Thrifty Tunes 09.26.09: The Beatles - Help
Posted by Paul Hollingsworth on 09.26.2009
John Lennon becomes Fat Emo-Elvis! George somehow has two songs on one album! Paul becomes a diva! Ringo refuses to sing a song because it's 'rubbish'! The Beatles obviously need help!
'Help me if you can/I'm feeling down/And I do appreciate you bring round/Help me get my feet back on the ground/Won't you please,please help me?', sings John Lennon on the title track on Help! Because of the infectious, sing-a-long chorus and smile with which he sang, who knew he was crying out for actual help? (Certainly no one, or very nearly no one, at the time.) In other words, John was, in fact, the first emo kid. But the band, as all good bands do eventually, was slowly abandoning its childish roots and child-like hero worship, and evolving into something greater and even bigger. I don't feel this step was taken without a great deal of soul searching, and there's no better proof of this than this song, which continues 'And now my life has changed in oh so many ways/My Independence seems to vanish in the haze/But every now and then I feel so insecure/I know that I just need you like I've never done before'. Gerard Way has spent his life trying to write those same lyrics.
Not to be outdone in this new direction the band was taking, Paul McCartney's first track on the album, "The Night Before" featured the shocking (for the time) revelation that some of those screaming girls at the concert from the previous night stuck around, at least till the morning. Songs like this one were far removed from the relative innocence of "I Saw Her Standing There" or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Paul, forever thought of as the happy go-lucky, impish boy-next door, was in fact, a sexual tyrannosaurus, and "The Night Before" may have been written about any one of a million father's daughters.
Lennon and McCartney, in later conversations, made it known that they tried to outdo one another with their songwriting. If Paul came in with "Can't Buy Me Love", then John would respond with "If I Fell". This friendly, at least initially, rivalry resulted in many of the band's best songs, but neither were immune to contemporary outside influences either. While McCartney became enamored with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, Lennon became fascinated with Bob Dylan "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" is Lennon as Dylan, and for my money, at least until John's solo Jealous Guy, is the best ballad Lennon ever wrote. In keeping with the growing up theme, it has been suggested that the song is about longtime Beatle manager Brian Epstein's closeted homosexuality.
"I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much" are George Harrison's two contributions to the album and demonstrate just how much talent George had as a songwriter and which was underutilized while he was in the band. (Thankfully, the string of amazing solo albums he released after the band's breakup made full use of his talents.) "I Need You", while a rather simple boy meets/loses/misses girl song, shows just how much talent the third best songwriter in the band possessed.
Not to be left out, Ringo Starr sang "Act Naturally", which had been a hit for Buck Owens a few years before. The lyrics, about a loveable and love lorn goof, fit Ringo's persona perfectly. Even though the band was maturing, they weren't completely ready to abandon the boyish image, and I think Starr was the ideal choice to keep that part of the band alive. He did, however, have the good sense to reject "If You've Got Trouble" as too childish. "Trouble" is a failed song. Sometimes knowing what to keep out is just as important as what to put in.
Of course, the most well known song on the album, maybe the best known Beatles song of all is Paul's "Yesterday." It is also, according to most sources, the most covered song of all time. Even though it's a ballad, it's not a very happy one, and the amount of melancholy which fills the song is almost too much to handle. The fact that it's only a singer and an acoustic guitar, (along with an almost unnecessary bit of orchestra) makes it even more impressive. Although the Beatles became fascinated with technology and studio embellishments, the main reason their songs survive and thrive is because of their directness and single-minded focus. It doesn't get much more direct, or more focused than "Yesterday."
Complete Track Listing: (1965 on Parlophone Records)
Side One:
1. Help
2. The Night Before
3. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
4. I Need You
5. Another Girl
6. You're Going To Lose That Girl
7. Ticket To Ride
Side Two:
1. Act Naturally
2. It's Only Love
3. You Like Me Too Much
4. Tell Me What You See
5. I've Just Seen A Face
6. Yesterday
7. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
Help is the first record of what I consider the holy trinity of Beatles albums. (Rubber Soul & Revolver are the two others.) In just over a year, the band recorded and released all three albums and changed or challenged nearly every notion of what pop music could be. The albums before these were obviously good, and thanks to improved studio techniques and the band's own artistic growth, the albums which followed were bigger and more vast. But these three records in the middle act as a sort of rebirth of the band, a reimagining of the 'boy band' image of the past into a more 'adult band' persona. If Rubber Soul was the result of cutting ties with the past, then Help was the result of deciding to pick up the knife to sever those ties to begin with.
