UK single and album release: A Hard Day’s Night

Both the ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ single and album were released on this day in the United Kingdom.

The single was The Beatles’ first not to have a pronoun in its title. Its b-side was ‘Things We Said Today’, and the single had the catalogue number Parlophone R 5160.

It entered the UK charts on 18 July, and a week later knocked The Rolling Stones’ ‘It’s All Over Now’ from the number one spot. It remained there for three weeks, and spent a further nine weeks in the charts.

The album was issued as PMC 1230 (mono) and PCS 3058 (stereo). It was the only Beatles album to feature just Lennon–McCartney songs. Side one contained songs from the film soundtrack, and the flipside featured six more songs.

The A Hard Day’s Night album had advance orders of over 250,000. It hit number one on 25 July 1964, where it remained for an astonishing 21 consecutive weeks. In all it spent 38 weeks in the UK charts, and by the end of 1964 had sold more than 600,000 copies.

In the week beginning Monday 3 August 1964, The Beatles topped the US and UK singles and album charts with the same-titled releases – the only time such a feat has been achieved.