Music Notes: The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night
Taking its name from a Ringo catchphrase, the first Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night documented a purportedly typical “day in the life” of the Fab Four preparing for a television broadcast. Surprisingly, The Beatles didn’t rest on their earlier success, and filled the film soundtrack with new originals featuring steadily improving songwriting, stellar harmonies, and increasing musical variety.
A Hard Day’s Night
= 5 stars
An iconic opening chord opens up to an acoustic energy deftly capturing the sleepless insanity and humor of Beatlemania. A new development: the song’s awesome middle (“when I’m home…”) repeats twice.
I Should Have Known Better
= 3 stars
Much to love; John’s high falsetto notes, that plaintive harmonica, and the gloriously contrasting middle (“that when I tell you…”) — yet it still drags. Maybe it’s how the guitar solo is just a mimic of the verse, and the instrumentation of acoustic guitar doesn’t feel quite right.
If I Fell
= 4 stars
Following the askew introductory chords, we’re treated to nearly perfect John and Paul harmonies. Yet it feels a bit too precious and calculated — a subtle awkwardness to a nearly perfect love song.
I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
= 3 stars
Like the appropriately odd chord on the word “dance,” but once again, John and Paul’s background voices overwhelm George’s lead vocal.
And I Love Her
= 4 stars
Paul pens his own version of Til There Was You and the results are a bit smoky and dark like a night club. But the too-obvious arpeggios in the guitar part over the verse always bugged me.
Tell Me Why
= 2 stars
Never liked the hokey, game-show opening chords, to the little-girl mimicry on the line “is there anything I can do?”.
Can’t Buy Me Love
= 5 stars
Beatles perfection. The catchy chorus is placed at the start, and Paul’s bouncy, exuberant vocal sells the verse placed pauses. Lyrically, a happier cousin to John’s cynical cover of Money.
Any Time At All
= 4 stars
Aggressive John on the chorus, contrasted with a polite verse with a sinking piano with a mellower delivery. Negative attributes are the lame piano break and the obviously tagged on ending chords.
I’ll Cry Instead
= 3 stars
Rockabilly Elvis. Am thankful the Beatles only occasionally lapsed into country.
Things We Said Today
= 3 stars
Decent song, but sports a mopey verse and middle featuring that hang-dog McCartney tone in excess supply these days. Paul’s later product reaches back in time to strangle the past.
When I Get Home
= 2 stars
The lyric “cows come home” always made me wince.
You Can’t Do That
= 2 stars
Average, laid back tune featuring cowbell; a dress rehearsal for Drive My Car. Otherwise, an interesting example of John’s acerbic side.
I’ll Be Back
= 3 stars
Pleasant John and Paul harmonies, interesting, triplet acoustic guitar strumming, and a middle featuring a sad, introspective John. Still, only three stars, because all three elements are more expertly combined in the stunning No Reply - featured on the subsequent album, Beatles For Sale.
Wikipeda: A Hard Day’s Night
Next Album: Beatles For Sale
Previous Album: With The Beatles
iTunes Store Link: A Hard Day’s Night — The Beatles
This is a fun exercise you are doing.
My only gripes:
This is 2-stars for me (blasphemy I know)
1) And I Love Her — I really dislike this song, as much as I dislike Til There Was You. I love Beatles ballads, but not the slow schmaltzy stuff. I hate to say it, but I hit the skip button on the ipod or cd player when this song rears its head
2) If I Fell — I love this song. The harmonies are spot on. I also love the melodic range (you know this song is tough to sing). This is a 5-star for me. Maybe not the strongest 5-star, but I’ve got too much sentimental attachment to it to give it less.
3) I’ll Be Back — you gypped this song out of a star man! give it back dammit! John’s vocal qualities at the plaintive “I want you so…” reminds me of a little bit of his gravelly delivery in Hide Your Love Away.
Wow, no Ringo songs on this one eh?
Oh, and Can’t Buy Me Love is one of my less favorite of the Beatles “hit songs”. That’s a 4-star song for me
My Beatles knowledge is getting rusty, but there’s no bridge to this song right? I think the lack of a meaningful break from the verse/refrain might also chafe me a bit.
There’s a whole vein of Paul hit singles that I lump together: Can’t Buy Me Love, Paperback Writer, to name two. For some reason I like them much less now than I did when I was younger. Still good, well crafted but for some reason they don’t really emotionally resonate with me so much.
But hey, it’s all subjective…
I can see where you’re coming from. Some of these slightly goofy ratings are that if given a choice between the schmaltz of “Til There Was You” vs. “Ob La Di Ob La Di” I’ll take the former.
So you may see that an issue is that I’m subjectively rating the songs with the benefit of knowing what came after. It’s hard for me to give I’ll Be Back more stars when I think it sounds less cool than No Reply on the next album. The comparison of songs across albums is rather challenging. If I were going chronologically, everything would just get four or five stars
And true that a lot of these early songs are pretty fluffy and inconsequential. I find I’m rating some higher just based on energy, polish, and performance.
The album you are reviewing, Hard Day’s Night, is not the soundtrack from the movie of the same name. That soundtrack album has never been re-released, neither on vinyl nor cd. The soundtrack album was issued by United Artists and included 8 Beatle vocal tracks along with 4 George Martin instrumentals.
Frank
“Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away,now it looks as though there here to stay,oh i believe in yesterday”
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