"'A Hard Day's Night'" is a
1964 hit song mostly written by
John Lennon and credited (as were most of their songs) to
Lennon/McCartney, performed by
English band
The Beatles and produced by
George Martin. It was released on the movie soundtrack of the same name. It was later released as a single, with "
I Should Have Known Better" as its
B-side.
The song featured prominently on the
soundtrack to The Beatles' first
feature film, ''
A Hard Day's Night'', and was on their album of the same name. The song topped the charts in both the
United Kingdom and
United States when it was released as a single. Featuring a prominent and unique opening
chord, the song's success demonstrated that The Beatles were not a
one-hit wonder.
The American and British singles of "A Hard Day's Night" as well as both the American and British albums of the same title all held the top position in their respective charts for a couple of weeks in August 1964, the first time any artist had done this.
Title
The song's strange title originated from something said by
Ringo Starr, the Beatles'
drummer. Starr described it this way in an interview with
disc jockey Dave Hull in 1964: "We went to do a job, and we'd worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, 'It's been a hard day...' and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, '...night!' So we came to 'A Hard Day's Night.'
[1]
Starr's statement was the inspiration for the title of the movie, which in turn inspired the composition of the song. According to
John 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'' [a book Lennon was writing then], 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.'"
[2]
In a 1994 interview for ''
The Beatles Anthology'', however,
Paul McCartney disagreed with Lennon's recollections, basically stating that it was the Beatles, and not Lester, who had come up with the idea of using Starr's verbal misstep: "The title was Ringo's. We'd almost finished making the film, and this fun bit arrived that we'd not known about before, which was naming the film. So we were sitting around at Twickenham studios having a little brain-storming session... and we said, 'Well, there was something Ringo said the other day.' Ringo would do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical... they were sort of magic even though he was just getting it wrong. And he said after a concert, 'Phew, it's been a hard day's night.'"
[3]
In 1996, yet another version of events cropped up; in an
Associated Press report, the producer of the film ''A Hard Day's Night'',
Walter Shenson, stated that Lennon described to Shenson some of Starr's funnier gaffes, including "a hard day's night," whereupon Shenson immediately decided that that was going to be the title of the movie (the originally planned title was ''Beatlemania''
[4]). Shenson then told Lennon that he needed a theme song for the film.
[5]
Production
Regardless of who decided on the title, Lennon immediately made up his mind that he would compose the movie's title track
[6]. He dashed off the song in one night, and brought it in for comments the following morning (the original manuscript lyrics may be seen in the
British Library, scribbled in ballpoint on the back of an old birthday card). As he described in his 1980 ''
Playboy'' interview, "...the next morning I brought in the song... 'cuz there was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the A-side — who got the hits. If you notice, in the early days the majority of singles, in the movies and everything, were mine... in the early period I'm dominating the group.... The reason Paul sang on A Hard Day's Night (in the bridge) is because I couldn't reach the notes."
In the Associated Press report, Shenson described his recollection of what happened. At 8:30 in the morning, "There were John and Paul with guitars at the ready and all the lyrics scribbled on matchbook covers. They played it and the next night recorded it." Shenson declared, "It had the right beat and the arrangement was brilliant. These guys were geniuses."
On
16 April,
1964, the Beatles gathered at Studio 2 of the
Abbey Road Studios and recorded "A Hard Day's Night". It took them less than three hours to polish the song for its final release, eventually selecting the ninth take as the one to be released.
Release
"A Hard Day's Night" was first released to the United States, coming out on
13 June,
1964 on the album ''
A Hard Day's Night'', the soundtrack to the film, and released by
United Artists. The album was a hit, selling a million copies in just four days.
"A Hard Day's Night" was the first Beatles single released in the UK not to use a pronoun in its title. On all of their previous British singles ("Love ''Me'' Do," "Please Please ''Me''," "From ''Me'' to ''You''." "''She'' Loves ''You''," "''I'' Want to Hold Your Hand," and "Can't Buy ''Me'' Love"), the group had intentionally relied on the use of a pronoun to make a song "very direct and personal," so that, according to McCartney, "people can identify...with it."
The United Kingdom first heard "A Hard Day's Night" when it was released there on
10 July,
1964, both on the album ''A Hard Day's Night'', and as a single, backed with "Things We Said Today" on the B-side. Both the album and single were released by
Parlophone Records. The album proceeded to sell 1.5 million copies within a fortnight of its release. The single began charting on
18 July,
1964, a week later ousting
the Rolling Stones' "It's All Over Now" from the top spot on the British charts on
25 July,
1964, coincidentally the day when both the American and British albums too hit the peak of their respective charts. The single stayed on top for three weeks, and lasted another nine weeks in the charts afterwards.
