Help! (album)

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Help!
Help! cover
Studio album by the Beatles
Released August 6, 1965
Recorded Abbey Road Studios
February 15-19, April 13, May 10, June 14-17, 1965
Genre Rock and roll
Length 34:20
Label Parlophone, Capitol, EMI
Producer(s) George Martin
Professional reviews
the Beatles chronology
Beatles for Sale
(UK-1964)		 Help!
(UK-1965)		 Rubber Soul
(UK-1965)


Help! is the fifth album released by the Beatles; it is the soundtrack album from their film Help!.

Produced by George Martin for EMI Records, the album (in its original British form) contains seven songs that appeared in the movie of the same name, and seven that did not, including the most recorded song in history, the Paul McCartney ballad "Yesterday".

The critically acclaimed album also features two trans-atlantic number-one singles: "Ticket to Ride" and the title song. The album shows the Beatles, but mainly John Lennon, being influenced by Bob Dylan and folk music, with Lennon's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" in particular indicating an obvious Dylan influence. In later years Lennon said that the title track of the album was a sincere cry for help, as the pressures of the Beatles' fame and his own unhappiness (what he later called his fat Elvis stage) began to build, and that he regretted turning it from a downbeat Dylanesque song to an upbeat, poppy Beatles song because of commercial pressures.

McCartney contributed "Yesterday"; "Another Girl", a fast-moving congo-esque beat pop song; "The Night Before", a standard rock & roll song; and "I've Just Seen a Face", a rollicking Dylanesque folk song often overlooked by Beatles fans (and which, along with It's Only Love, appeared on the Rubber Soul album in the U.S.).

George Harrison contributed the low-key "I Need You" and the head-strong "You Like Me Too Much".

Contents

[edit] Album cover

The album cover features the group spelling out a word in semaphore; the British Parlophone release featured the word 'NUJV', whilst the slightly re-arranged US release on Capitol Records appeared to feature the word 'NVUJ'. However, it may be argued that some of the members of the band were not only re-arranged but reversed as well. One finds that, despite The Beatles' poor positioning, it spells out 'LPUS' — possibly meaning "Help us", "an LP by us" or "Long Play Us". Also, according to the parody of the Paul Is Dead myth known as "Everyone BUT Paul Is Dead", it is believed that NUJV allegedly means "New Unknown John Vocalist", indicating that John Lennon had died and been replaced.[1] part 2 of the myth

The following semaphore characters show the correct spelling of "HELP" as seen if facing the flagman:


H
E
L
P

However, research has shown that the cover photo does not spell any message at all in semaphore. The cover photographer, Robert Freeman, confirms this. Freeman wrote: "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." (Freeman, Robert The Beatles: A Private View, Barnes & Noble, NY, p. 62 ISBN 1-59226-176-0)

[edit] CD release

The album was released on CD in 1987, using the 14-song UK track lineup. 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 George Martin. This remix is a bit controversial among Beatle fans — many purists prefer the 1965 mix. Strangely, a few Canadian-origin CD editions of Rubber Soul and Help! accidentally use the original mix of the album, presumably because of a mix-up as to which tapes were to be sent to the pressing plant. As of 2006, these "mistakes" sell for a fair amount in the second-hand market, when properly identified.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 332 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

[edit] Track listing

Songs listed on side one appear in the movie:
All songs by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.

[edit] Side one

  1. "Help!" SAMPLE (148k)
  2. "The Night Before"
  3. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" SAMPLE (153k)
  4. "I Need You" (George Harrison)
  5. "Another Girl"
  6. "You're Going to Lose That Girl"
  7. "Ticket to Ride"

[edit] Side two

  1. "Act Naturally" (Johnny Russell/Vonnie Morrison)
  2. "It's Only Love"
  3. "You Like Me Too Much" (George Harrison)
  4. "Tell Me What You See"
  5. "I've Just Seen a Face"
  6. "Yesterday" SAMPLE (126k)
  7. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (Larry Williams)

[edit] Rejected songs

A few songs that were 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 he hated it. McCartney's "That Means A Lot" was not used because he thought it was not recorded perfectly. John had the same opinion about his "Yes It Is", but the song ended up as the B-side of "Ticket to Ride". "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See" were rejected for use in the film by Richard Lester, though they did appear on the album.

