A Hard Day's Night

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	John & Paul
Lead Vocal	John & Paul
Recorded	Apr 1964
Length	2:33
Key	G
Noted Takes	9
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

A Hard Day's Night (single)

Parlophone — R 5160

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Story Section status: Outdated

"A Hard Day's Night" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Credited to Lennon–McCartney, it was primarily written by John, with some minor collaboration from Paul. It was released on the soundtrack album A Hard Day's Night in 1964.

A Hard Day's Night is a song by The Beatles, written by Lennon–McCartney and led on vocal by John & Paul. Title from a Ringo malapropism; opens with the most analysed chord in pop. Within the catalogue, its title-track thread connects it to Help!; its film thread connects it to I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, I'm Happy Just to Dance with You. The iconic title derives from Ringo's malapropism—a slip of tongue during press junketry that McCartney and Lennon weaponized into rock immortality. Recorded 16 April 1964 as album closer and film theme, the track opens with an iconographic chord analysed for decades by musicologists as hybrid harmonic voicing. The opening chord became the most scrutinized moment in pop music (Lewisohn 1988, p. 45). The film A Hard Day's Night was completed in April 1964, followed by the Rediffusion television special Around the Beatles, where the Beatles appeared just days after finishing principal shooting (Kozinn 1995, p. 79). The accompanying album represents the peak of the band's early period, full of energy and assurance (Kozinn 1995, p. 98).

The session work falls within the band's Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, recorded 16 Apr 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. For session-by-session detail, see Mark Lewisohn's account on p.43 of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (excerpt below). The master emerged from take nine — “only the fifth complete run through” (Lewisohn p.43). The same morning, overdubs were added to that take: a second vocal and percussion, and a middle-eight solo recorded at half speed by George Martin on piano and George on guitar. Opening the record on its strident, ringing chord was George Martin's deliberate choice — a strong launch for both the film and the soundtrack LP (Lewisohn p.43). The full mix and overdub lineage is set out in the section below.

We knew it would open both the film and the soundtrack LP, so we wanted a particularly strong and effective beginning. The strident guitar chord was the perfect launch.— George Martin, in Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, p.43

A Hard Day's Night is unquestionably the peak of the band's early period.- Allan Kozinn, Kozinn 1995, p. 98

What's distinctive

A number one written to a title and cut in a morning. The name came first — Ringo’s phrase, adopted for the film before a note of the song existed — and the record was made start to finish in three hours on 16 April 1964, its famous opening chord and its solo both built in the studio rather than played live. Take count: 9 — take nine, “only the fifth complete run through,” was the master.^1,2

Recording

A song written to fit a title. It was Ringo who coined the phrase, and it summed up the unfinished film so well that it became the official title, announced to the press on 13 April 1964. That left John and Paul needing a song to match it, and quickly: they had only just written it when the group came in to record it, with the shooting for the film nearly wrapped. The recording itself was not an especially difficult task. Nine takes were started, five of them complete, and take nine — “only the fifth complete run through” — was the master. With every overdub included, the whole song was finished in three hours on the morning of 16 April.^1,2,3
The opening chord was a production decision. Beginning the song on that distinctive crashing guitar chord was George Martin’s suggestion. He knew the song would open both the film and the soundtrack LP, and wanted “a particularly strong and effective beginning”. The chord John and George struck together was not left to stand alone: a low piano note was also recorded onto the beginning of the track “to bolster the crashing chord that launches the song”. For the first few takes the chord was also soaked in echo, an experiment that was abandoned before the master (see Studio Notes).^1,2,3
Four tracks, used in the order they were filled. The group was now recording to four-track, and this session used it to good effect: the basic rhythm went down first, the vocals and percussion followed, and the fourth track was held back for the overdubs that finished the arrangement. The tape box shows that the tracks were “simply filled in the order in which they were recorded” rather than to a fixed plan of music on two tracks and vocals on the other two — and the two published accounts of what sits on which track do not agree (see Studio Notes).^1,2
The solo was taken out of the band’s hands. George was “struggling to play a suitable guitar solo” during the early takes, so George Martin decided to postpone it: from take 5 onward George simply held the rhythm through the middle-eight, and the solo was recorded afterwards onto the reserved fourth track. It was built with the half-speed method Martin had used on Misery — the tape slowed, the part played an octave low, George on guitar and Martin on piano in tight unison — so that at normal speed it came back at pitch and at tempo. George then rose to the occasion, quickly overdubbing the catchy jangling phrase that ends the record on his twelve-string Rickenbacker.^2,3

