一夜狂欢 (1964)

A Hard Day's Night is the third studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 10 July 1964 by Parlophone, with side one containing songs from the soundtrack to their film of the same name. A Hard Day's Night is the band's first album to contain all-original material, penned by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing including some from George Martin's film score.

The album includes the song "A Hard Day's Night", with its distinctive opening chord, and "Can't Buy Me Love", both transatlantic number-one singles for the band. Several songs feature George Harrison playing a Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar, with its sound influencing the Byrds and other groups in the emerging folk rock and jangle pop genres.

Recording

Shortly after the release of With the Beatles (1963), the Beatles were at EMI Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris on 29 January 1964 for their first recording session outside of London. Here, they recorded German-language versions of their two most recent singles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You", titled "Komm, gib mir deine Hand" and "Sie liebt dich", respectively. According to their producer, George Martin, this was done as "they couldn't sell large quantities of records [in Germany] unless they were sung in German". Also recorded—in English—was Paul McCartney's "Can't Buy Me Love", which was completed in only four takes. Shortly afterward, the band gave their first live performance in the United States on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February. They gave more US performances before returning to the United Kingdom on 22 February.

The Beatles were set to begin filming their first major feature film on 2 March 1964. According to historian Mark Lewisohn, the band were set to record songs for both the film and a tie-in LP, of which the songs from the film were completed first. On 25 February—lead guitarist George Harrison's 21st birthday—the band were back at London's EMI Studios, recording John Lennon's "You Can't Do That" for release as the B-side of "Can't Buy Me Love". The band also attempted "And I Love Her" and "I Should Have Known Better" on this day and again the following day, with the former finalised on 27 February. Two more songs from the film, "Tell Me Why" and "If I Fell", were recorded on this day.

On 1 March 1964, the Beatles recorded three songs in three hours: "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" for the film, featuring Harrison on lead vocal; a cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally"; and Lennon's "I Call Your Name", which was originally given to Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas the previous year. Mono and stereo mixing was carried out over the following two weeks. The "Can't Buy Me Love" / "You Can't Do That" single was released on 16 March and topped charts worldwide. Taking a break for filming, drummer Ringo Starr coined the phrase "a hard day's night", providing the film with its title. Lennon and McCartney wrote a song based on the title, which was recorded at EMI on 16 April and mixed four days later.