The four early studio albums can be broken down further into two groups. The first group I covered the past two days. The second group, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles for Sale marked a big turning point for the band. First off, from here on, almost all of the Beatles songs are original songs. They would still do a few more covers, but basically they were recording their own work. Second, they were touring extensively all over the world. This tour schedule would later get so hectic that they band decided to stop touring by the end of 1966.
The movie and album were both release at the very height of Beatlemania and for some this is the quintessential early Beatles album. The A side is perhaps one of the best “sides” of an album of all time. These songs show Lennon and McCartney begin to come into their own as songwriters, and in particular John as he contributed most of the songs on this album. This album together with Beatles for Sale, mark the transition from the simple rock and roll of the earlier two albums and the experimental compositions of Rubber Soul and Revolver. Two other interesting facts about this album are that it is the only album that features ONLY Lennon/McCartney songs and it is the only album that does not feature one song with Ringo Starr as lead singer.
My two picks from this album are the two slower songs, one written by Lennon and one by McCartney. If I Fell, written primarily by John Lennon is notable for a few reasons. First it does not fit the Beatles usual style of writing. It begins with an introduction that is not repeated at all during the song, and has no middle eight section. What might be called a chorus is really a continuation of the verse. There are very intricate chord changes in the song and John and Paul sang this in two part harmony into one microphone. This all shows how they were becoming more comfortable with writing and the progression from rock and roll to the experimental work that came later.
And I Love Her, was written primarily by Paul and is typical of later works where one of them would write the majority of a song and the other would contribute the middle eight.
Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh5YwjfaCXk]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8fNDfdjXd8]