On 10 July 1964, there was the chord. And while the chord may not have been a new cosmological big bang, it was the sonic equivalent in the pop cultural sense. I’m talking about the ringing, thundering, unlike-any-sound-there-had-ever-been chord that occurs at the start of the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, commencing the album of the same name, which was launched 60 years ago this week. With a single stroke, the Beatles changed the course of western music, and the LP – which was to continue the theme – had barely even begun.

I fell hard for the Beatles in eighth grade, and have written about and pondered them ever since. In church on Sundays I’d spend the hour attempting to rate their albums in my head. Fierce battles were waged. Was Abbey Road making a push for the No 2 spot? Was I prepared to say that Rubber Soul was better than Revolver?

ve long known that A Hard Day’s Night was as good an album as the Beatles produced, though I wouldn’t always outwardly admit it, as if holding back on what I understood – which was that it was both perfect and steeped in joy. A euphonic cradle of joy.

We have this tendency to conflate the idea of joy with happiness. They’re different, as A Hard Day’s Night has helped me to understand. Happiness is fun and contentment. Looking forward to something. It’s pain-free. Joy is richer. When it is present – or when it’s found, cultivated – it extends deeper within us. Joy is the life spark. And there’s nothing more admirable or human that we can do than to try to help others locate joy.

Joy is when you help open up a person to parts of themselves they didn’t know existed. It’s acceptance, which is not the same as resignation. Joy makes us want to start again. To grow our passions. To come through the night and seek wonder in the new day. It’s the openness to wonder.

A Hard Day’s Night is a primer in the subject. Like A Christmas Carol, The Wizard of Oz, The Wind in the Willows, It’s a Wonderful Life – joyous works all – it says to us: “Partake of what I am, for what I am is for you.” I’ve listened to A Hard Day’s Night and found this joy in it in happy times and times of hope. But also times when I could barely continue on, times when the concept of hope felt like some awful joke – because I had none.

A Hard Day’s Night is salve and inspiration. Its propulsive electro-power could animate Frankenstein’s monster: the bridges of the title track, the falsetto backing vocals of Tell Me Why, the solar plexus punch – in a good way – of that guitar solo in Can’t Buy Me Love that in turn makes you want to punch the air and shout your head off.