Throwback Thursday: Beatles for Sale

Beatles for Sale is album four for the Fab Four, released on December 4, 1964 (that's a lot of fours).  Like most of The Beatles' albums, it contains fourteen tracks.  Just like previous albums, it has six covers: "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby", "Words of Love", "Rock and Roll Music", "Mr Moonlight", medley "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!" and "Honey Don't", sung by drummer Ringo Starr.  George Harrison lends his vocals on this album to only "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" while usually he would sing lead on two songs. Track 2 "I'm a Loser", primarily penned by John Lennon, is said to be influenced by the distinctive style of Bob Dylan, who the group had met in August.

Many tracks have sombre and sad tones and lyrics to them.  The songwriters themselves have been found to be dismissive of and are not too fond of some of the tracks.  McCartney dismissed his song "What You're Doing" as "a bit of a filler".  Similarly, Lennon referred to "Eight Days a Week" as "lousy", despite the popularity of both these songs.

1964 was such a colossal year for the Fab Four.  Their world tours and frequent performances at the height of Beatlemania, and the fact that that year they had already recorded an album and made a movie, were main contributing factors to this. As a result, the boys became weary, as can be seen on the album cover, which was photographed by Robert Freeman (he also took the photographs for the covers of With the Beatles, Help! and Rubber Soul).  Much of the songwriting for the album had to be done in the recording studios as their tight schedule allowed for little spare time to do so.

As to be expected, the album met with a positive reaction from fans.  Concurrently, it remained on the top of the charts in the UK during the rest of 1964 and in 1965 until it was knocked off the top spot by successor album Help!  The album was also not released in the US until 1987.  Instead, another album, Beatles '65, was released, containing only eight of Beatles for Sale's songs.  Again, similarly to With the Beatles, the album art was different for the Australian release.  The cover used by EMI Australia is quite different to the original - it contains pictures of the four performing in Sydney earlier that year.  No singles were produced from this album (except "Eight Days a Week", which was released in America).

Unique to this Beatles album: it contains the only medley released as one track on a studio album - "Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!".

The Australian album cover

Yoko Oh-no She's Dancing!

John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, has been seen recently busting some moves at both this year's Grammy awards and the 50th anniversary concert honouring The Beatles' first visit to America (especially their performances on the Ed Sullivan Show).  Fans of the 81-year-old questioned her questionable dancing.  Read an article here about it and watch a clip of some of her moves, repeated and in slow-mo!

Throwback Thursday: A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night is different from every other Beatles album in a single interesting way - it is the only album to solely feature Lennon/McCartney compositions.  All thirteen tracks are originals from the dynamic duo, with no covers.  Recorded mainly in early 1964, the record was released on 10 July 1964.  Two singles are products of the album - "Can't Buy Me Love", backed by "You Can't Do That" and "A Hard Day's Night", backed by "Things We Said Today".  The title of the album, and titular song, was what was dubbed by Lennon as a 'Ringo-ism', a funny line that Starr had said in passing.

The first track on the album, sharing its name, is immediately recognisable by its obscure jaunty opening chord.  The chord, which was played on Harrison's 12-string Rickenbacker, opens both the album/song and the film.  There has been much debate about which chord it actually is.  It has been said to be a G7sus4, Dm7sus4 and an Fadd9 (as described by Harrison in 2001), among others.

A Hard Day's Night also marks the first (and only, apart from Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be) album to not feature a song sung by drummer Ringo.  Only one song, "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You", is sung lead by George Harrison.  The rest of the tracks are either sung by Paul or John, or both, with an approximate even split.

Side one of the album (featuring tracks "A Hard Day's Night", "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Should Have Known Better", "If I Fell", "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You", "And I Love Her" and "Tell Me Why") is actually the soundtrack to the film of the same name.  The black-and-white film was released four days before the album.  The remaining six tracks found on the LP were not featured in the film.  "Can't Buy Me Love" is notable for appearing twice in the film.  A synopsis of the film can be read here.  Fun fact: George Harrison met his future wife, Pattie Boyd, on the set of A Hard Day's Night.  She was a schoolgirl extra in the train scene.

