A Hard Day's Night: Classic Early Beatles Album

Submitted By: Mike Jensy

1964's A Hard Day's Night was the 3rd album The Beatles released and their first to coincide with the release of a film (Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine would follow in its footsteps.)
Most Beatles fans see this 3rd album as a big step forward from their first two albums. While their first two albums, 1963's Please Please Me and With The Beatles, had some great tunes they also had quite a bit of filler material as each of the albums included just 8 original songs (the other 6 of the 14 songs on each album were covers.)
A Hard Day's Night was the first Beatles album to contain entirely original material and it ended up being their only album which includes only Lennon/McCartney originals. Why is it the only album with just songs by John and/or Paul? Because later "all original" albums like Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, and Abbey Road include songs by George Harrison too. And let us not forget Ringo Starr as he contributed one song each to The White Album ("Don't Pass Me By") and Abbey Road ("Octopus's Garden.")
While all of the songs on this album are officially Lennon/McCartney songs because of an agreement between John & Paul that all of their songs would be credited in this way regardless of who wrote what in truth most of these songs were written mainly by one or the other.
In fact; John Lennon dominated as far as quantity is concerned. 10 of the 13 songs on the album were written by Lennon including the title track "A Hard Day's Night" which is clearly among the best early Beatles songs. "If I Fell," "I'll Cry Instead," and "I'll Be Back" are also among my favorites.
"If I Fell" is a particularly pretty song. Interestingly enough I've read that this song was Kurt Cobain's favorite Beatles song. He would sing it during Nirvana shows when technical difficulties would arise.
While Paul McCartney only wrote three of these 13 songs each of those three were of supreme quality. In fact if I had to name my favorite five songs from this album I'd probably include all three McCartney originals. They are "Can't Buy Me Love," "Things We Said Today," and "And I Love Her."
Everyone knows "Can't Buy Me Love" but "Things We Said Today" and "And I Love Her" are both real gems and in fact I think I prefer both of them over the more well known classic (although it's a great song too, of course.) These songs show that McCartney is really growing as a songwriter at an extreme rate. While he may not have been putting out as much material as Lennon at this point, the stuff he was writing was of tremendous quality.
If you're curious I would also include "A Hard Day's Night" and "If I Fell" among those favorite five songs. "I'll Cry Instead" and "I'll Be Back" would just miss the cut.
A Hard Day's Night does have some songs that I don't think are particularly strong ("When I Get Home" and "I Should Have Known Better" for example) but it also has a lot of really brilliant pop songs and I think it's a must listen in it's entirety for anyone that really wants to understand the progression of The Beatles from "Love Me Do" through Abbey Road.

Published At: Isnare.com