Beatles biographer Hunter Davies has collected nearly a hundred original manuscripts of Beatles songs for his new book.
Reading the words now, and probably trying too hard to work out
exactly what he [John] is trying to say, it would seem the message is
simple: work hard, bring the money home, and you will get marital bliss.
There is a slight hint of a chauvinism when he moans that he is working
all day for money so she can have things.
Maureen Cleave of the London Evening Standard was one of the first journalists to write intelligently and revealingly about The Beatles.
She happened to be interviewing John on the day they were to record the
song and went with him to Abbey Road in a taxi. During the journey,
John showed her the words of the song, written down on an old birthday
card given to [his son] Julian – he had recently had his first birthday –
with an illustration of a little boy on a toy train.
“I said to him that I thought one line of the song was rather feeble.
It originally said: ‘But when I get home to you, I find my tiredness is
through, then I feel all right’. Seizing my pen, John immediately
changed the second line of it and came up with the slightly suggestive:
‘I find the things that you do, will make me feel all right’.”
The
lyrics of “A Hard Day’s Night” received a deft backhanded compliment
when Peter Sellers produced a record in which he recited all the words
in the manner of Laurence Olivier declaiming Shakespeare. It was very
convincing.
The manuscript, which he gave to Maureen, is on show today in the
Manuscript Room at the British Library, along with several others on
permanent loan from a kind person. The colours of the birthday-card
train are still remarkably vivid. You can also see where John changed
the words at Maureen’s suggestion – though the original words are not
totally clear. There is also an amendment towards the end: “everything’s
right from the start” was dropped, along with a line that appears to
read “I hope you realise with my heart’.
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