A Hard Day's Night (Stereo - 2009 remaster)

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Disc 1

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About

From the liner notes:

A Hard Day’s Night
The Beatles

Historical Notes

The Beatles’ third album in less than eighteen months was released on 10th July, 1964 to accompany the arrival in cinemas of their first movie. Filming for A Hard Day’s Night had begun just eight days after returning from their first American trip when three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show had ensured Beatlemania swept the country. In the first week of April, 1964, all Top Five singles in the Billboard Hot 100 were by The Beatles with another seven of their songs listed in the chart. During the early months of 1964, their success spread all around the world and in June they played concerts in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

The thirteen songs on the British version of A Hard Day’s Night were divided so that the seven tracks heard in the film were grouped together on side one and the non-movie material was on side two. Several of the songs feature the characteristic jangle of George Harrison’s recently acquired Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar; a distinctive sound that proved very influential. A Hard Day’s Night is the only Beatles LP on which every song is credited to Lennon and McCartney. The album reached number one in the UK at the end of July, 1964 and remained there for 21 out of its 38 weeks in the Top Twenty.

The American version of A Hard Day’s Night also quickly climbed to number one and stayed at the top for fourteen of the 51 weeks it was listed in the chart. It was released as a film soundtrack album on United Artists, the company that also distributed the movie. It featured only eight performances by the Beatles: seven songs from side one of the British album plus an extended version of side two’s ‘I’ll Cry Instead’, which had once been considered for the film. The other four tracks were George Martin’s orchestral arrangements of songs from the movie, including ‘Ringo’s Theme (This Boy)’.

A month later, Capitol Records compiled a new Beatles LP called Something New. It featured four songs from the movie and four from side two of the British album, including ‘I’ll Cry Instead’. Despite having five tracks in common, for nine weeks Something New was at number two in the American chart while A Hard Day’s Night held number one.

Their first film had been planned in late 1963 before any glimmer of Stateside success. Upon its release, it played a significant role in showcasing the group’s music and image not only in the USA but throughout the world. At the end of 1964, the group’s assimilation of new musical and lyrical ideas was evident in the sound of their next LP Beatles For Sale…
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Recording Notes

Produced by George Martin
Principal Engineer: Norman Smith

‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ is the earliest recording on A Hard Day’s Night. When the group were in Paris for a three-week season of concerts at the Olympia Theatre, they visited EMI Pathe Marconi Studios to record German language versions of two recent hits—’I Want To Hold Your Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’—and their next single ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. This Beatles session on 29th January, 1964 was the only time the group recorded in a studio outside the UK.

On their return from a two-week promotional tour of the USA, the group quickly recorded songs for their forthcoming film in four days of sessions at Abbey Road between 25th February and 1st March. They had dispensed with the twin-track recording of their previous two albums and were now using four-track tape machines, which allowed much greater flexibility. Although four-track recording had been available at Abbey Road studios since the beginning of the sixties, it had usually been reserved for ‘easy listening’ sessions with orchestras and featured vocalists. The Beatles first recorded on four-track in October, 1963 and continued to do so until eight-track became available during sessions for The Beatles (‘The White Album’) in the summer of 1968.

A four-track machine enabled The Beatles and George Martin to expand arrangements and also provided opportunities to repair mistakes in an instrumental or vocal overdub by ‘dropping in’. This studio expression describes the process of playing back a tape to the musicians in the studio, close to the point where an overdub went wrong, dropping into record on the selected track and then dropping out of it as soon as the repair is made. This facility also made it possible for vocals and instruments to be recorded on the same track at different places, provided they did not overlap.

The title track was recorded in three hours during the morning of 16th April, 1964 and is a good example of how the four recording tracks were used both efficiently and creatively. The rhythm section of drums, bass and guitar was sent to track one, while John and Paul’s vocals were recorded at the same time on track two. After four false starts and five complete performances, take nine was chosen as the master onto which overdubs were made using the two remaining tracks. Bongos, cowbell, acoustic guitar and double-track vocals from John and Paul were added to track three. The final track contained George Martin’s piano playing on the opening chord and the solo plus George Harrison’s guitar part at the end of the song.

A Hard Day’s Night was completed in 65 hours spread across seventeen days—the last on 22nd June, 1964 was a nine-hour mixing session.
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This remastered album has been created from the original stereo analogue master tapes.

Remastered by Guy Massey and Steve Rooke
Project Co-ordinator: Allan Rouse

Thanks to Simon Gibson

Historical Notes: Kevin Howlett and Mike Heatley
Recording Notes: Allan Rouse and Kevin Howlett
Project management for EMI Records Ltd: Wendy Day and Guy Hayden

All songs published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

Digital Remaster ® 2009 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by EMI Records Ltd. © 2009 EMI Records Ltd. This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved.

Artwork © 2009 Apple Corps Ltd. All photographs © Apple Corps Ltd., except where otherwise stated.

Album Redesign: Drew Lorimer
Photo Retouching: Gavin O’Neill

Photo editing and research: Aaron Bremner and Dorcas Lynn