Any Time At All, and its incredible recording process.

The Beatles entered EMI Studio Two on June 2nd, 1964 to work on the last three songs needed for the British "A Hard Day's Night" album. The session began at 2:30 pm with "Any Time At All" being first on the agenda.  Seven takes were recorded of the song with full band instrumentation (guitars, bass and drums) as well as John belting out lead vocals. The only problem was that the song itself needed some fine tuning. Sensing this, they temporarily shelved the song and instead focused attention on Paul's "Things We Said Today," which was virtually complete by 5:30 that day.

Between then and the time that the evening session began at 7:00 pm, John and Paul worked out what they thought was lacking on "Any Time At All," which appeared to be the instrumental section of the song. When the evening session began, they first recorded John's "When I Get Home" in its entirety and then returned to "Any Time At All" to begin fresh. Starting approximately at 9:00 pm, they ran through four more basic tracks with full instrumentation and John's vocals. The last one, take 11, was viewed as best.

Double-tracking John's vocal was not an afterthought, as may have been the case with other songs. As probably noticed by George Martin, they realized that, going from the sixth to the seventh measure of each verse, there wasn't enough time for John to end one phrase and begin the next without it sounding awkward. To make it work, John would omit the first few words of the second phrase, knowing he'd fill in the gaps when he overdubbed his vocals. For instance, on the rhythm track of the second verse, he would sing "there is nothing I won't do...shoulder to cry on." Then when the overdub was recorded, he started with the line "when you need a..." to create the full picture. (This same trick was repeated on "Julia" from the "White Album.")

After both John and Paul's vocals were overdubbed, Paul added piano in the verses and instrumental section as overdubs and John added two final chord strums at the end of the song as an overdub. By 10:00 pm, the recording session was complete.

Documentation exists that suggests John, Paul and George were present again around 9:30 pm the following day, June 3rd, to perform overdubs for both "Any Time At All" and "Things We Said Today." Although we don't know which of the overdubs mentioned above were performed at this time, this appears to be the final recording session used to complete these songs as well as the "A Hard Day's Night" album.

The first mono mix of "Any Time At All" was made on June 4th, 1964 by George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Richard Langham, although this mix was never released.

Both the released mono and stereo mixes of the song were made in a marathon mixing session held on June 22nd in the EMI Studio One control room by George Martin, Norman Smith and 2nd engineer Geoff Emerick. Actually, two released mono mixes were done on this day, the first for Britain and the second for America. The US mix has the piano overdub rather low in the mix, while the UK mix is noticeably louder. The stereo mix, which was released worldwide, has the piano at quite a high volume as well.

Song Structure and Style

Lennon here deviates from the verse-heavy format of most of the early Beatles catalog to work with a chorus structure as evidenced periodically up to this point, such as in "It Won't Be Long." The structure of "Any Time At All" alters that pattern somewhat by introducing the instrumental passage (or bridge) quite late in the proceedings, thus amounting to a 'chorus/ verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ bridge/ chorus' pattern (or ababaca). As to song structure, it's quite predictable for The Beatles to be unpredictable.

The first eight-measure chorus begins, as they all do, with Ringo's car-door-slam drum accent, which signals John to begin the vocals unaccompanied by any instrumental backing. The band kicks in on the actual one-beat of the first measure, but not in the home key of the song. The home key doesn't appear until a three-note accented band-fill occurs, which is played by George, Paul and Ringo. The title of the song is also driven home by being repeated three times in each chorus, the second time by Paul only because John couldn't hit those high notes. And with four choruses in this song, there is no doubt as to the identity of the title.

From the high-pitched shouting/singing of the chorus, John lowers the pitch a full octave for the verses, which is said to be the hallmark of a well-written song. This way, the chorus is anticipated and stands out as the primary focus of the song. Paul's piano first appears in this verse, which is played in lower tones only on the one-beat of each measure with a chord change.

Interestingly, the verses are fourteen measures long but are made up of two melody lines repeated twice. For the sake of continuity, both melody lines would normally be eight measures long, but the last two measures of the first line are chopped off to meld them both together. While this makes for a somewhat rushed and awkward vocal delivery (hence the vocal overdubbing mentioned earlier), it creates a comfortable chord flow throughout the verse. This was smart thinking on The Beatles' and George Martin's part.

After another car-door-slam from Ringo and trademark 'Beatles break,' John ushers in another chorus. This time, though, Ringo and George don't seem to be on their game. Ringo forgets to play the accented band-fill with Paul and George, but I guess we can forgive him. This was his last day with the group before going into the hospital with tonsillitis. "It was miserable," Ringo remembers. "My throat was so sore, and I was trying to live on jelly and ice-cream. I was a smoker in those days, too. That was pretty rough."

George flubbed the final guitar phrase in this chorus also. This was due probably to him just learning the song that day and it being near 10 pm after a long and productive day. These mistakes could easily have been corrected but was either not noticed or let go because of time constraints.

After another verse, which was identical structurally and musically, we repeat the chorus again and this time everybody plays everything correctly. We then enter the bridge (or instrumental section), which consists of an interplay between George on guitar and Paul on piano. While they run concurrently and in triplets throughout most of this ten-measure section, George falls back during the final two measures to let Paul play the main guitar riff of the song on piano.

Another interesting thing about this instrumental section, which was the part of the song written on this day, was that it does not follow the chord sequence of any element of the song heard thus far. While the usual formula would consist of an instrumental passage, such as a guitar solo, played over the verse structure (as in "You Can't Do That") or even the bridge structure (as the harmonica solo in "Love Me Do"), the chord structure and melody line of this instrumental section is unique and is only heard once in the song.

This segues nicely into a final repeat of the chorus, which is extended to twelve measures by repeating the second half of the chorus at the end, which John must have momentarily forgot about during his vocal overdubbing since he flubbed it in the eighth measure. This suitably concludes the song with a satisfying and resolving chord strum from John.

"Any Time At All" is a lyrical repeat of his 1963 song "All I've Got To Do," which consists of the overall plea for his girl to call whenever she needs him. Whether she needs "somebody to love,” “a shoulder to cry on" or even "if the sun has faded away," John will cure whatever ails her. We don't need to look any deeper than the obvious. Just a simple formula song with a universal message.

"Shouting" is how John himself described his singing on this song, which accurately depicts his vocals on each chorus. This comes across convincingly as a plea for his girl to rely on him, while his subdued tone in the verses underscores the assurance of his reliability.

As all three of the other Beatles just learned the song on this day, their performance shows their adaptableness and professionalism. Paul's bass playing, while basically rudimentarily following chord changes, does the song more justice than the busy runs he was known for even back then. His piano work and vocal delivery also underscore the point that Paul could be counted on "in the clutch." An ailing Ringo also came through, providing the basic backbeat throughout, accented by his car-door-slams and band-fill accents. George also made his mark by quickly adapting to his "lead guitarist" role with melodic guitar lines played to perfection. Well, most times at least.

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