A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night may refer to:

A Hard Day's Night (film)

A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring the Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists. The film portrays several days in the lives of the group.

The film was a financial and critical success. Time magazine rated it as one of the all-time great 100 films. British critic Leslie Halliwell described it as a "comic fantasia with music; an enormous commercial success with the director trying every cinematic gag in the book" and awarded it a full four stars. The film is credited as being one of the most influential musical films of all time, inspiring numerous spy films, The Monkees' television show and pop music videos.

Plot

Bound for a London show, the Beatles escape a horde of fans. Once they are aboard the train and trying to relax, various interruptions test their patience: after a dalliance with a female passenger, Paul's grandfather is confined to the guard's van and the four lads join him there to keep him company. John, Paul, George, and Ringo play a card game, entertaining schoolgirls before arriving at their destination.

A Hard Day's Night (song)

"A Hard Day's Night" is a song by the English rock band The Beatles. Written by John Lennon, and credited to Lennon–McCartney, it was released on the movie soundtrack of the same name in 1964. It was later released in the U.K. as a single, with "Things We Said Today" as its B-side.

The song featured prominently on the soundtrack to the Beatles' first feature film, A Hard Day's Night, and was on their album of the same name. The song topped the charts in both the United Kingdom and United States when it was released as a single. The American and British singles of "A Hard Day's Night" as well as both the American and British albums of the same title all held the top position in their respective charts for a couple of weeks in August 1964, the first time any artist had accomplished this feat.

Title

The song's title originated from something said by Ringo Starr, the Beatles' drummer. Starr described it this way in an interview with disc jockey Dave Hull in 1964: "We went to do a job, and we'd worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, 'It's been a hard day...' and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, '...night!' So we came to 'A Hard Day's Night.'"

A Hard Day's Night (EP)

A Hard Day's Night is a Japan-only EP from the Californian pop-punk group Sugarcult, featuring a cover of the Beatles classic.

Track listing

Notes

References

External links

Extracts from the Film A Hard Day's Night

Extracts from the Film A Hard Day's Night is an EP by the Beatles released on 4 November 1964 by Parlophone (catalogue number GEP 8920.) It was also released in Australia, Spain, New Zealand and France. All of the tracks also appeared on the A Hard Day's Night album.

Track listing

All songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Original Sleeve Notes

Alun Owen began work on the original screenplay late last autumn. Producer Walter Shenson and Director Richard Lester watched their newest screen stars at work over Christmas and New Year. John and Paul began to compile new numbers for the soundtrack while the Beatles were in Paris, and one morning early in March 1964, a specially chartered train moved out of Paddington station and the first day's shooting of the Beatles' first feature film got under way. A Hard Day's Night, which also stars Wilfrid Brambell in the role of Paul's (mythical) grandfather, was premiered on Monday, 6 July 1964, at the London Pavilion, Piccadilly Circus.

A Hard Day's Night (album)

A Hard Day's Night is the third studio album by English rock band the Beatles, released on 10 July 1964, with side one containing songs from the soundtrack to their film A Hard Day's Night. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing.

In contrast to their first two albums, all 13 tracks on A Hard Day's Night were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney showcasing the development of their songwriting talents. The album contains some of their most famous songs, including some of their most well-known songs such as the title track, with its distinct, instantly recognisable opening chord, and the previously-released "Can't Buy Me Love"; both were transatlantic number-one singles for the band.

The title of the album was the accidental creation of drummer Ringo Starr. According to Lennon in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine: "I was going home in the car and Dick Lester [director of the movie] suggested the title, 'Hard Day's Night' from something Ringo had said. I had used it in 'In His Own Write', but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny ... just said it. So Dick Lester said, 'We are going to use that title.'"

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle, beat, and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as the group's music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s.

The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, most notably Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. They acquired the nickname "the Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market. From 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced what many consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (commonly known as the White Album, 1968) and Abbey Road (1969).