By: Colin Fleming, Music Critic / The Guardian (Title: Put Sgt Pepper back in its sleeve – after 60 years, A Hard Day's Night is still the Beatles at their joyful best)
Translation: Telegrafi.com
On July 10, 1964, there was a chord. And while the chord may not be the new cosmological big bang, it was the pop-culture equivalent of the sound. I mean the ringing, thundering chord, unlike any sound that had ever been heard before - not like the one at the beginning of the song. A Hard Day's Night of the Beatles, with which the album of the same title begins and which this week turned 60 years after its release. In a single stroke, the Beatles changed the course of Western music.
In eighth grade I was very fond of beetles and have been writing and thinking about them ever since. On Sundays I would spend an hour in church trying to rate their albums in my head. Fierce battles took place. not Abbey Road has the second place? Was I ready to say say that album Rubber Soul is better than Revolver?
I knew that for a long time A Hard Day's Night It was a good album, as the Beatles knew how to make, although I didn't always admit it in public, because I was held back by what I understood - that it was and is perfect and filled with joy. A euphonic cradle of joy.
We tend to confuse the idea of joy with that of happiness. They are different, as the album helped me understand A hard day's night. Happiness is enjoyment and pleasure. Waiting for something. There is no pain. Joy is richer. When it is present - or when you find it - it lies deeper within us. Joy is the spark of life. And, there is nothing more admirable or more human than when we try to help others find joy.
Joy is when you help someone open up to a part of themselves that they didn't know existed. It's acceptance, which is not the same as giving up. Joy makes us want to start over. To grow our passions. To spend the night and seek the miracle in the new day. It's opening up to the amazing.
A hard day's night is a primer on the subject. Like books and movies Christmas carol, The Wizard of Oz, The breath in the willow, Life is wonderful - that all these works are full of joy - says to us: "Take of what I am, for what I am is for you." I have heard it A Hard Day's Night and I have found this joy in happy times and hopeful times. But even at times when I could barely keep up, when the concept of hope felt like a terrible joke.
A hard day's night it is healing and inspiring. His electric driving force could bring Frankenstein's monster to life: the transitions in the lead song, the falsetto backing vocals in the song Tell Me Why, the solar warmth - in the best way - of the solo in the song Can't Buy Me Love, they make you blow up and break free.
But rarely A Hard Day's Night stands out for any particular praise among the band's albums. People tend to dismiss it as "pop" rather than as a serious musical work, like the albums Sgt Pepper and White Album.
There is an irony here, because the Beatles did not limit themselves. They did not allow themselves to be like that. Their two discs that preceded the album A Hard Day's Night, were full of rhythm-and-blues and rock and roll covers, to which they then said: "Enough. Let's just go our separate ways." John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all the melodies in A Hard Day's Night, and there was nothing to compare them to - either individually or in total.
We talk so much about the comparable. Everything in art and entertainment is marketed as a combination of how this fits with that. But the things that last are the works that are just themselves. There's a similar idea with people. Anyone can be part of a crowd. Most of us do. But when we find our way, we make vital discoveries. We find ourselves. Our true likes, loves, and passions. And we find - and come to understand - joy.
Beatle fans, looking back in time, usually stop at December 1965 when the album came out. Rubber Soul, doing nothing to go further. But, stop before you get to A hard day's night, this means giving up joy. There is a feature of happiness. Joy is multifaceted. Fear does not stop joy, nor pain. They are a mixed part, because this is life and without them there is nothing to rise higher, which is what joy allows us to do.
If I Fell, the album's third track, seems like a love song, with light harmonies. But listen more carefully. One person is injured. They want the assurance that they won't be like that again. They are scared. In conflict. And yet, they are alive precisely in that conflict, in the push and tension of loss and love. They are becoming aware of this as they move on. This is joy.
Become more aware of who you are A hard day's night and get to know joy better. We can always continue to learn about this miracle of existence and the soul. It is more than what it seems ... /Telegraph/
