In 1965, all these elements were already there, along with the added problem of physical and mental tiredness–they were absolutely knackered through overwork. They had done two albums in 1964, and in 1965 they did another two, three singles, plus a film. John also produced his second book. Then there was all the touring–first around Europe and then their second major tour of the USA in August, during which they met Elvis. Audiences were still screaming hysterically whenever they appeared, but now the screaming was so loud the Beatles could not hear themselves play. According to George, their nerves were being shattered by it all.
John at home at Kenwood, his house in Weybridge, Surrey, which he bought in July 1964 for £20,000.
It’s interesting that in the song ‘Help!’–which came out first as a single, two weeks before the album–John looks back to his childhood as a time when he didn’t need help, when he was self-assured. It’s a rather romantic memory.
During our long conversations he described how happy-go-lucky, cheerful, friendly and outgoing he had been up to the age of ten, which was also the memory of his Aunt Mimi. Then as a teenager he started fighting the world, teachers, authority; he felt he didn’t fit in, that he was special but nobody else realized it. A not uncommon teenage condition.
Then he had the years of struggle with the band, which to them seemed to go on for ever, no one else believing that they would ever get to the top, as they always said they would. For many stars, reaching the summit can be enough, they can lie back and enjoy it, but not the Beatles. I think that was the single most surprising thing about them when I first met them–their disappointment and dissatisfaction that the thing they had longed for hadn’t quite turned out the way they imagined it would be. They were still longing, looking, searching. Many intelligent creative artists do feel that way, wondering, Was it worth it? The discovery that success is all rather hollow, that you are still alone with yourself, can of course lead to self-destruction through excess, be it drink or drugs.
As with their first film, none of the songs that featured in Help! was written specifically for scenes in the film–they were written independently, in the way they normally wrote their songs, then slotted into the screenplay. On the album, only two of the fourteen songs (‘Act Naturally’ and ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’) were not written by them, so that was an improvement on the previous album. It was also a step up for George, who was allowed two songs. In addition to a good proportion of bouncy, sing-along, dance-along tunes, written against the clock, there were a couple of songs on the Help! album that broke new ground, giving away clues to the future. Starting with the title tune…
Help!
The song was written to order, seven weeks into shooting, when at last they decided on a title. Until then, there had been various possibilities–‘Beatles 2’, ‘Eight Arms To Hold You’ and ‘High-Heeled Kickers’. John wrote the song, mainly on his own, with help from Paul, at home in Kenwood.
The words to ‘Help!’ are some of the clearest, least evasive he had written up to that point, and also the strongest, with no slack or corny ‘blue’ ‘true’ rhymes or tired pop-song I love yous, dropped in for the teen market.
He also uses some rather long words, not normally found in pop songs–such as self-assurance, appreciate, independence, insecure–one result, apparently, of Maureen Cleave teasing him that all Beatles’ songs seemed to be filled with one-syllable words.
There are also some excellent one-liners, such as ‘my independence seems to vanish in the haze’. This is the line which sums up the drawbacks to their fame and success: being rushed around the world, not knowing where they were or who they were. Their life had changed in so many ways, hence they needed to get their feet back on the ground.
In the lyrics of ‘Help!’ John avoids psychobabble or second-hand Freudian analysis. In fact at one level you could take the lyrics to be another love song–wanting someone to come along and love him, take care of him, the sort of thing most people wish for in life. He does thank someone, appreciates them being ‘round’, which you could read as meaning he was OK really, he did have a loving wife so you didn’t have to worry too much about him.
On the other hand, as John told us later, it was a personal cry of anguish. It might have been influenced by their first LSD experience, which had taken place a few weeks earlier. The phrase ‘I find I’ve changed my mind’ can be taken two ways: a simple change of opinion or a mind change due to trying life-altering drugs.
Pete Shotton, his boyhood friend, who in 1965 spent many weekends with John at his home, and later became his PA and worked for Apple, says that the line about ‘appreciate you being around’ referred to him–which could be true, as he rekindled memories of the laughs and pranks and daft times they’d had together as boys.
It’s interesting that John later told his ‘long week-end’ girlfriend May Peng (assistant to John and Yoko, with whom he went off to California in 1973 for over a year) that he wished he’d performed Help! as a much slower, soulful song–thus making it more ‘truthful’.
The manuscript of Help!, which John gave me, is in bold, large handwriting, with quite a few changes. ‘Would’ appreciate became ‘do’ appreciate, as it did in the final version. The first line of the verse has been crossed out. It’s hard to read, but it appears to be a first attempt at the next line, ‘When I was younger’. He has also written the first three lines of the recorded song at the end, as the last three lines of this version.
‘Help!’, title song for the film and LP, August 1965, in John’s hand, plus some scribbles.
