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| Eight Days a Week |
| STEVE TURNER |
| John always claimed that Eight Days a
Week was written by Paul as a potential title track for the
Beatles' follow-up film to A Hard Day's Night. Its
director, Dick Lester, denied this, pointing out that Eight
Days a Week was recorded in October 1964, whereas filming
on Help! didn't begin until late February 1965. It's
unlikely that they were considering film music this far in advance
"The film was always supposed to be called Help!, but there was a copyright problem in that someone else had registered this title," says Lester. "So we originally called it Beatles II and then Eight Arms To Hold You, but thinking of writing a song called Eight Arms To Hold You had everyone throwing their hands in the air and saying that it was impossible. It was because of this that we thought, sod it, we'll take the chance, because the laws of registration were so vague. We decided to stick in an exclamation mark because the one that was registered didn't have one." Paul first heard the phrase "eight days a week" from a substitute chauffeur who drove him to John's home in Weybridge one day for a writing session. Asked by Paul if he had been busy lately the chauffeur replied, "Busy? I've been working eight days a week." When they arrived in Weybridge Paul went straight in and told John that he already had the title for the song they were going to write that day. Eight Days a Week, the first track to be recorded with a faded intro rather than a faded outro, was under consideration as a single in Britain until John came up with I Feel Fine. In America, it was released as the follow-up to I Feel Fine and made the No 1 spot. |