With a new single due in March, and the news that I Want to Hold Your Hand  had rocketed to the top of the American charts, there was no time to waste. George Martin, who had come to the Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris to record the newly written song, made the suggestion of starting it with the chorus. Although She Loves You, I Wanna Be Your Man, Don't Bother Me and All My Loving were all used in A Hard Day's Night, Can't Buy me Love was the only previously released song to be included on the soundtrack album. This was because it was pulled into the film at a late stage to replace I'll Cry Instead, which the director Dick Lester didn't think was right for the scene in question.

Can't Buy me Love was used in the film as the group ran down a fire escape at the back of the theatre (actually the Odeon in Hammersmith, London) and fooled around on some open ground (partly playing fields in Isleworth). It was the group's first experience of freedom in the film after having been locked for days in cars, trains, dressing rooms and hotels. Screenwriter Alun Owen remembers: "My stage direction at this point was very simple. It read: 'The boys come down the fire escape. It is the first time they have been free. They run about and play silly buggers'."

American journalists asked Paul in 1966 whether Can't Buy Me Love was a song about prostitution. He replied that all the songs were open to interpretation but that suggestion was going too far.