Any Time at All

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	John
Lead Vocal	John
Recorded	Jun 1964
Length	2:11
Key	D
Noted Takes	11
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

A Hard Day's Night

Parlophone — PMC 1230

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Story

“Any Time at All” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, it was mainly composed by John Lennon, with an instrumental middle eight by Paul McCartney. It first appeared on the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night album. [Wikipedia]

Any Time at All is a song by The Beatles, written by Lennon–McCartney and led on vocal by John Lennon. Within the catalogue, its rocker thread connects it to I Saw Her Standing There, Boys, Twist and Shout.

The session work falls within the band’s Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, recorded 2 Jun 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. Seven takes of the basic rhythm track and John’s first vocal were attempted in the afternoon but a suitable middle eight had yet to be worked out, and the song was left until the evening session. After recording ‘When I Get Home’, the group returned to ‘Any Time At All’ with a perfected middle eight, piano, guitar and an ‘answering’ Paul McCartney vocal all being added. Take 11 was the ‘best’ and last take.

What’s distinctive

One of 101 songs led primarily by John. Recorded on 2 June 1964, the second day of the non-soundtrack A Hard Day’s Night sessions. The middle eight was composed during the session itself — takes 1–7 were attempted without a workable bridge, which was perfected only for the evening takes 8–11. Take count: 11 — seven afternoon takes on the basic rhythm track, then four evening takes with overdubs; take 11 was the ‘best’ and last take.¹

Recording

Any Time at All was recorded on Tuesday 2 June 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, Studio Two — the second day of sessions for the non-soundtrack side of the A Hard Day’s Night LP. The previous day (1 June) had produced Matchbox, I’ll Cry Instead, Slow Down and I’ll Be Back. The 2 June afternoon session (2.30–5.30pm) yielded seven takes of the basic rhythm track with John’s first vocal, but “a suitable middle eight had yet to be worked out and the song was left until later to see what might evolve.” After an intervening session on When I Get Home (takes 1–11), the group returned to Any Time at All in the evening (7.00–10.00pm) “with a perfected middle eight, piano, guitar and an ‘answering’ Paul McCartney vocal all being added. Again, take 11 was the ‘best’ and last take.” The same afternoon session also produced the first three takes of Things We Said Today.¹
The middle eight’s in-session composition is the song’s defining production event. The seven afternoon takes represent the basic rhythm track with John “belting out the vocal” over an incomplete structure; the evening takes (8–11) represent a fundamentally different arrangement incorporating the resolved bridge, the piano overdub, a guitar part, and Paul’s answering vocal. This two-phase structure — basic track abandoned, song restructured mid-session, then completed with overdubs — is characteristic of the rapid-turnaround methodology of the summer 1964 sessions, where the group recorded four to six songs per day across the 1–2 June bloc.¹
The answering vocal from Paul McCartney is the most prominent collaborative element on the released master. Paul’s vocal enters during the middle eight, providing a call-and-response counterpoint to John’s lead — a deliberate arrangement decision that the session record locates specifically in the evening takes 8–11, after the middle eight had been resolved. The technique aligns with the broader 1964 practice of overdubbing vocals onto a pre-recorded backing track: “Whether vocals were recorded live or overdubbed seems to have been determined by the difficulty of the music and the band’s familiarity with the song; within a single session, the group might record live vocals for one song, but overdub vocals onto a backing track for another.”^1,2
Second engineer on the session was 17-year-old Ken Scott, destined for a major career producing David Bowie and Supertramp. Scott admits to having been “completely and utterly terrified” at the prospect of working with the Beatles. An amusing incident occurred during the evening playback: the four-track tape machines were sited along the corridor outside the control room, connected only via talkback. “On this particular evening the Beatles were playing back their latest recordings to a few friends who had come in. George Martin was giving me the directions over the talkback and at one point I heard him say ‘home’. So I put the tapes away, switched off the power, put my coat on and left the room. As I was walking along the corridor I saw George standing in the doorway. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘is the tape lined up yet?’” Martin had been requesting the tape of When I Get Home, not sending the boy home.¹
All recording and mixing was done on the Telefunken four-track through the REDD.51 console in Studio Two. By January 1964 the Beatles were recording exclusively on the Telefunken M-10 and T9U four-track recorders, a “huge leap forward” from twin-track. A preset track-allocation convention governed the sessions: “Drums, bass, and rhythm guitar were on one track, lead guitar on another; the voices on a third. The fourth track was reserved for any little extras, like piano overdubs or backing voices.”²
Vocal overdubs on the session were recorded using the White Elephant speaker overdub method — the standard Abbey Road practice throughout 1964 in which the pre-recorded backing tracks were played out loud through an RLS10 “White Elephant” speaker in the studio while the performers sang or played along, with no headphones available. The Neumann microphone was positioned in figure-of-eight with its dead side facing the speaker to minimise leakage. “The performers could hear the sound quite clearly” while the microphone rejected most of the playback signal. Any residual leakage was negligible in the mono mix but could reveal subtle phasing on stereo remixes where multiple overdub tracks stacked the same leakage source.²

