A HARD DAYS NIGHT

The Beatles were the hottest thing around '64. Their third album A Hard Day's Night was a soundtrack for a film of the same name, and it was the first one to contain original songs only (not covers). The opening title track was a No. 1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic and earned the group's first Grammy award. A typical, catchy and uptempo Beatles hit that has good melodies and vocal harmonies. Being so heavily played, I probably wouldn't include it on a self-burnt cd of The Beatles' early output, if I ever were to make one...

... But I would choose the B side song 'Things We Said Today'. I just listened to it from YouTube for the first time and was positively surprised. In the Beatles scale it's rather a minor key song and understandably generally unknown, but all for the better. The way the vocals sound together is impressive, and the melodies are again so fluent and fresh. Just imagine some Mellotron addition in the sound, and this could be a pretty good Moody Blues song from circa 1967.

Well, maybe I should get more familiar with The Beatles' pre- Sgt. Pepper era? :)