Help! I need somebody,
Help! Not just anybody,
Help! You know I need someone, help.
When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured,
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.
Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground,
Won’t you please, please help me?
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.
Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground,
Won’t you please, please help me, help me, help me?
I’m Down
This was the B side of the ‘Help!’ single (though it doesn’t feature on the album). It was one of Paul’s party pieces to do a Little Richard number, usually ‘Long Tall Sally’, and here he performs a screaming, shouting parody of the singer–an affectionate piss-take. The Beatles appeared on stage with Little Richard in October 1962, the week after ‘Love Me Do’ came out, as a support act at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton and the Empire Theatre. They asked for his autograph afterwards. Nice to know the Beatles were once autograph hunters themselves. Some years later, John gave me an autographed copy of the programme, signed for him by Little Richard, who has added his telephone number in California, in case they were over there–which at the time they thought highly unlikely.
The song is a bit of a joke, on several levels. It rather mocks John’s cry for Help on the other side, moaning about being down while screaming and laughing. It also includes a comedy line–something they had not used in their lyrics before: ‘You still moan “Keep your hands to yourself”,’ sings Paul, laughing at himself…
Although the manuscript version contains only four lines in Paul’s hand, it is written on the back of a typed letter to Wendy Hanson, Brian’s PA, from a US radio station in June 1965, saying that George’s number ‘You Like Me Too Much’ is the best on their recent album.
Four lines of the lyrics of ‘I’m Down’, th
e B side of the ‘Help!’ single, released in July 1965, in Paul’s hand.
Paul presumably picked up the letter during a visit to Brian’s office in order to scribble down some of the words of his new song. On the same sheet are some neatly written lyrics I don’t recognize. I think the writing is Mal Evans’; he was often given the job, in the studio and elsewhere, of making fair copies of their latest lyrics.
You tell lies thinking I can’t see
You can’t cry ’cos you’re laughing at me
I’m down (I’m really down)
I’m down (down on the ground)
I’m down (I’m really down)
How can you laugh when you know I’m down
(How can you laugh) When you know I’m down.
Man buys ring woman throws it away
Same old thing happens everyday
I’m down (I’m really down)
We’re all alone and there nobody else
You still moan: ‘Keep your hands to yourself!’
I’m down (I’m really down)
Oh, baby, I’m down (down on the ground)
Wow! Hurry up John!
Oh baby, you know I’m down (I’m really down)
I guess I’m down (I’m really down)
I’m down on the ground (I’m really down)
Whoa! Down! (I’m really down)
Oh, baby, I’m upside down
Oh yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh, I’m down (I’m really down)
Letter to Wendy Hanson, Brian Epstein’s secretary, on the reverse side of which Paul has written some of the lines for ‘I’m Down’.
The Night Before
One of Paul’s overlooked songs, presumably written while he was at Wimpole Street, which has not been very well rated by some critics over the years. I had to think hard to remember it, as the title seemed unfamiliar and gives little clue as to what it is about, but when I played the track, it all came back to me and I remembered that I had liked it, especially the line: ‘Last night is the night I will remember you by.’
It’s a jaunty but sad love song, remembering their last night together; was she telling him lies or not, before they had to part? Sounds like a farewell to Jane, going off somewhere, yet again…
You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
This is John showing that he can be as soft and sad as Paul, with more than a touch of Dylan in the use of acoustic guitar and folksy beat–the irony being that around this time Dylan himself was trying out electric guitar, having been impressed by the Beatles.
It is the first Beatles record on which they called in a musician to play an instrument that none of them could play–namely tenor and alto flutes, which come in plaintively at the end.
The words feature yet more love anguish, about a girl he has lost, leaving him now feeling ‘two feet small’. Pete Shotton, who was at Kenwood when John wrote it, remembers that in the first version John had written ‘two feet tall’, but he made a mistake when he sang it to Paul. Paul then said he preferred it as ‘two feet small’.
‘I also said to them,’ Pete remembers, ‘that it sounded like a fucking funeral dirge–why not shout the HEY! Make it higher and give it life.’
Some people have suggested that the lyrics are not in fact about a girl John has lost, forcing him to hide his love away, but a message to Brian Epstein, who was gay. The law prohibited homosexual acts between men, so John was warning him to keep it quiet. Brian did harbour a passion for John and they once went on holiday together to Spain. John told me that they’d had a one-night stand–whatever that meant–but I didn’t quite believe him, assuming he was trying to shock. Now, however… I’m not so sure. John was not gay, but he was wild enough to try anything once.
The manuscript version has the second line of what John describes as the third verse scribbled out. It appears to read ‘In the state I’m in’, which became the last line of that verse.
