Album Summary: A Hard Day's Night

This has been a pretty great album. I actually have a lot of favorites from this one--"A Hard Day's Night", "If I Fell", "Can't Buy Me Love", etc., most of them from the first side. This album marked a new page for The Beatles--they were growing as musicians and songwriters, trying out new ideas, being innovative and daring with their music, and growing exponentially more popular. I agree with the statement that A Hard Day's Night represented the idea of Beatlemania--I can definitely imagine how psychotic those crowds of screeching teenagers were (it's not difficult to picture it, considering the modern-day examples we have now).

I'll end this summary with a quote from music critic Richie Unterberger:

George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade The Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the US market for fellow Brits like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney.

I'll Be Back

The next song is technically "You Can't Do That" but we've already covered that one, so today's song is now "I'll Be Back". This mopey tune features a singer with no self-respect or independence, who runs back to his girl every time she breaks his heart. Poor guy. It's much more hilarious, however, if you picture the Terminator singing instead ("I'll be back!"). Takes on a whole new dimension of meaning. :P

Wikipedia has a bunch of neat facts about "I'll Be Back":

With its poignant lyric and flamenco style acoustic guitars, "I'll Be Back" possess a tragic air. Unusually for a pop song it oscillates between major and minor keys, appears to have two different bridges and completely lacks a chorus. The fade-out ending is unexpectedly sudden, seeming to arrive half a verse prematurely.

I did notice the song ended quite suddenly; for a minute I thought the YouTube video I chose was incomplete. Wikipedia also includes an interesting quote from music journalist Robert Sandall, who wrote in Mojo Magazine:

"'I'll Be Back' was the early Beatles at their most prophetic. This grasp of how to colour arrangements in darker or more muted tones foreshadowed an inner journey they eventually undertook in three albums' time, on Rubber Soul"

That's something we'll find out in a few albums' time. :D For now, though, I've finished A Hard Day's Night so I'll be doing an album summary. I'll also watch the movie either today or tomorrow and post a review of it right afterward. I'll see you then!

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Heard It Tally: 5

Songs Completed: 49

When I Get Home

Like "Any Time At All", today's song starts off with a bang, so it made perfect sense when I read that the guys recorded one right after the other. "When I Get Home" is a Lennon composition and a cheerful song that follows a traveling theme. Similar to a "writing a letter" theme (used often in The Beatles' music as well as by Motown artists), or a "my girl cheated and now I'm sad" theme, a "traveling" theme is another popular one that songwriters use in their lyrics.

It's a pretty romantic song. The singer has no time to chit-chat; his lady's waiting for him at home, and he's got a lot he wants to tell her. Whether he actually wants to convey his message verbally is unclear, and none of our business. One part of the song gives me the impression he's being detained by another woman: "Come on, let me through / I've got so many things I've got to do / I've got no business being here with you / This way". I'm pretty confident that he's no cheater, though, since he's in such a rush to be with his love. Besides, the lyrics right before that section, which say: "I bet I'll love her more / Till I walk out that door again" lead me to believe he travels for his job (John channeling his personal life and emotions again, no doubt).

I do have one complaint: the "whoa-ah" was really grating on my ears for some reason. It sounded like disjointed shouting or mismatched harmonies, one or the other. I enjoyed the verses, but the choruses had me turning the volume down to see if that would improve the sound. Very strange. 

Well that's all for now. I'll be back tomorrow. See you then! :)

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Heard It Tally: 5

Songs Completed: 48

Things We Said Today

Today's song is rather morose. Paul wrote "Things We Said Today" while sailing the Caribbean with his girlfriend at the time, Jane Asher, on a yacht named, (in)appropriately named Happy Days. I wonder how he wrote this song while taking that idyllic-sounding vacation--or did any work on vacation, really. :P Wikipedia gives us a quote from music critic Ian MacDonald: "The sombre lyric—provoked by the frustrating interruptions of a relationship between two career people—matches the lowering gloom of the music." I wonder if Paul's personal life bled into his music the way John's often did.

The lyrics are about something Paul labeled "future nostalgia": "I wrote this on acoustic. It was a slightly nostalgic thing already, a future nostalgia. We’ll remember the things we said today, sometime in the future, so the song projects itself into the future." I've experienced that sort of thing before, when I'm having a particularly good time and, although I don't want it to end, I know it will, and I end up imagining how much I'll miss it when it's over. It's honestly pretty silly to get lost in future nostalgia, because then you'll miss out on enjoying the present moment.

For me, "Things We Said Today" suits my lugubrious mood. That said, it's not my favorite from this album, but I can tell it's a great rainy day song, something to chill out to while you're watching the rain from your window. That sort of song. :P

Alright, that's it for now... See you later!

