节选自Dreaming the Beatles，Rob Sheffield著

能够在不同的情境下观看A Hard Day’s Night是件十分幸运的事。有时在朋友和爱人的陪伴下，有时深夜独自一人守在电视机旁，有时和观众一起坐在大银幕前。有个场景总会让人为之一振：披头士逃离了排练现场，来到一片绿草如茵的草坪上，随着“Can’t Buy Me Love”的旋律奔跑、玩耍、跳跃。有个刻薄的老家伙走出来说，我想你们应该意识到这是私人领地吧。男孩们离开的时候，George喊了句，很抱歉踩坏了你的草地，先生。

这句台词在电影中有着如此显著的影响是件很奇怪的事——这是情感宣泄和放声大笑所带来的后果。我的确喜欢幽默的George，但这并不是一句特别有趣或是精巧的台词——剧本里比这更值得拿来说道的例子不下六七十个。除了适合跑跳，“Can’t Buy Me Love”也不属于那种特别出类拔萃的歌。这一时刻所包含的都落到了这片草坪本身——这是这部由幽闭的录音室和火车场景构成的电影中为数不多的外景之一。在Scala剧院狭小的走廊里，他们从“保持安静”的标志旁跑开，推开门来到了防火梯上，“我们出来了！” Ringo叫道，这一瞬间，他们四个得到了属于自己的时刻。尽管这不是一块特别完美的草地——一块直升飞机的停机坪，周围是战后的活动板房，实在没什么特别之处。这个片段由两个不同场地：Isleworth’s Thornbury Fields和Gatwick机场的拍摄素材组成。但草地上有足够的空间供他们尽情地舞蹈，摔跤，赛跑，他们的头发在空旷的天地之间飞扬。（电影的法文名是Quatre Garcons Dans Le Vent，翻译过来就是《风中的男孩》）。

我们在看电影的时候都知道，披头士再也不会踏上这片草坪，这是在那个穿泥靴的老头赶他们走之前就注定的事。他们走的时候都没有争辩，因为他们已经赢得了这个游戏。他们会毁坏这片草地的想法就是个笑话，他是唯一一个笑不出来的人，也是电影中另一位脾气暴躁的反派，跟那个在火车上让披头士把广播关掉的乘客（“给我们一个吻。” John回答道，Paul的回应则是“我们去喝咖啡吧，把狗窝留给这位小姐”），那个希望George代言他的衬衫的导演制片人是一类人。这种有权有势的人物从未离开，他们一直在侵占类似披头士的这种领地。即使到了现在，你也会听到人们争辩披头士已经成为了历史，从前的粉丝早已合上了尘封的书本，音乐已经没有争论的余地——它只属于过去。关于这音乐的回应永远是，很抱歉破坏了你的地盘，先生。

当披头士在60年代末愤然离场，宣告一切都结束了后，他们迷惑于草坪在没有他们的情况下依然生长茂盛，依然有那么多人愿意在上面玩耍。披头士也来到了这个阶段，成为了爱发牢骚的园艺工人，就像大部分人有时的做法一样，抱怨年轻人没有善待这片领地。但当有人告诉你披头士已经江郎才尽，你甚至都不需要摒弃这一争辩，因为不断生长的草已经盖过了一切，这块地永远是赢家，它蔓延出了我们给它圈画的领地。这是其中一件披头士让我们不断重温的事情：这块地才是永恒的。

原文如下

I’ve been lucky enough to see A Hard Day’s Night in a few different contexts—with friends and lovers, all alone on TV late at night, up on the big screen with audiences. There’s a scene that never fails to get a rise out of whoever’s watching: the Beatles escape from their rehearsals and find a grassy field to run around and play and jump to “Can’t Buy Me Love.” The mean old guy walks out to say, “I suppose you realize this is private property.” As the boys leave, George calls, “Sorry we hurt your field, mister.”

It’s odd what an impact this line has in the movie—it’s a payoff of emotional release and laughter that always seems bigger than it should. I do love Salty George, but this isn’t a glaringly funny or clever line—the screenplay has at least five or six dozen more quotable quotes. “Can’t Buy Me Love” isn’t one of the stronger songs; it’s just a good one for running and jumping. So much of this moment comes down to the field itself—one of the few outdoor scenes in a movie built around claustrophobic studios and trains. In the cramped hallways of the Scala Theatre, they turn away from the SILENCE sign, push through the door onto the fire escape, and Ringo yells “We’re out!” It’s the one scene where the four of them get a moment to themselves. Not a particularly lovely field—a helicopter launching pad, surrounded by postwar prefab houses, downright ordinary. The footage was cobbled together from two different places, Isleworth’s Thornbury Fields and Gatwick Airport. But it’s big, plenty of room on the grass for their joyful dancing and wrestling and footracing. Their hair flops around in the open air. (The film’s French title: Quatre Garcons Dans Le Vent, or “Four Boys in the Wind.”) We know when watching the movie the Beatles will never set foot in this field of grass again, even before the old man in the muddy boots orders them off. They don’t argue—they’ve already won whatever game he’s playing. The idea that they could hurt this field is a laugh. He’s the only person who isn’t smiling, just another of the movie’s grumpy old villains, the railroad passenger who orders the Beatles to shut their radio off (“Give us a kiss,” John responds; Paul’s retort is “Let’s have some coffee and leave the kennel to Lassie”), the director, the producer who wants George to endorse his shirts. This authority figure has never gone away, and he’s still around to get territorial about the Beatles. Even now you hear people argue that the Beatles are ancient history, that yesterday’s fans already closed the book, there’s no room left in this music, it belongs to the past. And the music’s reply is always, Sorry we hurt your field, mister.

When the Beatles stormed off the field and declared the game over at the end of the Sixties, they were mystified the grass was so green without them, and that so many people wanted to keep playing on it. The Beatles themselves went through phases where they played the role of the grouchy groundskeeper, as most of us do at some point, complaining the young people aren’t treating the field properly. But when someone tells you that the Beatles are used up, you don’t even need to bury that argument, because grass is already growing out of it. The field always wins. It grows over the lines we paint on it. That’s one of the things the Beatles keep forcing us to relearn. The field is forever.