Squid Flicks: A Hard Day's Night

Title: A Hard Day's Night

Director: Richard Lester

Original Release: July 6, 1964

My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Especially as I get older, I try to take closer notice of the things that bring me joy.  Time with family and good friends?  Check.  Science fiction?  Check, and especially Trek these days, obviously.  Sports?  I do obsess over baseball - yes, even in the off season.  Music?  That almost goes without saying.  And I can't deny, nearly 40 years after I first fell in love with them, that it's still The Fab Four above all others.  The Beatles are and have always been the very embodiment of joy - for me and for literally millions of other people over multiple generations.

So, you don't think the Beatles are the greatest band ever?  Okay.  Let's play a game.  You pick your challenger, any popular music act in history.  (I willingly concede that classical and jazz are higher leagues.)  Not only that, but you get to decide on the best eight years of that act's run.  Ready?

What are the 10 best songs from your act's 8 best years.  I would offer The Beatles' 10 best.  For demonstration purposes, my personal favorites off the top of my head...

• Here, There and Everywhere
• In My Life
• Tomorrow Never Knows
• Help!
• Something
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps
• Yesterday
• Let It Be
• Here Comes the Sun
• I Am the Walrus

At this point, your group might look pretty good.  Numerous acts could put together a solid 10 from their peak years.  

How about the best 20?  Harder now, isn't it?    Bear in mind, for my boys, this couldn't even yet cover all of the Billboard #1s, and those aren't even necessarily The Beatles' best songs.  In fact, they're not.  Still like your list better?  Fine.

(I'll happily keep listing songs for anyone who will take me up on this challenge.)

Best 50.  You're scraping now or at least you will be soon.  For me, we haven't even gotten to proper hidden gems territory yet.

Best 100.  Wait, 100?!!!  Most other bands don't even have 100 songs over 8 years!  Fine.  Of course, you're making my argument for me.  I'll give you another 8 years if you want.  Hell, I'll give you your band's full run if that's what it takes to dredge up 100 decent songs.  I'm still winning.

But what about those covers?  "Twist and Shout" doesn't count!  Fine, but then they don't for your band either.  In fact, if anyone other than a band member even has a writing credit, that song is out.  See ya, Elton John.  Elvis has definitely left the building.

Best 200.  You see my point, I hope.  The longer the list gets, the more ridiculous comparisons become.  The second tier, third tier, fourth tier Beatles songs are more often than not genuinely masterful.  Even the best bands had to pad their albums with fluff.  The Beatles' fluff is still dazzling.  And the first tier is massive.

The final tally for The Beatles was 213 songs released between October 1962 and May 1970.  Folks, they did it all in eight years.  There is no comparison with anyone else.

For the record, if you picked Stevie Wonder, I'd be nervous.  I'd still win but I'd be nervous.

Still not convinced?  I could offer the Third Best Beatle argument.  George Harrison had a better, more interesting and more influential career than the third best member of your band, no contest.  Was he helped by the fact he was a Beatle?  Of course.  So were John and Paul, I assure you.  And your guy had advantages by association, too.  George still made more of his opportunities.

Or the Liverpool argument.  If you're neither British nor a football (soccer) fan, the most likely reason you've even heard of Liverpool, a city of half a million people, is The Beatles.  The band and its history are vital elements of Liverpool's tourist industry.  Few other musicians can stake that sort of claim to a major city.  Maybe Mozart in Salzburg or Elvis in Memphis.  End of list.

100 years from now, new generations will still be discovering The Beatles.  The joy will endure, perhaps even grow.  There will still be kids falling in love with them as I did.  Like me, once they get past the big hits, they'll experience the same delight in finding songs like "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" or "For No One" or "The Inner Light."  I didn't even properly appreciate that last one myself until, I don't know, my late 40s.  Never made it onto an album - not even in the US where practically all of them made it onto LPs.  Was only ever a B-side to "Lady Madonna."  Yet it's possibly the best of George's India songs.  And a Star Trek episode is named for it - one of the best Star Trek episodes!

Your band does not have a song like "The Inner Light."

No joke, I could go on like this for pages and pages.  Perhaps I will someday.  For now, I should get back to the movie...

I had the house to myself this past weekend - just me and the cats.  I am about as introverted as a person can be so, as much as I love my family, time to myself is vital to my well-being.  What better way to make the most of it than with Beatles movies?

In 1964, it was all just beginning.  A Hard Day's Night is technically a mockumentary but the constantly being mobbed in public was real.  And so was the personal charm.  The Beatles were definitely not professional actors.  They were just walking about being themselves.  The playfulness you see on screen was effortless.  John's comic timing in the "You look just like him" scene is impeccable.  He said himself, everyone in Liverpool's a comedian.  Seeing that in action is magical.

A Hard Day's Night is no fluff piece, either.  Sure, it was thrown together quickly to capitalize on the mania but Lester took the job seriously.  Numerous filmmakers claim it as an inspiration.

And, of course, the most enduring stars are the songs themselves...

• Two singles went to #1: "Can't Buy Me Love," one of the best-selling 45s of the 1960s, and "A Hard Day's Night," my choice as the very best of their pre-1965 catalog.  
• "I Should Have Known Better" would probably have been a #1 if it hadn't been a B-side.  Oh, the list of Beatles B-sides...  That would trounce your band's list soundly.
• The lovely "If I Fell" was one of Lennon/McCartney's "early attempts at a ballad," in John's words.  They figured out that particular trick quickly.  The following year, they'd crank out "Yesterday" and "In My Life" among other timeless masterpieces.
• Leading the charge for the previously released material is "She Loves You," so easily dismissed upon first listening as a dippy bubblegum hit and boy did it sell.  In the UK, it's the band's all-time #1.  The more you listen, the more you appreciate the musical genius behind the goofy lyrics.
• Naturally, the soundtrack album topped the charts, too.

Through it all, joy - pure, unadulterated joy.  

Thank you for reading.