After igniting the British Invasion with their early rock ‘n’ roll submissions and screaming gigs, The Beatles sought to capitalise on their success by releasing movies to accompany their music releases. At the time, it was a novel idea for a band to create a feature-length movie in such a way. A Hard Day’s Night, the successful musical comedy directed by Richard Lester, marked John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s first foray into soundtracking.
Released on July 6th, 1964, A Hard Day’s Night stars John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr alongside Steptoe and Son star Wilfred Brambell in the role of McCartney’s grandfather. The basic plotline follows The Beatles over two days, during which they struggle to keep themselves and McCartney’s mischievous grandfather in check while they prepare for a live TV performance.
The entertaining narrative is unfurled over 90 minutes with dialogue written by Alun Owen and lots of perfectly goofy shots of the Fab Four clowning around. However, the biggest attraction, of course, is the music. The soundtrack consisted of songs from side one of the album of the same name, which hit the shelves on July 10th, 1964. Although the tracks aren’t integral to the concept, they were recorded with the movie in mind as a means of publicity.
Recording sessions for the album began on George Harrison’s 21st birthday, kicking off with McCartney’s ‘And I Love Her’ and Lennon’s ‘I Should Have Known Better’. By the end of February, most of the album was recorded, but Lennon created two last-minute songs to round out the soundtrack, ‘If I Fell’ and ‘Tell Me Why’, the latter to serve as the movie’s closing song.
During a 1980 interview with Playboy, Lennon reflected on ‘If I Fell’ as an early favourite and something of a turning point. “That’s my first attempt at a ballad proper,” he said. “It shows that I wrote sentimental love ballads way back when.”
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In David Shaff’s book All We Are Saying, Lennon discussed ‘Tell Me Why’ as a spur-of-the-moment composition. “They needed another upbeat song, and I just knocked it off,” he said. “It was like a black-New-York-girl-group song.”
Despite the song’s simplicity and brief gestation, Lennon was rather fond of it. He once listed it among his favourite songs from the A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack. “There are four I really go for [in the film]: ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘If I Fell’, ‘I Should Have Known Better’ – a song with harmonica we feature during the opening train sequence – and ‘Tell Me Why’, a shuffle number that comes at the end of the film,” Lennon noted in Anthology.
Lennon may have seen ‘Tell Me Why’ as a simple shuffle track, composed of short, rhyming lines: “Well, I gave you everything I had / But you left me sitting on my own / Did you have to treat me oh, so bad? / All I do is hang my head and moan.” However, McCartney once opined that, perhaps absently, the lyrics simmered over Lennon’s fractious relationship with his first wife, Cynthia.
“I think a lot of these songs like ‘Tell Me Why’ may have been based in real experiences or affairs John was having or arguments with Cynthia or whatever, but it never occurred to us until later to put that slant on it all,” McCartney said in Many Years From Now.
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Listen to ‘Tell Me Why’ below.
