I'll Cry InsteadWell, you've watched A Hard Day's Night many times by now. Have you ever wondered why Can't Buy Me Love appears twice in the film?
On 22 and 23 April 1964, The Beatles filmed the "escape scene" for A Hard Day's Night where they went down the iron staircase and ran around playfully in Thornbury Playing Fields in Middlesex, London. When filmed, the scene still had no backing score. John Lennon wrote I'll Cry Instead for this scene but Richard Lester didn't want to use it. "I wrote (I'll Cry Instead) for A Hard Day's Night," explained Lennon in 1980, "but Dick Lester didn't even want it. He resurrected Can't Buy Me Love for that sequence instead."
Can't Buy Me Love was released in March 1964 and was immediately popular, going to #1 in the Billboard Hot 100. This, no doubt, influenced Richard Lester's choice of songs for the escape scene.
After The Beatles completed filming A Hard Day's Night on 24 April 1964, they took a one month vacation and returned to EMI Studio Two on 1 June 1964 to record I'll Cry Instead. The Beatles chose to record the song in two sections to be edited together later. Thus we have two versions of the song; the full 2:09 version appearing in the United States on the United Artists soundtrack album A Hard Day's Night and the edited short version (1:49 - the second verse deleted) appearing in the UK on the Parlophone A Hard Day's Night LP.
I'll Cry Instead reached #25 in the Billboard Hot 100 and spent seven weeks in the chart, including two in the Top 30. The Beatles chose not to perform this song at any point in their career. During their first world tour in the latter half of 1964, they promoted the movie soundtrack by performing the title track as well as the intricate If I Fell.
The first VHS release of A Hard Day's Night in the early 1980s had this photo montage set to the full version of I'll Cry Instead preceding the start of the movie...
John Lennon - Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar (1962 Gibson J160E)
George Harrison - Lead Guitar (1963 Gretsch 6122 Country Gentleman)
Paul McCartney - Bass Guitar (1963 Hofner 500/1)
Ringo Starr - Drums (1964 Ludwig Super Classic Black Oyster Pearl), Tambourine