A Hard Day's Night - Writing: 10, Musicianship: 4

1/11/11 A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles

“Whenever I hear The Beatles I always feel I've got a lot in common with everybody else.”

- Robyn Hitchcock

            I’ve heard it said that everybody who listens to music at some time or another goes through a Beatles phase.  While I’ve never had one myself, I can understand why – their music was so far all over the place that somewhere in there has got to be something to reach you.  Hard Day’s Night is completely different than the white album, which in turn is stylistically incomparable to Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper.  With that said, I decided to start with the earlier stuff and branch out from there.

A Hard Day’s Night is full of classic tunes from the Fab Four – starting with the jangle-y opening chord of the title track.  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band often gets credited as being the first commercially successful “concept album” where the entire record (or CD) tells a story, or at least is written to function as a whole, not just a collection of individual songs.  I would argue that The Beatles beat themselves to the punch; HDN, while billed as the soundtrack to the eponymous film, was a concept album – the film was secondary and mostly an excuse to produce the album.  But the bulk of the songs segue into one another, either by staying in the same key, or thematic connections in the lyric.  For example, “Hard Day’s Night” transitions directly into the harmonica intro to “I Should Have Known Better” as if they were nearly the same song.

“I’m Happy Just to Dance With You” is the first of only a handful of songs I haven’t been familiar with for as long as I can remember.  It’s opening bars sit in a minor key that really doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the tune – they work a little better when they return in the chorus, but the poppy verses seem to come more naturally.  The chorus just doesn’t seem to fit as well.  “Tell Me Why” was another less familiar one.  The vocals in particular seem like a throwback to the close harmonied pop groups of the 50’s (The Lettermen and the Everly Brothers being the first that come to mind.)

            “If I Fell” remains one of my favorite pieces on this particular album.  The open harmonies and comparatively unconventional progressions give it a depth and richness the rest of the jangle-pop tunes lack at times.  At the other end of the spectrum, some of the other lesser known offerings on the album, such as “You Can’t Do That” and “Things We Said Today” don’t seem to grab the listener as strongly.

            I think it’s worth noting that on some level, you have to separate Lennon and McCartney’s writing from the performances of The Beatles.  Compared to many bands since them (and a few during their time as well,) The Fab Four were by no stretch great musicians.  Ringo was a mediocre drummer at best, and Harrison’s guitar chops were passable.  At least at this stage in their career, The Beatles’ strengths were in the pens of John and Paul, and that they knew what worked on the radio and on the stage.  Every song on this album is under 3 minutes; bite size snippets that work well on radio where you only have so much time to grab a listener’s interest, hold it for a brief time, and get out of there before they get bored.  Whereas most jazz tracks (or more experimental rock singles later on) woupd just be getting started, there’s just a simple chorus-verse-chorus structure to most of these songs.  Very few solos, very little development, just a shotgun attack of short songs in their simplest form.

There are a number of times I find myself wanting more depth; even if George wasn’t the best rock guitarist of his day, I wish he would have taken more liberties soloing over tunes.  Take “And I Love Her” for example.  After the straightforward exposition of the tune, there’s a modulation up a step and a guitar solo, wherein Harrison plays the melody note for note.  Give me something more; do something with it – something different.  (I’m sure that is to come in later Beatles albums, but that’s just what I feel is lacking at this stage.)  Until then, as the final track of the album brilliantly states, “I’ll Be Back.”

Up next – String Quartet #2 (György Ligeti)

Next week - What’s Going On (Marvyn Gaye)