I'm Happy Just to Dance with You

Story Section status: Outdated

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

• 1 March 1964 (Sunday) — recording, takes 1–4, EMI Studio Two, 10.00am–1.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. The first song of the session, followed by Long Tall Sally (take 1) and I Call Your Name (takes 1–7). Takes 1 and 2 were rhythm track only, take 3 a breakdown, and take 4 the first with vocals: George’s double-tracked lead, John and Paul’s harmonies with slight tape echo, and Ringo on the toms. The next day, 2 March, was set for the start of shooting on the group’s first feature film.¹
• 3 March 1964 (Tuesday) — mono mixing, Studio One (control room only), 10.00am–1.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: A.B. Lincoln. The mono, from take 4, in a block that also mixed I Should Have Known Better (from take 22), If I Fell (take 15), Tell Me Why (take 8), And I Love Her (take 21) and I Call Your Name (take 7). It is the only mono mix of the song ever logged, and the one on every mono release, British and American alike.^1,3
• 9 June 1964 (Tuesday) — tape copying, Studio Three (control room only), 2.00–5.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. The song was one of eight copied that afternoon onto “two identical tapes of the best mono remixes, for Capitol Records and United Artists”. The second of those companies, under the film contract, “was entitled to release the soundtrack songs on a US album”, and that tape is how the March mono reached America. A Hard Day’s Night and Things We Said Today were mixed for mono in the same session.¹
• 22 June 1964 (Monday) — stereo mixing, Studio One (control room only), 11.30am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. The stereo, from take 4, in a run that took in And I Love Her, When I Get Home, Any Time At All, I’ll Be Back, If I Fell, A Hard Day’s Night, I Should Have Known Better and I Call Your Name. It was an exhaustive day of remixing, predominantly for the LP, and “the Beatles themselves could not have been further away from the action”: they were in Wellington, New Zealand. The mono block earlier that morning had made separate British and American monos of three songs; this one was not among them.¹
• 26 June – 20 July 1964 — release. America had the song first: the United Artists soundtrack album A Hard Day’s Night was first issued on 26 June 1964. The British LP followed on 10 July, Parlophone PMC 1230 in mono and PCS 3058 in stereo, with the song fourth on side one; it was an album made up entirely of John and Paul’s compositions, “the only such occurrence in the Beatles’ career”. On 20 July Capitol issued it twice on the same day, as the B-side of the single I’ll Cry Instead (Capitol 5234) and on the album Something New (T-2108).^1,3