America first saw the single of "A Hard Day's Night" on
13 July,
1964, featuring "
I Should Have Known Better" on the B-side, and released by
Capitol Records. Capitol had been in a quandary about cashing in on the success of the movie ''A Hard Day's Night'', as United Artists held the publishing rights for the soundtrack (thus owning the rights to release the album of the same title). However, there was nothing preventing Capitol from releasing the songs in other forms, leading to six out of the seven songs from the movie's soundtrack coming out on singles.
The American single began its 13-week chart run on five days after release, and on August 1 started a two-week long run at the top, setting a new record—nobody before had ever held the number one position on both the album and singles charts in the United Kingdom and the United States at the same time. The Beatles were the first to do so, and continued to be the only ones who had done this until 1970 when
Simon and Garfunkel achieved the same feat with their album ''
Bridge Over Troubled Water'' and its title track. "A Hard Day's Night" went on to sell one million copies in America within just over five weeks.
After the Beatles had performed on ''
The Ed Sullivan Show'' when they first came to America in early 1964, some American critics had dismissed them as one-hit wonders. "A Hard Day's Night" proved them wrong, as it only strengthened The Beatles' dominance of the world music scene in 1964. They would continue to feature prominently for the next six years until their disbanding in 1970.
In 1965, "A Hard Day's Night" won the Beatles the
Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Vocal Group.
[7]
Opening chord
"A Hard Day's Night" is immediately identifiable before the vocals even begin, thanks to
George Harrison's unmistakable
Rickenbacker 12-string
guitar's opening chord. According to George Martin, "We knew it would open both the film and the soundtrack LP, so we wanted a particularly strong and effective beginning. The strident guitar chord was the perfect launch."
[8]
The exact
chord played by Harrison has been the subject of contention. According to Walter Everett, the opening chord has an introductory dominant function because McCartney plays D in the bass; Harrison and Martin play F A C G in twelve-string guitar and piano, over the bass D, giving the chord a mixture-coloured neighbor, F; two diatonic neighbors, A and C; plus an anticipation of the tonic, G — the major subtonic as played on guitar being a
borrowed chord commonly used by the Beatles, first in "
P.S. I Love You" (see
mode mixture), and later in "
Every Little Thing", "
Tomorrow Never Knows" and "
Got to Get You into My Life" (in the latter two against a tonic
pedal).
[9]
In contrast, Alan W. Pollack interprets the chord as a surrogate dominant (surrogate V, the dominant preparing or leading to the tonic chord), in G major the dominant being D, with the G being an
anticipation that resolves in the G major chord that opens the verse. He also suggests it is a mixture of d minor, F major, and G major (missing the B).
[10] Tony Bacon calls it a Dm7sus4 (D F G A C), which is the dominant seventh (plus the fourth, G).
[11] ''(For more information regarding chord functions see
diatonic function.)''
Everett points out that the chord relates to the Beatles' interest in
pandiatonic harmony.
[12]
Dominic Pedler has also provided an interpretation of the famous chord, with the Beatles and George Martin playing the following:
★ 'George Harrison:' Fadd9 in 1st position on 12-string electric guitar
★ 'John Lennon:' Fadd9 in 1st position on a 6-string acoustic guitar
★ 'Paul McCartney:' high D played on the D-string, 12th fret on electric bass
★ 'George Martin:' D2-G2-D3 played on a Steinway Grand Piano
★ 'Ringo Starr:' Subtle snare drum and ride cymbal
This gives the notes:
'G-B-D-F-A-C' (the B is a harmonic). One of the interesting things about this chord (as described by Pedler) is how McCartney's high bass note reverberates inside the soundbox of Lennon's acoustic guitar and begins to be picked up on Lennon's
microphone or
pick-up during the sounding of the chord. This gives the chord its special "wavy" and unstable quality. Pedler describes the effect as a "virtual
pull-off".
[ The Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles, , Dominic, Pedler, Omnibus Press, 2003, ]
Jason Brown, Professor for the Faculty of
Computer Science at
Dalhousie University in
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, whose research interests include
graph theory,
combinatorics, and combinatorial
algorithms, announced in October 2004 that after six months of research he succeeded in analysing the opening chord by "de-composing the sound into original frequencies, using a combination of computer software and old-fashioned chalkboard." According to Brown, the Rickenbacker guitar wasn't the only instrument used. "It wasn't just George Harrison playing it and it wasn't just the Beatles playing on it... There was a piano in the mix." Specifically, he claims that Harrison was playing the following notes on his 12 string guitar: a2, a3, d3, d4, g3, g4, c4, and another c4; McCartney played a d3 on his bass; producer George Martin was playing d3, f3, d5, g5, and e6 on the piano, while Lennon played a loud c5 on his six-string guitar.
[13]
This famous chord was used on the version of
Get Back, featured on the 2006 release
Love. It was used at the beginning of the remix to disguise a part of
The End, whose drum solo is used in the remix's intro.