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studios, Abbey Road — Studio Two (recording, 2 Jun 1964); Studio One control room (mono remixes + stereo mixing, 22 Jun 1964)
Tape machine	Telefunken four-track (M-10 / T9U)²
Console	REDD.51²
Microphones	Neumann U47/U48 (modified to identical spec, early 1964), AKG D19 (drums), STC 4038 (overhead)²
Outboard / effects	EMI RS124 compressor, EMT 140 plate reverb, STEED tape echo
Guitars	Rickenbacker 325 (Lennon), Rickenbacker 360/12 (Harrison), Höfner 500/1 violin bass (McCartney)
Amplifiers	Vox AC50 Super Twin (Lennon & Harrison, from Feb 1964)²

Recording Timeline

2 June 1964 (Tue) — basic rhythm track + first vocal, afternoon, Studio Two — Studio Two, 2.30–5.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Recording: Any Time at All (takes 1–7); Things We Said Today (takes 1–3). “First song was ‘Any Time At All’, John belting out the vocal. Seven takes of the basic rhythm track and John’s first vocal were attempted but a suitable middle eight had yet to be worked out and the song was left until later to see what might evolve.” The afternoon also produced three takes of Things We Said Today — the first a false start, the second complete (vocals and rhythm), and the third adding Paul’s double-tracked vocal, Ringo’s tambourine and John’s piano.¹
2 June 1964 (Tue) — perfected middle eight + overdubs, evening, Studio Two — Studio Two, 7.00–10.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Recording: When I Get Home (takes 1–11); Any Time at All (takes 8–11). After completing When I Get Home in 11 takes, “they then returned to ‘Any Time At All’, with a perfected middle eight, piano, guitar and an ‘answering’ Paul McCartney vocal all being added. Again, take 11 was the ‘best’ and last take.”¹
4 June 1964 (Thu) — mono remix I (not released), Studio Two — Studio Two, 2.30–7.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. Mono mixing: Any Time at All (remix I, from take 11). This first mono remix was not used for release; the released UK mono came from the 22 June session. The same 4 June session also produced mono remixes of Long Tall Sally, Matchbox, I Call Your Name, When I Get Home, and I’ll Cry Instead, plus a piano superimposition onto Slow Down take 6 played by George Martin.¹
22 June 1964 (Mon) — released mono remixes + stereo mixing, Studio One — Studio One (control room only), 10.00am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. Mono mixing: Any Time at All (remix 2, for the UK, from take 11); Any Time at All (remix 3, for the USA, from take 11). Stereo mixing (11.30am–1.00pm): Any Time at All (from take 11). “An exhaustive day’s remixing, predominantly for the A Hard Day’s Night LP. The Beatles themselves could not have been further away from the action — they were in Wellington, New Zealand, at the time.” The 22 June session produced all of the released mono and stereo masters for the album’s non-soundtrack side.¹

Seven takes of the basic rhythm track and John’s first vocal were attempted but a suitable middle eight had yet to be worked out and the song was left until later to see what might evolve… they then returned to ‘Any Time At All’, with a perfected middle eight, piano, guitar and an ‘answering’ Paul McCartney vocal all being added. Again, take 11 was the ‘best’ and last take.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

