“I Should Have Known Better” by The Beatles

"I Should Have Known Better" is one of the songs the Beatles wrote specifically for their first film, and it turned up on the A Hard Day's Night soundtrack on 10 July 1964, then on the flip of the American "A Hard Day's Night" single a few days later. It's John Lennon's tune, though credited to Lennon and McCartney as always, and he sings it, strums the acoustic and wheezes out the harmonica, while George Harrison's 12-string chimes over Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's bouncing beat.

George Martin produced at EMI Studios, starting on 25 February 1964, which happened to be Harrison's 21st birthday. Take two fell apart when Lennon cracked up laughing at his own harmonica playing, and the band came back the next day with a reworked arrangement and nailed it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.