Music and lyrics
The song is composed in the key of
G major and in a 4/4
time signature, though Richard Middleton (1990) describes G as the dominant in the key of
C major. The verse features the ♭VII or major subtonic chord that was a part of the opening chord as an ornament or embellishment below the tonic. The
modal frame of the song though
pentatonic features a
ladder of thirds axially centered on G with a ceiling note of Bb and floor note of Eb (the low C being a
passing tone) (Middleton 1990, p.203):
[14]
A Hard Day's Night Melody
According to Middleton the song has "a deep kinship with typical blues melodic structures: it is centered on three of the notes of the minor-pentatonic mode (Eb-G-Bb), with the contradictory major seventh (B♮) set against that. Morever, the ''shape'' assumed by these notes - the modal ''frame'' - as well as the abstract scale they represent, is revealed, too; and this - an initial, repeated circling round the dominant (G), with an excursion to its minor third (Bb), 'answered' by a fall to the 'symmetrical' minor third of the tonic (Eb) - is a common pattern in blues."
[15]
Lennon opens the twelve measure-long
verse and carries it along, suddenly joined at the end by McCartney, who then sings the
bridge. This represented a division of work which would feature prominently in future Beatles songs, with Lennon and McCartney each singing the parts they composed individually. This also made it easier to identify the individual styles of each composer, as McCartney was often the one with more upbeat lyrics, while Lennon's would be in a more cynical tone.
However, in his interview with ''Playboy'', Lennon denied that McCartney's authorship of the bridge was the reason that he sang it: "The only reason he sang on 'A Hard Day's Night' was because I couldn't reach the notes. ...which is what we'd do sometimes. One of us couldn't reach a note but he wanted a different sound, so he'd get the other to do the harmony."
[16]
The instrumental
break, is often credited to George Harrison on a 12-string guitar. This is not entirely accurate. The break was played by both Harrison on 12-string guitar and George Martin on harpsichord (the notes are two octaves apart, another clue that it may not be a 12 string guitar).
The song closes with Lennon playing the arpeggio during the fade-out, the first time the Beatles had used such a technique — most, if not all, of their earlier work had closed with a final chord (and
cadence), such as "
She Loves You" and "
I Want to Hold Your Hand".
The lyrics speak about the singer's undying devotion to his lover, and how he toils so she can purchase the items she fancies. The singer sings about his tiredness when he comes home from work, but how the things that his lover does perk him up.
On the day the song was written, Lennon is purported to have shown reporter
Maureen Cleave of
London's ''
Evening Standard'' the lyrics, and she said that word "tiredness" sounded weak in the line "I find my tiredness is through/And I feel alright." Lennon subsequently replaced the lines in question with "I find the things that you do/They make me feel all right".
[17]
Other recordings
Peter Sellers recorded a comedy version of the song "A Hard Day's Night", in which he recited the lyrics in the style of
Laurence Olivier in
Olivier's film version of
Shakespeare's play
Richard III. Sellers' version was a UK Top 20 hit in 1965.
Billy Joel recorded the song and it was released on his
Complete Hits album and
My Lives, his ultimate collection.
Sugarcult recorded the song for a EP
A Hard Day's Night
Beatallica recorded a thrash version of this song called "A Garage Dayz Nite", with some references to Metallica's songs (''coz when I see you, it's nice to play you "
Trapped Under Ice"'' or ''
wherever I may roam, the road becomes my bride''), and other bands like
Scorpions (''and it kicks ass just to hear you say, when you don't want
Love at First Sting'').
Swedish band
Mando Diao recorded a version and released it as a B-side to Tv & Me.
The
Cirque Du Soleil production
Love uses the opening chord of A Hard Day's Night to introduce
Get Back. The chord is played forward, and while the drum solo from
The End is playing, the chord is reversed to the beginning.
Notes
1. Keith Badman ''the Beatles Off The Record'' P.93
2. All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, , David, Sheff, St. Martin's Press, 2000,
3. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, , Barry, Miles, Henry Holt & Company, 1997,
4. Bill Harry ''The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia'' P.287
5. Restored 'Hard Day's Night,' 'Help!' part of AMC festival"
6. Paul McCartney & Barry Miles ''Many Years From Now'' P.165
7. The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
8. The Beatles Recording Sessions, , Mark, Lewisohn, Harmony Books, 1988,
9. The Beatles as Musicians: The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul, , Walter, Everett, Oxford University Press, 2001,,
10. Notes on "A Hard Day's Night"
11. Fuzz & Feedback : Classic Guitar Music of the 60's, , Tony, Bacon, Backbeat Books, 2000,
12. The Beatles as Musicians: The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul, , Walter, Everett, , 2001,,
13. As It Happens Jason Brown's research on the opening chord. To hear the story, listen 12'35" into the broadcast
14. Studying Popular Music, , Richard, Middleton, Open University Press, 1990,
15. Studying Popular Music, , Richard, Middleton, , 1990,
16. All We Are Saying, , David, Sheff, , 2000,
17. I Am The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night
External links
★
The Beatles official website
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