“That pleased me somewhat”: The Beatles hit that none of the members played on

There’s an undeniable chemistry that comes with being in any great rock band. Although everyone might not have the same amount of musical training as their partners, there’s that moment where everything clicks and they can practically tell exactly where their colleagues are going with a song a few seconds before the next section comes. And while The Beatles were the last band to worry about musical theory, they did at least have that special bond whenever they tore through their classics onstage.

Granted, that all came from years of practice. The whole premise of the band started when they were gigging in Hamburg, and even though Ringo Starr wasn’t in the group yet, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison were given a trial-by-fire schedule when they were required to play for eight hours at a time with no breaks in between. It may have been hard work, but nothing gets one’s chops up faster than playing every single night.

While Starr wasn’t yet in the picture, it took a true professional to see what was wrong. Pete Best was a serviceable drummer, but there was an undeniable rub between how the rest of them played and how he kept the beat. And despite poor Ringo being demoted to tambourine on their first single, ‘Love Me Do’, they were a well-oiled machine when they started working on A Hard Day’s Night.

After two albums of nothing but typical rock and roll numbers, this was the first time that Lennon and McCartney came into their own as songwriters. Every tune included in the movie could have been any other band’s greatest hit, but when looking at what the American market got, most of them were cheated out of a handful of tunes on the B-side with George Martin’s orchestral score.

Then again, is that really a drawback? Martin was known as the ‘Fifth Beatle’ for many reasons, but his knowledge of melody was always what kept the band rolling throughout the years. Hearing versions of tunes like ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ were fun, but it takes a certain level of talent to get an orchestral version of a song in the charts when the proper version is already being played on the radio.

“I had scored an instrumental version of ‘This Boy’ as part of the background music, and I used it for the sequence where Ringo is wandering by the river. We called it ‘Ringo’s Theme’, and it got into the charts in America.”
“George Martin”

Right as A Hard Day’s Night was reaching its peak in theatres, Martin remembered getting his version of ‘This Boy’ into the charts, saying, “I had scored an instrumental version of ‘This Boy’ as part of the background music, and I used it for the sequence where Ringo is wandering by the river. We called it ‘Ringo’s Theme’, and it got into the charts in America as an orchestral record – that pleased me somewhat.”

And perhaps with the exception of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, this is one of the best musical scenes in the film. Starr walking around looking lonely may have seemed like some of the most boring shots in the history of film, but having that sad music playing in the background might have done wonders for Starr’s career later when he started to pick up some more experience working on the silver screen.

So while The Beatles never got to play on one of their US hits, it shouldn’t be a slam against their craft. It’s all down to the fact that no matter what he was working with, George Martin always knew how to make melodies sound even better once the strings were brought into the mix.