Help!

For the Beatles, 1965 mirrored 1964 in many ways, especially during the first half of the year.  Once again, songs had to be written and recorded in advance for the soundtrack of a feature film, then the filming itself was begun and, suddenly, in the midst of it all, a title was decided and a new song had to be written and recorded.  And, in both years, it was John Lennon who quickly wrote a song to order.  McCartney did play a substantial role in the arrangement of the song, particularly with the ingenious backing vocals, but the lyrics were pure Lennon.  Not only did they express a very real cry for help at that point in his life, but they remained among his all-time personal favorites.

The recording was relatively straightforward and was accomplished in a single four-hour session on April 13th.  Take nine was the best rhythm track.  By the time overdubs were complete, the number of official takes had reached twelve.  The few overdubs included all vocals, plus Ringo playing a tambourine and George's descending guitar phrases.

Unlike A Hard Day's Night the year before, there were still a few weeks left in the shooting schedule of Help!  Thus, a black and white sequence of the group performing the song was filmed for the opening credits.  The tune is heard again at the end of the film during the final battle on the beach in the Bahamas.

In his excellent in depth article on the song, Dave Rybaczewski may have solved a long-standing mystery.  A session on May 24th at CTS Studios in London for post sync work on the film possibly involved some re-recording of the vocal parts of the song.  This could account for the different mono and stereo vocal versions available.

In addition to its release as a single and the title track of the soundtrack album, the song was also part of the 1966 compilation A Collection of Beatles' Oldies in the UK.  In the US, Capitol Records chose to open its version of the soundtrack album with a short burst of Ken Thorne's score for the film leading into the title song.  This oddity was actually kept for the American version of the Red Album in 1973.

Help! next surfaced in a live version from August 29th of 1965 on the 1977 release The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.  Capitol put the rare mono mix from the single on its Rarities album in 1979.  This was followed by the stereo mix on Reel Music in 1982 and on both the US and UK versions of 20 Greatest Hits in that same year.  Anthology 2 in 1996 gave us the very first live performance of the song from Blackpool Night Out on August 1st, 1965 with John giving a wry introduction, then forgetting some of his own lyrics.  And, of course, the song appears on the worldwide bestseller 1 from 2000.

On November 23rd, 1965, the group met at Twickenham Film Studios to shoot videos for all of that year's singles to be distributed for promotional purposes, thus eliminating the need to appear live on numerous television programs.  The video for Help! shows the boys sitting in a row on a plank between two sawhorses.  John, Paul and George have their guitars and mime singing and playing while Ringo sits at the back holding an open umbrella.  Fake snow falls during the final verse, much to George's surprise and Paul's delight.  This was broadcast on BBC's Top of the Pops on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  It is now available on the collection 1+.