Songs of The Beatles' Hard Day's Night Period

About This Volume	About The Album
Period Overview Book Overview Table of Contents Front Cover Ordering Information	This page is mostly about the book Songs of The Beatles' Abbey Road Period. For information about the album, visit the Wikipedia A Hard Day's Night page.

Quick links to Period pages

Volume	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	-
Period	PPM	WTB	HDN	BFS	HLP	RS	REV	SGT	MMT	WA	LIB	AR	OVW

Period Overview

1963 September 12: Record last four songs for the With The Beatles LP
The Beatles' third Period started after they finished recording the last batch of songs for their second LP, With The Beatles , at 11:30 pm. They'd finished recording four songs: 'Hold Me Tight', 'Don't Bother Me', 'Little Child', and 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. They probably thought they were done when they left the studio, but they had to clean up 'Little Child' and 'I Wanna Be Your Man' in October.

Exactly when the Hard Day's Night Period begins is debatable. Technically you could argue the dividing date is 63Oct23, when the recording of 'I Wanna Be Your Man' was finally complete. But other events make the 63Sep12 date a better choice, for both songwriting and recording technology reasons.

After leaving the studio on 63Sep12 the Beatles played three gigs over the weekend. On Monday they went on vacation for three weeks.

1963 Oct 17: Four-track recording begins
1963 Oct 17: Record songs for UK45-5: 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'/'This Boy'
The Beatles returned to EMI studios to fifth single. During their vacation, EMI had replaced the two-track tape recorder with a new four-track machine. The first song they recorded using the new technology was 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', followed by 'This Boy'. These would be the A- and B-sides of their next single. The band also tried recording 'You Really Got A Hold On Me', a song already recorded for With The Beatles . This four-track version was not used.

1963 Nov 01: Release UKEP-3, The Beatles (No. 1). It peaked at #2 in the EP chart.
1963 Nov 22: Release UKLP-2, With The Beatles. It entered the LP chart at #1 the first week of release.
1963 Nov 29: Release UK45-5, 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'/'This Boy'. It entered the charts at #1 the first week of release.

1964 Jan 29: Record in France in German
The Beatles were persuaded by their record label to re-record 'She Loves You' and 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' in German to improve sales in that country. While playing a three-week engagement in Paris, they went to an EMI studio in Paris and recorded 'Sie Liebt Dich' ('She Loves You') and 'Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand' ('I Want To Hold Your Hand'). With studio time left over, they recorded most of the A-side of their next single, 'Can't Buy Me Love'.

1964 Feb 07: Release UKEP-4, All My Loving.
1964 Feb 07-22: The Beatles first visit to America.

1964 Feb25-Mar01: Record songs for the film A Hard Day's Night.

1964 Mar02-Apr24: Filming of A Hard Day's Night.
1964 Mar 20: Release UK45-6, 'Can't Buy Me Love'/'You Can't Do That'.
1964 Apr 16: Record 'A Hard Day's Night'.

1964 Jun 01-03: Record songs for side 2 of the LP A Hard Day's Night.
The day after recording was complete, the Beatles started their "World Tour" of Europe and Australia.

1964 Jun 19: Release UKEP-5, Long Tall Sally.
1964 Jul 10: Release UK45-7, 'A Hard Day's Night'/'Things We Said Today'
1964 Jul 10: Release UKLP-3, A Hard Day's Night.

Details on all the sessions and releases are in the book Songs of The Beatles' Hard Day's Night Period.

Book Overview

(for a detailed look at the overall book format, see the Series Overview)

The book starts with an overview of the Beatle Periods, showing where A Hard Day's Night fits in their career. It then shows chronological lists of songs recorded and released during this Period.

The "Releases" section shows records that were released containing songs recorded this Period. Details are provided about the UK records. (Details about the US records are in The Songs section.)

A "Hearing The Music" section gives some orientation and history about the vinyl records and how they were intended to be heard.

The bulk of the book details the 21 songs of the Hard Day's Night Period:

Songs of The Beatles' Hard Day's Night Period is a reference work designed much like a technical manual. It has tables, graphs, and figures, but no pictures. This book was written for serious students of the Beatles.

Table of Contents (approximate)

Front Cover