"A Hard Day's Night" had it's genesis from the movie of the same name. The Beatles had been
keen to appear in motion pictures ever since they had seen "The Girl Can't Help It" as
teenagers. While the story line was still in the planning stages, Director Richard Lester
had asked Lennon how they found Sweden during their tour of the country. His reply, "Oh, it
was a room and a car and a car and a room and a room and a car." provided them with the
concept.
The actual script was written by Alun Owen who spent three days with the group during a tour
of Ireland, flying into Dublin with them from London Airport on November 7, 1963 and stayed
with them up until their gig at East Ham on the 9th.
The title of the song was long said to have come from Ringo Starr, when during a particularly
grueling evening of engagements and recording (supposedly on March 19th, 1964) he had reportedly
said "...it's been a hard day's..." and then seeing it was already dark, finished with
"...night!". In reality it may be more than a coincidence that the phrase appears in John
Lennon's book In His Own Write, specifically in his "Sad Michael" story...
"There was no reason for Michael to be sad that morning, (the little wretch); everyone liked him,
(the scab). He'd had a hard days night that day, for Michael was a Cocky Watchtower..."
Whatever the reason, once it was decided, it was up to Lennon and McCartney to come up
with a song with that title. That they did within a few days of the decision. The song was
record and the title was announced to the press on April 17th.
- John Lennon: I dug "A Hard Day's Night", although Alun Owen only
came with us for two days before he wrote the script. He invented
that word "grotty" - did you know that?
We thought the word was really weird, and George curled up with
embarrassment every time he had t say it.
But it's part of the language now - you can hear society people
using it. Amazing.
- Ringo Starr (in 1964) - "We went to do a job, and we'd worked all day and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, 'It's been a hard day...' and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, '...night!' So we came to 'A Hard Day's Night.'"
- John Lennon (in 1980) - "I was going home in the car and Dick Lester suggested the title, 'Hard Day's Night' from something Ringo had said. I had used it in 'In His Own Write,' but it was an off-the-cuff remark by Ringo. You know, one of those malapropisms. A Ringo-ism, where he said it not to be funny... just said it. So Dick Lester said, 'We are going to use that title.' And the next morning I brought in the song... "
- Paul McCartney (in 1994) - "The title was Ringo's. We'd almost finished making the film, and this fun bit arrived that we'd not known about before, which was naming the film. So we were sitting around at Twickenham studios having a little brain-storming session... and we said, 'Well, there was something Ringo said the other day.' Ringo would do these little malapropisms, he would say things slightly wrong, like people do, but his were always wonderful, very lyrical... they were sort of magic even though he was just getting it wrong. And he said after a concert, 'Phew, it's been a hard day's night.'"
