Album: A Hard Day’s Night
Year: 1964.
With George Harrison’s iconic Rickenbacker chord signalling a new phase of both lyrical and musical sophistication, “A Hard Day’s Night” is quite possibly my favorite Beatles song.
I mean, what’s not to love: John & Paul trading off vocals, the overtly sexual words, two Georges on the solo, and all of the extra percussion throughout, epitomized by the cowbell underpinning Paul’s bit.
It all adds up to one of the greatest pure pop songs in history, and I would argue, maybe the first power pop song ever recorded, though I guess you could really apply that label to any of the early great Beatles uptempo singles.
We covered this in Sedan Delivery, and all I did throughout the entire song was bash my drums in double-time, desperately attempting to recapture the joy and energy that comes through every time I hear this song.
Opening sequence from the film A Hard Day’s Night