On 10 July 1964, there was the chord. And while the chord may not have been a new cosmological big bang, it was the sonic equivalent in the pop cultural sense. I’m talking about the ringing, thundering, unlike-any-sound-there-had-ever-been chord that occurs at the start of the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, commencing the album of the same name, which was launched 60 years ago this week. With a single stroke, the Beatles changed the course of western music, and the LP – which was to continue the theme – had barely even begun.
I fell hard for the Beatles in eighth grade, and have written about and pondered them ever since. In church on Sundays I’d spend the hour attempting to rate their albums in my head. Fierce battles were waged. Was Abbey Road making a push for the No 2 spot? Was I prepared to say that Rubber Soul was better than Revolver?
I’ve long known that A Hard Day’s Night was as good an album as the Beatles produced, though I wouldn’t always outwardly admit it, as if holding back on what I understood – which was that it was both perfect and steeped in joy. A euphonic cradle of joy.
We have this tendency to conflate the idea of joy with happiness. They’re different, as A Hard Day’s Night has helped me to understand. Happiness is fun and contentment. Looking forward to something. It’s pain-free. Joy is richer. When it is present – or when it’s found, cultivated – it extends deeper within us. Joy is the life spark. And there’s nothing more admirable or human that we can do than to try to help others locate joy.
Joy is when you help open up a person to parts of themselves they didn’t know existed. It’s acceptance, which is not the same as resignation. Joy makes us want to start again. To grow our passions. To come through the night and seek wonder in the new day. It’s the openness to wonder.
A Hard Day’s Night is a primer in the subject. Like A Christmas Carol, The Wizard of Oz, The Wind in the Willows, It’s a Wonderful Life – joyous works all – it says to us: “Partake of what I am, for what I am is for you.” I’ve listened to A Hard Day’s Night and found this joy in it in happy times and times of hope. But also times when I could barely continue on, times when the concept of hope felt like some awful joke – because I had none.
A Hard Day’s Night is salve and inspiration. Its propulsive electro-power could animate Frankenstein’s monster: the bridges of the title track, the falsetto backing vocals of Tell Me Why, the solar plexus punch – in a good way – of that guitar solo in Can’t Buy Me Love that in turn makes you want to punch the air and shout your head off.
But rarely is A Hard Day’s Night singled out for special commendation among the Beatles’ albums. People are apt to dismiss it as “pop” rather than serious music-making, as with the likes of, say, Sgt Pepper and the White Album.
There’s an irony at play here, because the Beatles were never boxed in. They didn’t allow themselves to be. Their two records predating A Hard Day’s Night were rife with rhythm and blues and rock’n’roll covers, and then they said: “Enough. Let’s go wholly our own way.” John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all the tunes on A Hard Day’s Night, and there was nothing to compare them with, either individually or in the aggregate.
We speak so much about comparables. Everything in art and entertainment is marketed as a combo of this meets that. But the things that last are the works that are only like themselves. There’s a similar idea with humans. Anyone can move with a pack. Most of us do. But when we find our own way, we make vital discoveries. We find ourselves. Our true likes and loves and passions. And we find – and come to understand – joy.
Beatles fans, in going back through time, usually pull up around December 1965 when Rubber Soul was released, venturing no further. But to stop before getting to A Hard Day’s Night is to pull up short on joy. There’s a singularity to happiness. Joy is multifaceted. Fear doesn’t stop joy, nor pain. They’re part of the mix, because this is life, and without them, there’s nothing to rise above, which is what joy allows us to do.
If I Fell, the album’s third track, looks to be a love song, with tender harmonies. But listen closer. A person has been hurt. They want assurances that they won’t be again. They’re frightened. Conflicted. And yet they are alive in that very conflict, in the push-and-pull of losing and loving. They’re becoming aware of this as they go along. This is joy.
Become better aware than you are of A Hard Day’s Night and get better acquainted with joy. We can always keep learning about this wonder of existence and the soul. It’s more than what it seems and so, too, is the joy that is A Hard Day’s Night.
Colin Fleming is an author based in Boston, Massachusetts. He writes widely on music, film, literature and culture
