#48: Any Time At All

Written by: John Lennon & Paul McCartney
Released: July 10, 1964
Appears on: A Hard Day's Night
Lead vocal: John

I don't have a vinyl copy of A Hard Day's Night (yet), so I just have to imagine the feeling of dropping the needle on the second side.

Sure, the crack-intro for "Any Time At All" isn't as ridiculously amazing as George's guitar note, but it still calls your attention to it. It is more or less a typical John song of the time, especially when compared to his material on with the beatles. The subject features a guy who is ready to do anything for his girl and be there whenever she calls, again, like many of the other songs by John. At this time he seems to be fixated with proving his worth to the girl he is singing to and I wouldn't doubt it if that has to do with his rocky relationship with his wife, Cynthia.

This song never got a single release, but was included on Capitol's Something New, along with the other non-film songs. It is on 1975's Rock 'n' Roll Music, which is kind of like listening to the Beatles on speed.

Now, what's the deal with this non-film track talk? As you all know, British albums had 14 songs. Of course, in a 90-minute film, you can't have 14 songs (unless it's a musical, which A Hard Day's Night was never intended to be). Richard Lester was presented with the songs that the Beatles were working on at the time and he chose seven songs he wanted in the film. So, the Beatles and George Martin came up with the brilliant idea of using Side Two to present the six remaining songs from the sessions.

Of course, in the US, United Artists could only release songs used in the film, as those were the only ones that they could get publishing rights to. (This is why all the songs are co-published by MacLen and UnArt on the US soundtrack.) So, UA filled the rest of the LP's running time with four George Martin scores (none of them actually from the film), plus "I'll Cry Instead", which was originally in the film (and always mislabeled "I Cry Instead").

Capitol, however, could release the songs on 45s, which is why all, but "Tell Me Why", were issued on 45s. Capitol had to capitalize on it, even if it meant releasing a new Beatle single a week! All of the non-film songs landed on Something New and none of them (except "I'll Cry Instead") were released as singles.