Man, I don’t know if anyone was ever on a more consistent creative high than John Lennon in 1964.
He chiefly wrote 10 out of 13 tracks on the A Hard Day’s Night album, and he likely considered the simple, stolen harmonica-laden “I Should Have Known Better” an afterthought. “It doesn’t mean a damn thing,” he told Playboy in 1980.
Had it been written a year earlier, it likely would have appeared as the A-side to the band’s third or fourth single, but “I Should Have Known Better” still got a lot of attention as the B-side to “A Hard Day’s Night” and a feature spot in the film of the same name.
Anthony Cusumano 