That First Chord To A Hard Day’s Night

Musicians have been trying to figure out the first chord to The Beatles Hard Day’s Night every since the song came out. Most get it wrong because there’s more going on than you think. The mystery might finally be solved however.

A few years ago, Randy Bachman (of The Guess Who and BTO fame) had a chance to analyze the original multitrack tape from the session at Abbey Road Studios and came away with George playing an F9 with a low G and C on his Rickenbacker 12 string, Paul played a D on the bass, and John played a Dsus. That gets you real close, as you’ll here on the video below.

There’s still something missing though, and that’s the piano (played by producer George Martin), which plays a low D and B, as you’ll hear on the second video.

This is all very cool, and it creates one of the most iconic beginnings to a pop song ever, but I wonder how much of it was planned and how much was serendipity?