HELP!

Help! has got to be the hardest Beatles album to review; it is one of their most inconsistent LP's. On one hand there are a lot of mediocre fillers that could as well have been on Beatles For Sale. On the other hand there are also some excellent and forward thinking songs, and even a couple of masterpieces. Of course, back in the day, the idea of the album as a unified artistic work had not really been invented. Singles led the market, and the LP was more like an additional collection of songs, so LP's often contained some inferior and rushed recordings. In that respect, Help! is a typical mid-60's LP. Even the first four Beatles albums somehow feel more unified than this (especially A Hard Day's Night), and on Help! it doesn't sound like the Beatles had a clear idea of where they were going.

Help! follows a format similar to that of A Hard Day's Night. The first side is dedicated to songs that appear in their second film, and the second contains other songs. The film is quite a mess which the Beatles themselves hated. I admit I quite enjoy it for its more surrealistic elements, but I can fully understand why the band was embarrassed by it, and indeed they don't look like they really care about their performances in it.

The film was originally supposed to be called Eight Arms to Hold You, but neither Lennon nor McCartney seemed able to write a song with that name. When the director Richard Lester decided on the title Help!, Lennon quickly wrote the title track. He later described it as an unconcious cry for help, as he was feeling alienated by his success during his "Fat Elvis period". Original it was a sort of ballad, but during the recording, the song was sped up to make it more commercial, much to Lennon's later disapproval. Still, the desparacy shines through in the song, especially in the intro where the dramatic chord changes clearly express a sense of disorder and unease. For most listeners at the time, the autobiographic elements probably went unnoticed. But despite not necessarily sounding as Lennon originally intended it, "Help!" is still a masterpiece song and recording. It is played with much electricity, especially from Lennon's rhythm guitar which is almost manic. Other great moments include Paul's counter melody in the verse (his own creation), and especially the vocal harmonies during the chorus line "Help me get my feet back on the ground" - as if to underline how urgent the need of help really is. The actual lyrics are not necessarily great poetry, but they feel very honest. One could say that the 1968 Deep Purple cover of the song which turned it into a melancholic ballad is actually closer to Lennon's original intension.

The first song to be recorded and released from the album was the early 1965 single "Ticket to Ride", another song written by Lennon. Musically, it was very forward thinking at the time, and we get some early hints at the psychedelic sounds of their later work. Key elements here are the quite heavy guitar riff, as well as an unusual drumbeat that resembles "Tomorrow Never Knows" from Revolver. But also the lack of chord changes in most of the verse contributes to the psychedelic feel of the song, adding a drone-like tonic base. It's rather dark mood didn't exactly scream hit single, and the song is not necessarily as catchy as their other hits from the early years. As such, it was a sign that they would move away from the happy-go-lucky dance pop towards more sophisticated and experimental music. In some ways it resembles early The Who, and Lennon later called it the "first heavy metal record". Absolutely an interesting song, but perhaps not as engaging as their later full-blown psychedelic tracks on Revolver.

The rest of the album is, as mentioned, of very mixed quality, and there are a lot of tracks that don't sound like they were recorded with much care. The bottom line is probably the only two cover songs on the album, "Act Naturally" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". The latter was originally by the obscure rock and roll singer Larry Williams, and it is just not a very interesting song. Worse still, the Beatles' arrangement is extremely tedious with George Harrison repeating the same guitar riff over and over again, and there is not much variation in the rhythm section either. They play the song with great energy, but that's the only positive thing I can say about it. "Act Naturally" was a country song that was recorded as Ringo's vocal spot on the album, as a replacement for the very clumsy "If You've Got Trouble" that just didn't work. But in the end, "Act Naturally" isn't much better. It's a very harmless and by no means musically interesting, even though the lyrics, about the protagonist being put in the movies and being "The biggest fool that ever hit the big time" probably fitted Ringo's image well at the time. In any case, his down-to-earth vocal performance is always charming, but it generally works better when he has a good song to sing. After "Ticket to Ride", songs like these feel like a big step backwards.

Other weak tracks include George Harrison's "I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much", his first contributions as a songwriter since his debut song "Don't Bother Me" from With the Beatles. "I Need You" does fascinate a bit with it's somber mood in the verse, for instance with the descending melody lines and the volume pedal in the lead guitar. But unfortunately the chorus sounds more like a middle eight, and musically it differs too little from the verse. Add to that an underwhelming band performance. "You Like Me Too Much" is better performed; the best part is the duet between the lead guitar and George Martin's piano, but its qualities lie more in the production and arrangement than in the songwriting. It is hard to say anything really negative about the composition, it just feels a bit flat.

Another not very popular song is Lennon's "It's Only Love" which embarrassed him. Personally I don't really mind it; I actually think the melody is quite OK, but the rhyming is very awkward, for instance "Just the sight of you makes night time bright, very bright". Or what about "When you sigh, my, my inside just flies. Butterflies"?

McCartney compositions like "Another Girl" and "Tell Me What You See" are no masterpieces, but I personally think they are very enjoyable songs. The latter is quite a catchy showcase of his sense of melody. "Another Girl" is a country inspired song that works much better than the kitsch "Act Naturally", probably because it has a slightly bluesy feel to it. "The Night Before" is more anonymous, but I like the 5. to 8. bar of the verse with its backing vocals. There's a fine solo too.

In the better end of the spectre we have Lennon's Motown pastiche "You're Going to Lose That Girl", complete with call and response vocal harmonies and a harmonically interesting middle eight. Another great moment is Harrison's lead guitar. "I've Just Seen a Face" is a fine folk'ish song by McCartney; it's quite charming with a sweet melody, but to be honest not so much more than that, and at the end of the day, it is not that memorable.

"You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" seems to be somewhat overlooked, but it is actually a great song. First of all it contains the Beatles' first truely great lyrics with a virtuose use of rhyming and a very visual imagery from the point of view of the song's protagonist. The song is also open for interpretation, and some have suggested that its topic about feeling stigmatized because of ones love life ("Everywhere, people stare", "I can see them laugh at me" and so on) is actually about what it was like to be homosexual in those years. It's a very touching song with a rather sad mood. Whether or not the acoustic arrangement really fits the song is another question. I am personally undecided on that.

And then, finally, there is "Yesterday", one of the most beautiful songs ever written. So much has been said about it, that I risk repeating a lot of things here. But the melody is simply flawless. Spanding over an octave plus a minor third, it also fits perfectly with the lyrics. We start at "home" (the basic note) and then move "far away", and then back towards home again as the troubles are suddenly "here to stay". It's ironic that the music was written first, but I guess Paul McCartney knew what kind of words would fit well into the song. And then there is the gorgeous string quartet that really underlines the sadness in the song. It also showed that Beatles songs didn't have to sound a certain ways, thus foreshadowing the more varied arrangements of their later work.

So on one side we have great sublime songs like "Yesterday", "Help!", "Ticket to Ride" and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away", and on the other we have mediocre fillers like "You Like Me Too Much", "It's Only Love" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". Some songs signal a standstill for the band while others signal progress and musical adventure. That makes it incredibly difficult to judge the album as a whole. In the end, Help! is still a very unhomogeneous album. I will end at 3/5, but one could also argue that 4/5 would be more appropriate, based on the outstanding tracks.

Share this THE BEATLES review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to The Anders
• Report this review (#2496960)
• Buy THE BEATLES music online with PA partners
• Show all THE BEATLES MP3/Stream
• Go to THE BEATLES page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Help! page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for THE BEATLES related discussions