Equipment Section status: Outdated

Studio	EMI Studios, Abbey Road — Studio Two (recording, 16 Apr 1964; rough remixes 20 Apr; mono remix ‘10’ 23 Apr; US mono remix 9 Jun); Studio One control room (UK stereo remix, 22 Jun 1964)¹
Tape machine	Four-track; the solo overdubbed with the machine running at 7.5 ips instead of the usual 15 ips^1,2
Console	REDD.51 (Studio Two: recording and mono mixes; panning only via the Spreader); REDD.37 (Studio One: the 22 June stereo mix, with full panning)²
Microphones	Neumann U47, U48; AKG D19 (drums); STC 4038 (overheads)
Outboard / effects	Fairchild 660 limiters on the vocal channels (from early 1964); RS124 Altec compressors on channels 1–2; Abbey Road Repeat Echo (takes 1–4 only, not on the master)²
Guitars	Twelve-string Rickenbacker (George, closing phrase)³; acoustic guitar (John); bass (Paul); drums and cowbell (Ringo); bongos (Norman Smith)²
Amplifiers	Vox AC30 (TB & non-Top-Boost variants)

Recording Timeline

13 April 1964 — the title is announced. Ringo’s phrase is adopted as the official title of the film and announced to the press, before a song of that name exists. It leaves John and Paul to supply one: a title song that will open both the film and its soundtrack album, written and brought to the studio within the week, with the shooting for the film nearly wrapped.^1,3
16 April 1964 (Thursday) — recording, takes 1–9, EMI Studio Two, 10.00am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. Take nine, the fifth complete run-through, was marked ‘best’. On that take, track one holds the basic rhythm, track two John’s first vocal, track three his second vocal with Paul’s backing vocal, bongos, drums and acoustic guitar, and track four “the jangling guitar notes at the end of the song” plus George Martin’s piano. Norman Smith came down from the control room to play the bongos himself. The same morning carried every overdub, and with them the song was complete.^1,2
20 April 1964 (Monday) — rough mono and stereo remixes, Studio Two (control room only), 2.00–3.15pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: A.B. Lincoln. Mono mixing and stereo mixing, both from take 9: “Rough mono and stereo remixes of the title track.” The tape was taken away by United Artists for the film soundtrack only four days after the song was recorded — the start of the separate lineage behind the film’s own sound.¹
23 April 1964 (Thursday) — mono remix for disc, Studio Two (control room only), 4.30–5.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: David Lloyd. Another mono remix, this time “for disc not film”, replacing the 20 April mix as ‘best’. It was numbered remix ten, “although it was still from the original take nine”. This is the mono that the British single and mono LP carry.¹
9 June 1964 (Tuesday) — mono remix and tape copies for America, Studio Three (control room only), 2.00–5.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. A fresh mono mix from take 9, alongside Things We Said Today, after which “two identical tapes of the best mono remixes” were made for Capitol Records and United Artists. The album title belonged to the United Artists soundtrack; Capitol could issue the same songs “provided it did not title its collection” A Hard Day’s Night.¹
22 June 1964 (Monday) — stereo remix, Studio One (control room only), 11.30am–1.00pm. Stereo mixing from take 9, in a block that also mixed And I Love Her, If I Fell and I Should Have Known Better for the stereo LP. Moving to Studio One mattered: its REDD.37 desk had full panning capability, which the Studio Two console did not, and the album’s stereo mixes were made there.^1,2
10 July 1964 (Friday) — release. The single, A Hard Day’s Night backed with Things We Said Today, is issued as Parlophone R 5160, and the album A Hard Day’s Night as Parlophone PMC 1230 in mono and PCS 3058 in stereo, the same day. Less than three months separate the press announcement of the title from the finished record in the shops.¹