Studio Notes

• Rhythm first, voices second. The four takes record a working order that four-track tape had made routine: build the backing, then add the voices. On this morning the backing took two takes and the voices arrived on the fourth. The layout of the period fits it closely. “Drums, bass, and rhythm guitar were on one track,” George Martin recalled, “lead guitar on another; the voices on a third. The fourth track was reserved for any little extras, like piano overdubs or backing voices.” By this time “the fourth track was invariably used to double-track the vocals”, which is where a doubled lead like George’s would normally go. No track sheet for this tape is on record, so which track carried what here is not known.^1,2
• Double-tracking as the house style. George’s lead is doubled, and in 1964 that was nearly a rule rather than a choice: every single song on A Hard Day’s Night “featured double-tracked vocals at some point, as did every single the group released that year.” The spare track of the Telefunken machine “proved impossible to resist, and it made double-tracking a more instantly accessible procedure than it had been with Twin-Track”. What the account of this session singles out is therefore the execution rather than the method: George “double-tracked his to perfection”.^1,2
• Singing to a loudspeaker. When overdubbing in 1964, “the pre-recorded tracks would be played out loud in the studio” through an RLS10 “White Elephant” speaker, and the group listened to it as they performed, which opened an obvious route for the speaker to leak onto the new track. The answer lay in the microphone’s pattern. For vocal overdubs Norman Smith “called again upon the figure-of-eight pattern of the Neumann”, so that the singers could hear the speaker while “the mic rejected most of the sound”. A doubled lead and a pair of harmony voices sung over a finished rhythm track are exactly the work this arrangement was for, although the microphones used on 1 March are not individually recorded.²
• Echo on the harmonies. The one effect named for this take belongs to John and Paul, who sang with “slight tape echo”; George’s doubled lead is described without it. The detail sits interestingly beside the studio’s practice that year. “At the start of 1964, Norman Smith finally stopped printing the chamber to tape during recording. Instead, everything was recorded to tape dry, and chamber was added during the mix.” Tape echo is a different device from the echo chamber, and whether this echo went onto the tape on 1 March or was added when take 4 was mixed on 3 March is not on record. What is on record is that it was the harmony parts that carried it.^1,2
• Ringo’s toms, and the microphones that caught them. The drum part is the third detail singled out: Ringo “thumped a distinctive tom-tom sound”. The kit was recorded as it had been before. The album’s sessions kept “the same microphone setup employed in the previous years”, an STC 4038 and a 4033-A on the drums, and the 1964 inventory gives the 4038 as the overhead and the 4033-A on the bass drum for the first half of the year. That changed within months: by the time sessions for Beatles For Sale got under way, an AKG D19c had become the “overhead mic on Ringo’s drums”. This tom-tom sound belongs to the older set-up.^1,2
• One mono, for every market. The song’s mono was made once, on 3 March, and it did not change on its way abroad. On 22 June the mono block made separate remixes “for the UK” and “for the USA” of Any Time At All, When I Get Home and I’ll Be Back; this song was not in that block, and its only mix that day was the stereo. The 9 June copy for Capitol and United Artists therefore carried the same March mono that Parlophone used, and the American issues bear it out: the United Artists album, in its mono and its stereo edition alike, the Capitol single and the mono Something New all carry the one March mix.^1,3
• Stereo made on the older desk. The new REDD.51 gave its engineer “severely limited panning control” through a device called the Spreader, so the album’s songs “were mixed for stereo on Studio One’s REDD.37 with full panning”. This song followed the pattern exactly: recorded in Studio Two in March, mixed for stereo in the Studio One control room in June. That all-day mixing session may also be where “the need for a standardised track layout was first realised”, a layout “directly influenced by a peculiarity of the REDD.51 mixing console during stereo mixing.”^1,2
• The first American stereo. The 22 June stereo mix reached Britain on the stereo A Hard Day’s Night LP, but the American soundtrack album did not use it: its stereo edition carried the March mono. The song’s first stereo release in the United States was Capitol’s Something New, issued on 20 July 1964, whose stereo pressing, ST-2108, carries the June mix. Two American albums in less than a month therefore gave a stereo listener two different things: a mono mix in a stereo sleeve on United Artists, and the true stereo on Capitol.^1,3

Releases

• 1964 UK mono LP — A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PMC 1230, side one) — the 3 March mono, the song’s only mono mix: George’s doubled lead, John and Paul’s harmonies with their slight echo and the tom-tom figure, all in the one channel. It is also the mono on the album’s first CD (Parlophone 46437-2, 1987).
• 1964 UK stereo LP — A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PCS 3058, side one) — the 22 June stereo mix from take 4, made on the Studio One desk with full panning (see Studio Notes).
• 1964 US LP — A Hard Day’s Night (26 June 1964, United Artists UAL 3366 mono / UAS 6366 stereo) — the original soundtrack album and the song’s first release anywhere. Both editions carry the 3 March mono; the stereo edition does not use the June stereo mix.
• 1964 US single — I’ll Cry Instead / I’m Happy Just to Dance with You (20 July 1964, Capitol 5234, B-side) — the 3 March mono, the same mix as the British mono LP.
• 1964 US LP — Something New (20 July 1964, Capitol T 2108 mono / ST 2108 stereo) — the mono pressing carries the 3 March mono; the stereo pressing carries the 22 June stereo mix, its first appearance in America.
• 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.