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Heard It Tally: 5

Songs Completed: 47

I'll Cry Instead

Today's song is another good one by John. "I'll Cry Instead" is an emo sort of tune. The singer says he could make his ex angry or upset, and someday he'll be a real heart-breaker with all the ladies to get revenge, but right now he's just too busy sitting a dark corner and crying (but just you wait). 

Appropriately, the song has a country flavor; apparently The Beatles, particularly Ringo, really enjoyed playing country & western tunes. They're just a few adjectives and a country twang away from singing about how their wife left 'em, their dog died, and their truck broke down. :P

As we heard Paul suggest a while back, a lot of the lyrics John was writing at this point in time represented actual feelings he was having about his private life. Lennon's wife, Cynthia, even described "I'll Cry Instead" as a cry for help. She stated, "It reflects the frustration he [John Lennon] felt at that time. He was the idol of millions, but the freedom and fun of the early days had gone." This time, even John himself admitted to his personal pain. "John Lennon later said the line 'A chip on my shoulder that's bigger than my feet' was an accurate indication of his feelings at the time." We'll see more and more of this--the guys' personal feelings about things emerging in their lyrics and music--as time goes on.

As a last little bit of trivia, today's jam was covered by Joe Cocker, the famous British musician who not only did a number of great Beatles covers, but also appeared in Across the Universe for several cameos (notably singing "Come Together"). "I'll Cry Instead" was Cocker's first single.

That's it for today! See ya later.

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Heard It Tally: 5

Songs Completed: 46

Any Time At All

"Any Time At All" starts off with a bang--well, more a shout, really, but it's wonderfully startling--and only gets better. John describes the song as "an effort at writing 'It Won't Be Long'. Same ilk: C to A minor, C to A minor—with me shouting." I found myself kind of bouncing around while listening to this one; it's romantic without being too sappy, and it's fun without being too shallow. 

John couldn't hit the high notes, so Paul sang the second "Any time at all" in each chorus. Generally, it seems George could hit the highest notes, followed by Paul. Ringo mostly kept to his drums but was a decent singer, and John was the screamer, for sure. Listening to their early stuff actually cured me of the misconception that all early '60s music was fluffy, easy-listening, and family-friendly. Some of it sounded more like the early '60s had gotten into a minor altercation with some '80s heavy metal. :PWaahhhhh!

Speaking of Ringo, according to BeatlesEBooks.com, 

This was his last day with the group before going into the hospital with tonsillitis.  "It was miserable," Ringo remembers.  "My throat was so sore, and I was trying to live on jelly and ice-cream.  I was a smoker in those days, too.  That was pretty rough."

Poor Ringo! John, his wife Cynthia, George, and George's new girlfriend Patti Boyd (an {in}famous lady we'll learn more about later!) had all just come back from a vacation in Tahiti, too, so this no doubt screwed up their schedule even more.

Well kids, that's it for today. Sorry the post was so late! See you tomorrow. :)

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Heard It Tally: 5

Songs Completed: 45

Can't Buy Me Love

Classic song today, and definitely one I've heard before. "Can't Buy Me Love" was the only song in English that The Beatles recorded outside of the UK (they recorded most of it in Paris), and it also "became the first single the Beatles released without their characteristic background harmonies", after the guys decided they didn't need them.

Although there are many interpretations of this song, the most obvious is a clear anti-materialism message. Paul, who wrote the song, stated to American journalists in 1966: 

"I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that 'Can't Buy Me Love' is about a prostitute, I draw the line." He went on to say: "The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well, but they won't buy me what I really want."

I have to agree with him; I can't think of too many other ways the lyrics can be twisted to mean something else. It's interesting, the choice of words he uses to address the person he's speaking to in the song; instead of saying "my love" or "my dear", terms that would more strongly suggest a female listener, he says, "my friend". It's an interesting change--one that removes gender from the equation and gives the song a less specific audience. I'm guessing that's where other interpretations come in. Perhaps the singer is speaking to a female lover, or to a male lover, or even to a male (or female) friend. Granted, diamond rings are generally purchased for partners, not for friends, but the "love" in the song could just as easily be platonic as romantic. 

Ultimately, perhaps Paul changed his mind about money's inability to purchase happiness. "...He was to later comment: 'It should have been 'Can Buy Me Love' ' when reflecting on the perks that money and fame had brought him." Oh, Paul. :P

That's it for the A-side... I'll soon be watching the film A Hard Day's Night and putting up a review. Tomorrow we'll see that, as well as continue with the B-side of the album. See you then. :)

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Heard It Tally: 5

Songs Completed: 44