I only ever played on one Beatles song, and that was ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. I played the bongos. Ringo couldn’t do it… he just couldn’t get that continual rhythm. So I said, ‘Okay, forget it, I’ll do it.’ We overdubbed it, and I left my Tape Op behind upstairs…— Norman Smith²

Studio Notes

The first Beatles track to get Repeat Echo — and the effect was cut. A Hard Day’s Night was “the first Beatles track to receive an application of Repeat Echo”. Session outtakes reveal that the first four takes of the song had “a whopping dose” of it on the introductory crashing chord, and take 1 even brought it back for the outro guitar figure. By take 4 it had been decided against, and the effect was subsequently nowhere to be heard on the entire album. The chord that opens the record is therefore drier than the one the band first recorded.²
How the half-speed solo worked. The trick was “a variation on the half-speed piano technique” George Martin had employed a year earlier on Misery. With the tape running at half speed, the parts were played “an octave lower than desired” so that, on playback at full speed, they sounded at the proper pitch and tempo. Geoff Emerick, who was told to roll the tape at half speed, knew it as the same “wound-up piano” technique; George and George Martin played the rhythmically complex solo in tight unison, the piano doubling the guitar line note for note. The same technique returned on later records, In My Life among them; here it solved a practical problem in a single overdub.^2,3
Half-speed overdubbing, and what the tape speeds were. Abbey Road’s BTR machines ran at 15 and 30 inches per second, and the gain in fidelity at the higher speed was negligible; George Martin would sometimes record a track at 30 ips “so that he could implement one of his favourite recording tricks”, the half-speed overdub. “One of the earliest significant uses” of the trick occurred during the recording of this song. For the solo itself the arithmetic was simpler: the tape machine was running at 7.5 ips rather than the typical 15 ips, so everything played in came back twice as fast and an octave higher.²
George held back from the basic take. In “a sequence of events strikingly similar to the recording of Misery” in 1963, George could not land the solo live during the first takes, and George Martin decided to postpone it. Takes 5 to 9 then found George “simply holding down the rhythm during the middle-eight”, which kept the performance moving and left track four free for the overdub. The master take is, in effect, a backing track with a hole left in it on purpose.²
Double-tracked vocals, the four-track high point. Every single song on A Hard Day’s Night featured double-tracked vocals at some point, and four-track tape made the technique “a more instantly accessible procedure than it had been with Twin-Track”. On this song John’s lead is doubled across two tracks. The vocal channels “always used the RS114 limiters (before early 1964) or Fairchild 660 limiters (after early 1964)”, the Fairchilds being preferred for vocal recording, while the instrument channels ran through RS124 Altec compressors.^1,2
What went on which track — a conflict between the sources. Lewisohn places the basic rhythm on track one, John’s two vocals on tracks two and three, and bongos, drums, acoustic guitar and Paul’s backing vocal on track three. Kehew and Ryan’s tape-box analysis instead puts “all four of the Beatles’ instruments (bass, drums, acoustic and electric guitar)” onto Track 1, John and Paul’s vocals onto Track 2, and John’s acoustic guitar, Ringo’s cowbell and Norman Smith’s bongos onto Track 3. Both agree that track four carried the piano, the solo and the closing guitar. They disagree on whether the drums sit on the first or the third track, and the difference is flagged here rather than resolved.^1,2
An engineer on percussion. Ringo could not get the steady, continual bongo rhythm the song wanted, so Norman Smith went down to the studio floor and played it himself, leaving his tape operator upstairs to run the machine. It was, by his own account, the only Beatles record he ever played on. Smith was also at the desk for the mix: a week or so later Norman and George Martin mixed the song together, the two of them finishing what the morning session had started.^2,3
Why the stereo was made in a different room. The REDD.51 console in Studio Two offered only severely limited panning control, through a device called the Spreader, which made it a poor place for stereo. Studio One’s older REDD.37 had full and independent panning on its channels, and the album’s stereo mixes were made there — which is why the 22 June stereo session was booked into the Studio One control room while the mono mixes had been made in Studio Two.^1,2
Which mono went to America — a second conflict. Lewisohn records the 9 June mono as the mix copied onto the two tapes sent to Capitol and United Artists. Brennan’s variant listening binds the American single and the United Artists mono LP to the 23 April mono instead, and hears the 9 June mix in the original film print, where an edit extends the ending so that the closing guitar figure is heard five times instead of three — audible only over the end titles. Both readings are given; the Releases entries follow Brennan for which mix each record carries.^1,4
The Anthology outtake and its echo. An early take of the song was issued in 1995 with heavy echo on the opening chord and at the end. Kehew and Ryan treat the echo on the session outtakes as the Repeat Echo applied during those early takes; Brennan states that the heavy reverb on the opening chord and at the end was added for Anthology 1 without comment. Whether a listener is hearing 1964 or 1995 on that release is therefore disputed, and neither reading is preferred here.^2,4

