals; acoustic, rhythm and lead guitars;harmonica on "I Should Have Known Better"; piano on "Things We Said Today"
Paul McCartney – lead, harmony and backing vocals; bass guitar; piano on "When I Get Home";cowbell on "You Can't Do That"
George Harrison – harmony and backing vocals, lead vocals on "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You"; lead (six- and twelve-string), acoustic andclassical guitars
^World – Volume 2 – Page 61, 1973. "[on Help! and A Hard Day's Night], the soundtrack – gone – rock album is a marketing ideal that is passed off on the buying public with objectionable regularity and has already begun to backfire."
^Jackson, Andrew Grant (2015).1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books. p. 168.ISBN978-1-250-05962-8.
^Kruth, John (2015).This Bird Has Flown: The Enduring Beauty of Rubber Soul, Fifty Years On. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books. p. 78.ISBN978-1-61713-573-6.
Lewisohn, Mark (1992).The Complete Beatles Chronicle:The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide To the Beatles' Entire Career (2010 ed.). Chicago:Chicago Review Press.ISBN978-1-56976-534-0.
Spignesi, Stephen J.; Lewis, Michael (2004).Here, There, and Everywhere: The 100 Best Beatles Songs. New York:Black Dog.ISBN978-1-57912-369-7....after the unabashed more-or-less traditional pop rock ofA Hard Day's Night andHelp!...