It was written by John while travelling in his Rolls with his chauffeur Anthony. He asked Anthony for something to write on and this address book was all that Anthony had to hand, so he opened it at the W section. The address book also contained scribbles by John, along with the phone numbers of the Beatles and others.
Here I stand head in hand
Turn my face to the wall
If she’s gone I can’t go on
Feeling two foot small
Everywhere people stare
Each and every day
I can see them laugh at me
And I hear them say
Hey! you’ve got to hide your love away
Hey! you’ve got to hide your love away
How can I even try
I can never win
Hearing them, seeing them
In the state I’m in
How could she say to me
Love will find a way
Gather round all you clowns
Let me hear you say
Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away
Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away
‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’, from Help!, August 1965, in John’s hand, written on the W and XYZ pages of his chauffeur’s address book.
I Need You
One of George’s two songs on the Help! album–and now largely forgotten. It is very simple, with no tricks. It doesn’t get anywhere, but it is rather haunting. The title says it all–she is off somewhere, or he is off somewhere, and he needs her, please remember how much I need you. It was written for Pattie Boyd, his girlfriend, the one he met on the film A Hard Day’s Night, whom he would marry in January 1966. For some reason, George does not write about this song in his book I Me Mine, in which he mentions almost all his other songs. The only other one he omits is his second song on the Help! album, ‘You Like Me Too Much’. Was he ashamed? Had he forgotten them? Or could he not find the original manuscripts to remind him of what he had done?
Another Girl
The title says it: the singer has got another girl. Or could it have a double meaning? The girl he is with has changed, turned into another girl? Paul wrote it while on holiday in Tunisia. A vaguely rockabilly number, nicely enunciated, with Paul picking out the syllables very carefully, fitting them exactly into the rhythm. Was it addressed to Jane? Must have been. And presumably Paul, or the singer of the song, had been playing away, for whatever reason. He’s rather boastful about it in fact: ‘All the girls I’ve met and I’ve met quite a few’. Which does sound like Paul–at that time, in that place. He also sounds a bit selfish: ‘I don’t take what I don’t want.’ True love, eh? Doesn’t always run smooth. Especially if one of them wants to have other lovers.
You’re Going To Lose That Girl
Now this is John showing off, in the lyrics anyway: if his friend does not look after his girl, he will take her out, ‘And I will treat her kind.’ John’s track record with girls, according to the recollections of many of his girlfriends, and his first wife, do not quite tally with this rosy view of his personal history. The lyrics are an advance, story-wise, on ‘She Loves You’, where someone is mistreating his girl, but there is only a hint of the other boy stepping in. Catchy song, nicely sung by John with a very good falsetto, well up to Paul standards.
Ticket To Ride
One of the first Beatles lyrics to be subjected to over-analysis–and it still is today. Ian MacDonald, the music academic, practically wrote a treatise on it in his 1994 book Revolution in the Head. He suggested it was their ‘first creative response to LSD’, which they had taken for the first time early in 1965, when a dentist they were having dinner with spiked their coffee. John loved it and was soon taking it like sweets. MacDonald saw ‘Ticket To Ride’ as the first sign of the psychedelic records to come and detected a ‘narcotic passivity’ in the lyrics; he pronounced it ‘psychologically deeper than anything the Beatles had done.’
At a slightly lower intellectual level, there were pundits in the pop papers who immediately declared that ‘Ticket To Ride’ was actually Ticket to Ryde–t
he name of a place on the Isle of Wight. Paul later confirmed that his cousin at one time had a pub there and he and John had visited it. There’s another nice theory, put forward by the tabloid journalist Don Short, who travelled extensively with the Beatles in the early sixties. He said John told him the phrase originated in Hamburg–where the street girls had to have a medical certificate saying they were clean before they could work. I am sure that is true–that prostitutes had to be checked, and John would have made a joke about it–but I can’t see how it fits into the song. Although John might well have made a joke about it afterwards, pretending it was connected.
I don’t personally go along with any of the theories. It seems a very simple song to me–his girl is leaving him, going off, got her ticket, she doesn’t care about him any more, living with him was bringing her down. In contrast to similar situations in earlier songs, this time he is fairly resigned, not threatening her, apart from saying ‘she ought to think twice, she ought to do right by me’.
John later boasted that it was pop music’s first heavy metal record. Not heavy compared with what came later, perhaps, but it has a good heavy beat and I do like the high falsetto chorus at the end on ‘my baby don’t care’.
The lyrics are well thought out, no dud lines or fill-ins. In fact it was one of John’s best songs so far–though Paul did his bit, contributing about 40 per cent. What is agreed by all is that ‘Ticket To Ride’ was the longest Beatles song they had so far recorded–lasting three minutes and twelve seconds. Up to now they had mostly been 2 minutes–2 minutes 30 seconds.
The Beatles Lyrics Page 10