Unique to this Beatles album: this album is the only one to feature solely Lennon/McCartney compositions. 

George and Pattie on the set of A Hard Day's Night

Throwback Thursday: With the Beatles

Following the success of their first album, it was only to be expected that another Beatles record would soon make its way to the shelves and the airwaves.  In October 1963, eight months after the release of Please Please Me, The Beatles' second album, With the Beatles, was released. This time, however, they took their time and recorded the album over three months, unlike Please Please Me, which was recorded in one day.

With the Beatles featured the same amount of covers (six) and original songs (eight) as its predecessor, only this time one song, 'Don't Bother Me', was written by George Harrison. The song was his first solely-written composition to be recorded and to feature on a Beatles album. He also sang lead vocals on 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'Devil in Her Heart', both covers. Ringo Starr sung lead on 'I Wanna Be Your Man', a Lennon-McCartney original. The rest of the songs are either sung by Lennon, McCartney or both with Harrison.

The album was not released in the United States until 1987. Instead, a separate album was released in 1964 called Meet the Beatles! The track listing was different to With the Beatles', however. Meet the Beatles! features nine of With the Beatles' songs as well as two 1963 singles ('This Boy' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand') and 'I Saw Her Standing There' from Please Please Me, giving it a total of only twelve songs.

The album, ultimately, was a success.  The album remained at number 1 on the UK charts for 21 weeks, knocking Please Please Me off the top spot.  In 2003  Rolling Stone magazine ranked With the Beatles number 420 of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Fun fact:  EMI, the recording label of which Parlophone was under, in Australia never received the cover art for the album so they improvised and made their own, similar to the actual one, as seen below.

Unique to this Beatles album: it is the first album to feature a composition by George Harrison.

Paul and Ringo Rehearsing 'Queenie Eye'

Watch Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr rehearsing 'Queenie Eye', which they performed together recently at the Grammys.  Listen to them say some heartwarming things about each other! 

Throwback Thursday: Please Please Me

The cover of this 1963 album, featuring four soon-to-be legendary baby-faced early-twenties-year olds, is as well-known as the songs themselves.  In fact, a picture from the same shoot was used for the cover of the 1962 - 1966 compilation album, and a 1969 recreation photo for the 1967 - 1970 album (both released in 1973).

October 1962 saw the release of The Beatles' first single, 'Love Me Do', with 'P.S. I Love You' as the B-side.  As an interesting fact, this version of 'Love Me Do' (the second of three studio recordings) was the first released recording to feature all four Beatles. However, Ringo Starr played the tambourine instead of his designated instrument - session drummer Andy White played the drums.  In January of the following year, their next single was released - 'Please Please Me', backed by 'Ask Me Why'.  Due to the success of these two singles, an album was to be recorded and rush-released by recording label Parlophone.

The album is renowned for having been entirely recorded in just under thirteen hours. Standard 12" LPs contained fourteen songs and with four songs written already (the singles), the album required ten more.  February 11, 1963 was the day that the entire album was recorded.  Please Please Me contains eight songs written by dynamic duo Lennon/McCartney, whilst the remaining tracks were covers.  In addition to their singles, Lennon and McCartney provided 'Misery', 'Do You Want to Know a Secret' (sung by George Harrison), 'There's a Place' and favourite 'I Saw Her Standing There'.

At the end of the day, after a hard day's work, it was time to record the last song - 'Twist and Shout'.  Many would know the classic from 80s paradigm Ferris Bueller's Day Off but the fun fact behind its existence is relatively unknown to most people who are not die-hard Beatles fans.  John had developed a cold and the song had to be performed last so as not to ruin his voice for the rest of the recordings.  Producer George Martin was so impressed, that the first take is the one found on the album!

Released in March 1963, Please Please Me, The Beatles' first album, set the standard for the group and skyrocketed them into mega success in the UK and, later, the US.  It only went uphill from there!

Unique to this Beatles album: it was recorded in one day.