Showing posts with label A Hard Day's Night. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Hard Day's Night. Show all posts

Thursday, July 9, 2009

I'll Be Back

One of the fascinating Beatles facts about "I'll Be Back" is that this Lennon composition was originally conceived as a slow song in 3/4 time. As evidenced on Anthology, Vol. I, Lennon realized during Take 2 that the song wasn't working at this slow tempo, and the Beatles switched to 4/4 time on the next take.

The song was recorded during a single session at Abbey Road Studios on June 1, 1964 for the LP A Hard Day's Night (Parlophone issue), with a total of sixteen takes used to find the right sound. John frequently wrote his songs at a slower tempo only to speed them up later, with other examples being "Please Please Me" and "Revolution."

The song is a favorite of Beatles fans and has a distinctive sound because McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison all play acoustic guitars, giving the song a rich, full sound. McCartney played bass, Starr drums. Lennon handled the lead vocal, with McCartney doing the backing vocal.

Lennon was quite fond of the song, although he believed the middle eight to be "tatty." In the U.S., the song was issued on Beatles 65.

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT: The Album

The songs for this album, all Lennon-McCartney compositions, were recorded from February 25 to March 1, 1964, soon after the Beatles had retunred from their first American tour. A few songs were also recorded from June 1-3, 1964. The title track came from a "Ringo malapropism." The United States version of the album, the movie soundtrack released by United Artists, included only the seven songs featured in the film, augmented with four of George Martin's orchestrations of Beatles songs. Capital followed up with their Something New LP, which featured the tracks from the film as well as "Any Time at All," "Things We Said Today," "When I Get Home," and German versions for "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You."

The LP was released in the UK on July 10, 1964 and remained number one on the charts for twenty-one weeks. It was on A Hard Day's Night that George began using his twleve-string Rickenbacker 360/12. In the U.S., the twelve-string Rickenbacker became popular with many groups, most notably The Byrds.

The songs on the Bristish release included:

A Hard Day's Night
I Should Have Known Better
If I Fell
I'm Happy Just to Dance with You
And I Love Her
Tell Me Why
Can't Buy Me Love
Any Time at All
I'll Cry Instead
Things We Said Today
When I Get Home
You Can't Do That
I'll Be Back

Capital put "You Can't Do That" on The Beatles Second Album and allocated "I'll Be Back" for Beatles '65.

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Monday, January 5, 2009

The Lost Chord of "A Hard Day's Night": Different Theories


There has been an ongoing debate for many years as to the name of the "lost" chord used to open "A Hard Day's Night." Recently, Professor Jason Brown of Dalhousie University advanced the theory that the "secret sauce {of the note] includes five piano notes apparently played by producer George Martin." Well, maybe.

For years, George Martin, a classically trained musician, claimed he had no idea what the note might be. He is indeed credited with playing the piano on the track (and also played an electric organ since George could not play the lead interlude fast enough), but even if there is a "piano backing" to the note, the electric guitar clearly carries the day and is most prominent in the overall sound effect.

I have believed for years that the mystery is easily solved. The note appears to be a D7 suspended. A D7 is made, but the third finger on the first string (high E) slides from the second fret to the third, creating a very mild dissonance. Played on an electric guitar, it sounds exactly like the opening note for the song (especially if one takes into account that George would have played it on his Rickenbacker 360 12-string).

The song was recorded on April 16, 1964 at Abbey Road and released as a single in the UK and USA on July 10 and July 13, 1964 respectively. Film director Richard Lester insisted to Lennon that they use another "Ringo-ism" as the title for the movie and the song, a malapropism (a hard day's night") that Lennon had already used in his book In His Own Write. Lennon agreed and delivered the song the following day. He said Paul only sang on some parts because he (Lennon) couldn't reach the notes.

Pic: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0

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