Releases

1964 UK single — A Hard Day’s Night / Things We Said Today (10 July 1964, Parlophone R 5160, A-side) — the 23 April mono, with the closing guitar figure heard three times, as on every record release of the song.
1964 UK mono LP — A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PMC 1230) — the same 23 April mono as the single.
1964 UK stereo LP — A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PCS 3058) — the 22 June stereo mix, made on the Studio One desk (see Studio Notes). The lead vocal is pulled a little to the right rather than sitting in the centre.
1964 US single — A Hard Day’s Night (1964, Capitol 5222) — the 23 April mono, the same mix as the British single (see Studio Notes for the conflict over the 9 June tapes).
1964 US soundtrack LP — A Hard Day’s Night (1964, United Artists UAL 3366 mono / UAS 6366 stereo) — the mono pressing carries the 23 April mono. The “stereo” pressing is not true stereo: it is a mono mix, steered toward the left for Paul’s bridge (“When I’m home…”) and toward the right for the instrumental break.
1982 US LP — Reel Music (1982, Capitol SV-12199) — the first American release of the song in true stereo, carrying the 1964 UK stereo mix.
1987 CD — A Hard Day’s Night (1987, Parlophone 46437-2) — the album’s first CD issue, in mono, carrying the 23 April mix.
1993 CD — The Beatles 1962–1966 (1993, Apple 97036-2) — a new stereo mix made for the CD. The vocal is better centred here than on the 1964 stereo.
1995 CD — Anthology 1 (1995, Apple 34445-2) — a previously unreleased early take in mono, with heavy echo on the opening chord and at the end (see Studio Notes).
2009 remaster — A Hard Day’s Night (2009, Apple 82413 2) — the stereo remaster carries the 22 June 1964 stereo mix; it is a new transfer, not a new mix.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 43–47.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 55, 285, 288–89, 380–84.
Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), ch. 6 (the 16 April 1964 session).
Joseph Brennan, Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations (rev. edn.), “A Hard Day’s Night”.

Frequently asked

Who wrote A Hard Day's Night?

John and Paul, credited Lennon/McCartney. Ringo supplied the title phrase, which was adopted for the film before the song existed; they wrote the song to fit it.¹

Who sings lead on A Hard Day's Night?

John sings the verses, double-tracked, and Paul takes the middle-eight (“When I’m home…”).¹

When was A Hard Day's Night recorded?

In a single three-hour morning session, 10.00am–1.00pm on 16 April 1964, in EMI Studio Two at Abbey Road.^1,2

How many takes did A Hard Day's Night require?

Nine. Only five were complete, and take nine — “only the fifth complete run through” — was the master, with the solo, piano and closing guitar overdubbed onto it the same morning.¹

How was the guitar solo recorded?

At half speed. The tape was slowed and George and George Martin played the solo an octave low on guitar and piano in unison, so that at normal speed it sounded at pitch with a bright, quick edge.^2,3

Who played the bongos on A Hard Day's Night?

Engineer Norman Smith, who went down from the control room to play them when the continual rhythm the song needed would not come together; it was the only Beatles record he played on.²

On this page

Story Section status: Outdated

What's distinctive

Recording

Equipment Section status: Outdated

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked