Tell Me Why

I think it's fair to say that Tell Me Why is the least-known song from the film A Hard Day's Night.  Somehow, this powerful little number was the only one of the seven official soundtrack songs to not be issued on a single by Capitol Records, while I'll Cry Instead was released as an A-side and mistakenly credited as being from the movie on the label of that single, as well as on two different American albums!  Yet, Tell Me Why was chosen by director Richard Lester to open the climactic concert sequence in the film, which brilliantly depicts the Beatles at the peak of their performing abilities, driving an adoring audience to an absolute frenzy.

The boys were big fans of girl group numbers, and had already recorded several of them in 1963, including Please Mister Postman, Chains, Boys and Devil in Her Heart, but this was the first time that they purposefully attempted to create a song in that style.  Lennon's comment that "they needed another upbeat song and I just knocked it off" indicates that it was a last-minute addition to the soundtrack.

On February 27th, 1964, in the middle of the week scheduled to record the soundtrack songs for the film, Tell Me Why was the second of three numbers which received attention.  It required eight takes to arrive at the master.  The three-part harmonies of John, Paul and George, as well as John's solo lines, were then all double-tracked to give a fuller vocal sound than ever before.  The dynamic vocals are piled on top of sharp guitar work from John and George, a walking bass line from Paul, and the tumbling drum fills of Ringo.  Producer George Martin also added a piano part to the track before it was considered to be complete. 

When preparing the mono mix of the song, Martin chose to keep John's solo lines single-tracked (which, of course, is the way they are heard in the film), though the double-tracking is faintly audible much of the time.  He opted for the double-tracking of those lines for the stereo mix, which was done at a later date.

American audiences got to hear the song first, on the United Artists official soundtrack album A Hard Day's Night.  One month later, Capitol Records was allowed to release the song on the album Something New.  In the UK, it appeared on the Parlophone album A Hard Day's Night.  And, while Capitol had not released the song on a single in the US, Parlophone did include it on the EP Extracts from the Film A Hard Day's Night.

Aside from miming to the song on the day of filming the concert sequence for the film, the Beatles never performed the song again, which I think is a shame for such a terrific number.