Much later, in June 1965, the song "Wait" was recorded for the album. However, all four Beatles thought the song was rather dull. "Wait" ended up on the album Rubber Soul when there were not enough songs to be put on the album for a Christmas release.

[edit] American release

Help!
Help! cover
Studio album by the Beatles
Released August 13, 1965
Recorded Abbey Road 1964-5
Genre Rock and roll
Length 28:43
Label Capitol
Producer(s) George Martin
Professional reviews
the Beatles chronology
Beatles VI
(US-1965)		 Help!
(US-1965)		 Rubber Soul
(US-1965)


The U.S. version of the album includes the songs in the film plus selections from the orchestral score composed by Ken Thorne and performed by the George Martin Orchestra, which contains one of the first uses of the Indian sitar on a pop album. This album is available on CD as part of The Capitol Albums, Volume 2 box set. There was a false rumour that semaphore cover on the American version spells "H-P-E-L" and the UK version spelled it correctly. Both of these are untrue. Neither version spells anything in semaphore.

[edit] Track listing (US release)

[edit] Side one

  1. "Help!" (preceded by Ken Thorne's James Bond Theme instrumental arrangement)
  2. "The Night Before"
  3. "From Me to You Fantasy" (instrumental) (Ken Thorne)
  4. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"
  5. "I Need You" (Harrison)
  6. "In The Tyrol" (instrumental) (Ken Thorne)

[edit] Side two

  1. "Another Girl"
  2. "Another Hard Day's Night" (instrumental)(Ken Thorne)
  3. "Ticket to Ride"
  4. Medley: "The Bitter End" (Ken Thorne)/"You Can't Do That" (instrumental)(John Lennon/Paul McCartney, arranged by Ken Thorne)
  5. "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" (as titled by Capitol Records)
  6. "The Chase" (instrumental) (Ken Thorne)

[edit] Release history

Country Date Label Format Catalog
United Kingdom August 6, 1965 Parlophone mono LP PMC 1255
stereo LP PCS 3071
United States August 13, 1965 Capitol Records mono LP MAS 2386
stereo LP SMAS 2386
Worldwide reissue April 15, 1987 Apple, Parlophone, EMI CD CDP 7 46439 2
Japan March 11, 1998 Toshiba-EMI CD TOCP 51115
Japan January 21, 2004 Toshiba-EMI Remastered LP TOJP 60135
Worldwide reissue April 11, 2006 Apple/Capitol/EMI CD reissue of U.S. LP CDP 0946 3 57500 2 7

[edit] External links

 v • d • e The Beatles
John Lennon • Paul McCartney • George Harrison • Ringo Starr
Pete Best • Stuart Sutcliffe
Management
Allan Williams • Brian Epstein • Allen Klein • Lee Eastman • Neil Aspinall • Mal Evans • Alistair Taylor • Apple Records
Production
George Martin • Geoff Emerick • Norman Smith • Phil Spector • Jeff Lynne • Abbey Road Studios
Official studio albums
Please Please Me (1963) • With the Beatles (1963) • A Hard Day's Night (1964) • Beatles for Sale (1964) • Help! (1965) • Rubber Soul (1965) • Revolver (1966) • Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) • Magical Mystery Tour (U.S.-1967/UK-1976) • The Beatles (The White Album) (1968) • Yellow Submarine (1969) • Abbey Road (1969) • Let It Be (1970)
Past Masters compilations
Past Masters, Volume One (1988) • Past Masters, Volume Two (1988)
Filmography
A Hard Day's Night (1964) • Help! (1965) • Magical Mystery Tour (1967) • Yellow Submarine (1968) • Let It Be (1970)
Related articles
Line-ups • Bootlegs • Discography • Love (Cirque du Soleil) • Lennon/McCartney • Anthology • Influence • The Quarrymen • Breakup of the Beatles • London • Beatlemania • Fifth Beatle • Paul is dead • British Invasion • Apple Corps • Northern Songs • Yoko Ono • Billy Preston • Tony Sheridan • Chas Newby • Andy White • Jimmy Nicol • Astrid Kirchherr • Klaus Voormann
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