Recorded: 17 October 1963
29 January 1964
25, 26, 27 February 1964
1 March 1964
1, 2, 4 June 1964
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 20 July 1964
Personnel
John Lennon: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, tambourine, handclaps
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar, piano, handclaps
George Harrison: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, claves, handclaps
Ringo Starr: vocals, drums, congas, tambourine, handclaps
George Martin: piano
Tracklisting
‘I’ll Cry Instead’‘Things We Said Today’
‘Any Time At All’
‘When I Get Home’
‘Slow Down’
‘Matchbox’
‘Tell Me Why’
‘And I Love Her’
‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’
‘If I Fell’
‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’
Something New was The Beatles’ third Capitol Records album released in the US. It was recorded between October 1963 and June 1964, and was released in July 1964.
The album contains eleven songs, eight of which were included on the UK album A Hard Day’s Night. The remaining songs were ‘Slow Down’ and ‘Matchbox’ from the Long Tall Sally EP; and ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’, the German-language version of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.
Something New was released less than a month after the United Artists soundtrack LP for A Hard Day’s Night, and five songs – ‘I’ll Cry Instead’, ‘Tell Me Why’, ‘And I Love Her’, ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’, and ‘If I Fell’ – appeared on both releases.
It was issued in mono and stereo, and was also the only early Beatles album by Capitol to contain all tracks in true stereo. Other releases by the label had a mix of true stereo and mock stereo, where one side of the spectrum had the treble slashed and the other side had the bass removed.
The mono version of Something New contained several alternate versions. The most notable is ‘I’ll Cry Instead’, which contains an additional verse – the first verse repeated. This was edited out of the UK releases. The precise reason for the discrepancy is unclear; it is likely that George Martin decided to make the edit once the mono mixes were complete and a copy for Capitol had been made.
‘When I Get Home’ has different vocals during the bridge (“Till I walk out that door again”). ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘If I Fell’ do not have double-track vocals in the mono mixes, and ‘Any Time At All’ has a different instrumental bridge compared to other mono mixes.
The release
Something New was released on 20 July 1964 as Capitol T-2108 (mono) and Capitol ST-2108 (stereo).
It spent nine weeks at number two on the Billboard Top LPs chart, held off the top by the A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack album.
The album was also released in Canada, Costa Rica, Germany, Netherlands, and Peru, and by Parlophone at American Armed Forces bases in Europe, with similar artwork and identical running orders for each. The German version had an extended edit of ‘And I Love Her’ which repeated the end riff six times instead of four.
Something New was first released on compact disc in 2004, as part of the box set The Capitol Albums, Volume 1. This included the stereo and mono versions on one disc.
The album was also included in the 2014 box set The US Albums, although this featured the remastered UK mono and stereo mixes, rather than the ones used on the original Capitol releases.
Sleeve notes
Here is the third great Beatles album for Capitol. And needless to say it’s wonderful in the very special and exclusively marvelous Beatles way! Here are the latest, greatest new Beatles hits the boys have come up with since their first two phenomenal Capitol albums. All but two (including five hits from the picture) are written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the two busy Beatles who just keep on turning out smash songs not only for their own foursome but for other singers as well. One of the most popular is Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand, the German-language version the boys made of their sensational Capitol hit, I Want To Hold Your Hand.And now the Beatles are movie stars! The four great Liverpool guys who’ve made so many worldwide headlines you wouldn’t think they get any more famous have made a motion picture that is sure to be a smash hit in the farthest flung corners of the globe. And here in this album are five hit vocals from that movie, United Artists’ A Hard Day’s Night, which is, of course, the Beatles’ first! Now their fans can see John, George, Paul and Ringo giant-size on the screen and plat the big hits from the picture on their HiFi and Stereo sets between trips to the movies!
Produced in England by George Martin and in the U.S.A. with the assistance of Dave Dexter, Jr.
The songs they DIDN’T include from the movie ‘A Hard Days Night’ were the title track, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘I Should Have Known Better’, which were included in the Fab Four’s final album, ‘Hey Jude’, released in 1970, which was a hodge-podge, made up mostly of tracks that hadn’t found their way onto LP’s. I’m guessing that they also didn’t have the rights (at the time) to the title track ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.