Double-tracking — universal on A Hard Day’s Night — 1964 was the year double-tracking became pervasive: “every single song on A Hard Day’s Night featured double-tracked vocals at some point, as did every single [song] the group released that year.” The available fourth track of the Telefunken four-track machine “proved impossible to resist, and it made double-tracking a more instantly accessible procedure than it had been with Twin-Track.” On Any Time at All, Paul’s answering vocal on the middle eight was added to the fourth track during the evening takes 8–11, consistent with the standard convention: “The fourth track was reserved for any little extras, like piano overdubs or backing voices.”^1,2
Double-tracked instruments — 1964 innovation — “1964 was also the year that the double-tracking of instruments became commonplace on Beatles sessions. ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, ‘Baby’s In Black’, ‘Words Of Love’, ‘Matchbox’, ‘She’s A Woman’ and ‘I Feel Fine’ all had double-tracked guitar solos.” The guitar overdub on the evening Any Time at All takes sits within this broader 1964 trend of using the fourth track for instrumental as well as vocal layering.²
Live vs overdubbed vocals — Martin’s “performance” priority — George Martin was “very keen on capturing usable live vocal performances” during the basic-track pass, accepting technical imperfections for the sake of energy: “Looking back, some of the plops that we got on the mics were pretty awful, but I was out to get performance — the excitement of the actual live action — and technical things like that didn’t worry me too much.” On Any Time at All, John’s vocal was captured live with the rhythm track on the afternoon takes 1–7, fitting this pattern — the vocal was part of the basic performance, not a subsequent overdub.^1,2
REDD.51 console — the 1964 desk — By early 1964 the REDD.51 had replaced the REDD.37 in Studios Two and Three. The desk’s channel architecture directly influenced the four-track layout convention: the track allocation was “not arbitrarily chosen, but was directly influenced by a peculiarity of the REDD.51 mixing console during stereo mixing.” Most recording and mixing from 1964 onward took place on the REDD.51, and the desk was used for the entirety of the A Hard Day’s Night sessions.²
U47–U48 microphone conversion (early 1964) — In early 1964, Abbey Road’s Neumann U47 microphones were sent to Berlin for modification to behave as U48s, gaining the figure-of-eight capability previously exclusive to the U48. “For all intents and purposes, the U47s and U48s had become essentially the same microphones. The engraved names of the U47s had even been altered by Neumann to reflect their new capabilities; instead of ‘U47’, their labels read ‘U47/8’ or ‘U47/48’.” This conversion is the reason vocal microphone attributions from mid-1964 onward do not meaningfully distinguish U47 from U48.²
Tea towel on the snare — same-session companion — Norman Smith’s practice of covering Ringo’s snare drum with a tea towel (“a lightweight cloth common in UK kitchen and tea services”) to create a thicker, shorter snare sound was active during the 1964 sessions. Smith described wanting “a fairly thick sound with a nice crisp top” and “occasionally, I would ask Ringo to put a tea towel over his snare.” The practice dates to at least 1963 and is audible on the same-day companion Things We Said Today, which “bears the distinctive sound of a towel on the snare.”²
Vox AC50 Super Twin amplifiers (from February 1964) — Session photographs from February 1964 onward show John and George using Vox AC50 Super Twin heads, replacing the earlier AC30 models. “John and George’s new A.C.50 Super Twin rigs are mic’d with Neumann U47 microphones.” Paul’s bass rig had also been upgraded to a Vox AC100. These amplifier changes were in place by the A Hard Day’s Night sessions and define the guitar sound on Any Time at All.²
Echo chamber practice change — dry-to-tape from 1964 — “At the start of 1964, Norman Smith finally stopped printing the chamber to tape during recording. Instead, everything was recorded to tape dry, and chamber was added during the mix.” This shift means the echo heard on the released Any Time at All master was applied at the 22 June remix stage, not baked into the 2 June recording passes — a reversal of the 1963 practice that had printed chamber live.²

Releases

1964 UK mono LP A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PMC 1230, side B track 1) — Released mono master from remix 2 (22 June 1964, from take 11). P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Geoff Emerick. An earlier mono remix (remix I, 4 June 1964) was made but not used for release. The released mono mix is the UK master; a separate remix 3 was prepared the same day for the USA.¹
1964 US mono LP A Hard Day’s Night (26 June 1964, United Artists UAS 6366 / Capitol ST 2228) — US release from mono remix 3 (22 June 1964, for the USA, from take 11). The US album was released on United Artists (film-soundtrack tracks) and later reissued on Capitol; Any Time at All appeared on the Capitol version as a non-soundtrack track. Capitol mastering-chain differences (cutting EQ, generally brighter top end) apply to the US pressing.¹
1964 UK stereo LP A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PCS 3058, side B track 1) — Stereo master mixed 22 June 1964 from take 11. “The Beatles themselves could not have been further away from the action — they were in Wellington, New Zealand, at the time.” The stereo mix was prepared without the band present, as was standard for 1964 stereo masters.¹
1964 UK EP Extracts from the album A Hard Day’s Night (6 November 1964, Parlophone GEP 8924) — Second EP release to feature Any Time at All, using the same UK mono master (remix 2 from take 11).¹
2009 Stereo Remasters — A Hard Day’s Night (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1964 stereo master. Mono Masters companion carries the 1964 mono master with no documented remix.
2014 US Mono Box — A Hard Day’s Night (The Beatles in Mono, 8 September 2014, Apple/Capitol) — Vinyl and CD reissue of the 1964 UK mono master.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 44–46.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 372, 374, 376–79, 385.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Any Time at All?

“Any Time at All” is credited to John Lennon (Lennon–McCartney).

Who sings lead on Any Time at All?

The lead vocal on “Any Time at All” is by John Lennon.

When was Any Time at All recorded?

“Any Time at All” was recorded on 2 June 1964 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road (Studio Two). Takes 1–7 laid the basic rhythm track in the afternoon; takes 8–11 added the perfected middle eight, piano, guitar and Paul’s answering vocal in the evening, with take 11 the ‘best’ and last take.¹

How many takes did Any Time at All require?

Eleven — seven afternoon takes on the basic rhythm track (the middle eight was still unresolved), then four evening takes with the perfected middle eight, piano, guitar and Paul’s answering vocal added. Take 11 was the ‘best’ and last take.¹

On this page

Story

What’s distinctive

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked