Any Time At All
(Lennon/McCartney)
Emi Ltd Records
2' 10

When all the songs necessary for the making of A Hard Day's Night  «were delivered», there were still six other songs to write which wouldn't be used in the film, but would fill the B-side of the forthcoming album. Any Time At All is the first of these six songs.

This rock'n'roll was composed by John Lennon and recorded on June 2, 1964. As usual, The Beatles had very little time to carry out the necessary sound recordings for setting out the song.

This time, an additional problem occured for they wanted to record whereas John had not yet complete the writing of his piece. It took seven takes before the band realized that they should urgently finish the composition in order to be able to conclude the recording.

John finished his writing then by adding a rather gentle bridge which contrasts with the violent tone of the remainder of the piece. Then The Beatles could finish the recording session before the end of the day.

The recording of Any Time At All features John on acoustic guitar and solo vocal, recorded on two tracks. Paul McCartney and George Martin play on piano, and George Harrison plays on a twelve-strings guitar. 

The instrumental bridge is based on a very successful duet in which Paul's piano backs George Harrison's guitar.

Later on, Lennon will admit that Any Time At All is actually a disguised variation of It Won't Be Long which he had written for With The Beatles. The two songs have indeed the same chords progression and they are sung by John in the same tone.

John will denounce other songs of the Lennon/McCartney repertory as variations of the same kind, namely Yes It Is as a variation of This Boy, Paperback Writer as a revision of Day Tripper and Get Back as a variation of Lady Madonna ...