Help! (album)

Music

The album includes Paul McCartney's "Yesterday", arranged for guitar and string quartet and recorded without the other group members. John Lennon's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" indicates the influence of Bob Dylan and includes flutes. McCartney's "I've Just Seen a Face" had a country flavour.

"Ticket to Ride", also released as a single, was felt by Lennon to be "heavy" in its sound compared to the group's previous output and daring in its reference to a boy and girl living together. McCartney called the arrangement "quite radical".

George Harrison contributed "I Need You" and "You Like Me Too Much", his first compositions to be included on a Beatles album since "Don't Bother Me" on 1963's With the Beatles.

The record contained two cover versions and a few tracks more closely related to the group's previous pop output, yet still marked a decisive step forward. The record sleeve-note shows that Lennon and McCartney made more extensive and prominent use of keyboards, previously played unobtrusively by Martin. Four-track overdubbing technology encouraged this. Lennon, for his part, made much greater use of acoustic guitar, forsaking his famous Rickenbacker.

The original LP's format of featuring songs from the soundtrack on side one and non-soundtrack songs on side two follows the format of A Hard Day's Night.

In later years, Lennon stated that the album's title track was a sincere cry for help; he regretted changing it from a downbeat, piano-driven ballad to an uptempo pop song, which was done only as a result of commercial pressures.

Help! was the band's final British album (aside from the late 1966 compilation A Collection of Beatles Oldies) to feature any cover songs until 1970's Let It Be (which included a performance of the traditional folk song "Maggie Mae"). In 1966, Capitol would release "Act Naturally", already on the British Help! album, on Yesterday and Today. "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (both written by Larry Williams and recorded on 10 May 1965, Williams' birthday) were both aimed at the American market and originally not intended to appear on Help!, but "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" ultimately did. Both songs appeared on Beatles VI, released in the US in June 1965. "Bad Boy" was not released in the UK until A Collection of Beatles Oldies, and was that album's only cover song.

Rejected songs

A few songs that were recorded and intended for the film were not used because of the Beatles' suggestions. Lennon and McCartney wrote "If You've Got Trouble" for Ringo Starr to sing, but the song was rejected and Starr sang "Act Naturally" (which is not in the film but is about being in the movies) instead. "That Means a Lot" was written for the film, but the Beatles were not satisfied with their performance of the song and they gave it to P.J. Proby, who released it as a single. Lennon said "Yes It Is" was "me trying a rewrite of 'This Boy', but it didn't work"; it was released as the B-side of "Ticket to Ride" and was also on Beatles VI. "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See" were rejected for use in the film by its director, Richard Lester, though they did appear on the album (and also on Beatles VI).

Much later, in June 1965, the song "Wait" was recorded for the album. However, "Wait" (with some newly added overdubs) ended up on Rubber Soul when another song was needed to complete that album.

Album cover

The album cover shows the Beatles with their arms positioned to spell out a word in flag semaphore. According to cover photographer Robert Freeman, "I had the idea of semaphore spelling out the letters "HELP". But when we came to do the shot, the arrangement of the arms with those letters didn't look good. So we decided to improvise and ended up with the best graphic positioning of the arms."

On the UK Parlophone release, the letters formed by the Beatles appear to be "NUJV", whilst the slightly re-arranged US release on Capitol Records appeared to indicate the letters "NVUJ", with McCartney's left hand pointing to the Capitol logo. The Capitol LP was issued in a "deluxe" gatefold sleeve with several photos from the film and was priced $1 more than standard Capitol releases at the time.

Compact disc release

There have been four CD releases of Help! The first was on 30 April 1987, using the 14-song UK track line-up. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the original 14-track UK version replaced the original US version with its release on LP and cassette as well on 21 July 1987. As with the CD release of the 1965 Rubber Soul album, the Help! CD featured a contemporary stereo digital remix of the album prepared by Martin in 1986. Martin had expressed concern to EMI over the original 1965 stereo remix, claiming it sounded "very woolly, and not at all what I thought should be a good issue". Martin went back to the original four-track tapes and remixed them for stereo. One of the most notable changes is the echo added to "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", something that was not evident on the original mix of the LP.

When the album was originally released on CD in Canada, pressings were imported from other countries, and used the 1987 remix. However, when the Disque Améric and Cinram plants in Canada started pressing the album, the original 1965 stereo mix was used by mistake. This was the only source for the 1965 stereo mix in its entirety until the release of the mono box set in 2009.

The 2009 remastered stereo CD was released on 9 September. It was "created from the original stereo digital master tapes from Martin's CD mixes made in 1986". The original 1965 stereo mix was included as a bonus on the mono CD contained in The Beatles in Mono boxed set.

The 1965 stereo mix was reissued again on the Help! CD contained in the Beatles collection The Japan Box released in 2014.

Reception

In 2012, Help! was voted 331st on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Track listing

All tracks written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

North American Capitol release

The North American version, the band's eighth Capitol Records album and tenth overall, includes the songs in the film plus selections from the orchestral score composed and conducted by Ken Thorne, which contains one of the first uses of the Indian sitar on a rock/pop album. "Ticket to Ride" is the only song on the American release in duophonic stereo (also known as "fake stereo") reprocessed from the mono mix. "Help!" is available on CD as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set. This CD contains both the stereo and mono versions of the American release. A second CD release of this album, which contains the seven songs in true mono was issued in 2014 individually and as part of the Beatles The U.S. Albums boxed set.

All of the non-movie tracks from Side 2 of the British album were spread out through three American albums. Three were already issued on the previously released Beatles VI: "You Like Me Too Much", "Tell Me What You See", and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". "I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love" were placed on Rubber Soul with its follow-up album Yesterday and Today receiving the remaining two tracks: "Yesterday" and "Act Naturally"

The American version of "Help!" reached the number one spot on the Billboard album charts for nine weeks starting on 11 September 1965.

Track listing

All tracks written by Lennon–McCartney, except where noted.

Personnel

According to Mark Lewisohn and Alan W. Pollack.

Surround versions

The songs included in the soundtrack of the film Help! were mixed into 5.1 surround sound for the film's 2007 DVD release, that is, tracks 1—7, accounting for half of the original album's songs.