I Should Have Known Better

By sheer coincidence, the only two songs that Capitol Records ever chose as alternate B-sides for singles by the Beatles occur back to back in an alphabetical list of the group's output.  Having just covered I Saw Her Standing There (which replaced This Boy as the flip side of I Want to Hold Your Hand here in America), we now move on to I Should Have Known Better.  In this instance, Capitol wanted another song from the film soundtrack on the B-side of A Hard Day's Night instead of Things We Said Today as on the UK single.

I Should Have Known Better was among the songs written specifically for the soundtrack during the group's three week engagement in Paris in January of 1964.  Back at Abbey Road Studios in England on February 25th, the boys began a week of recording sessions before principal photography of the film commenced.  They attempted three takes of this song at the end of the evening session, but the arrangement wasn't quite correct.

On the following afternoon, a full three hour session was required to perfect the number.  Take nine, the first take that John sang without playing harmonica, proved to be the master.  It wasn't until take twenty-two that his double-tracked vocal line and his harmonica part were complete.

The song is featured early in the film as the band joins Paul's grandfather in the luggage compartment of the train and they begin playing cards.  The schoolgirls they have met gather round and the boys soon have their instruments and perform the number.  This sequence, which includes the wonderful Wilfrid Brambell as Paul's grandfather and Patti Boyd as one of the schoolgirls, was actually filmed on a set at Twickenham Film Studios on March 11th.  The song is played again at the concert near the end of the film.  This was shot on March 31st at the Scala Theatre.  Though Paul appears to be singing in both sequences, he does not sing on the recording, as this song was 100% Lennon's.

The tune was naturally included on the album in the UK, as well as on the EP Extracts from the Film A Hard Day's Night.  United Artists released it on the official soundtrack album in the US before Capitol's single appeared.  Capitol considered putting it on the album Something New, but decided against it.  In February of 1970, the song resurfaced on the compilation Hey Jude, an album which supposedly gathered up all of the songs that had not yet been released on a Capitol album.  If so, A Hard Day's Night should have been included in this collection, as well, yet it was conspicuously absent.

The group played I Should Have Known Better for the BBC a few times to promote the film, then brought it back in the fall of '64 as part of their stage act for a tour of Britain.