Tag Archives: Help!

Beatles, Great albums

August 6: The Beatles released “Help!” in 1965

The_Beatles-Help_-Frontal

.. a big step forward, exploring doubt, loneliness, alienation, adult sexual longing, acoustic guitars, electric piano, bongos, castanets, and the finest George songs known to man. … Help! was utterly ruined in its U.S. version, which cut half the songs and added worthless orchestral soundtrack filler, so it’s always been underrated. But Help! is the first chapter in the astounding creative takeoff the Beatles were just beginning: the soulful bereavement of “Ticket to Ride,” the impossibly erotic gentleness of “Tell Me What You See,” the desperate falsetto and electric punch of “You’re Going to Lose That Girl.”
~rollingstone.com

…. the album’s masterpiece is McCartney’s brooding, deceptively simple chamber-pop ballad “Yesterday.” …  it’s compositionally complex, one of the first major pop songs to draw directly from classical music, juxtaposing acoustic guitar with a string quartet, shifting from minor to major chords. It set the stage for one of the most groundbreaking and innovative periods in The Beatles’ career, not to mention pop music in general.
~Mark Kemp (pastemagazine.com)

From Wikipedia:

Released 6 August 1965
Recorded 15–19 February, 13 April, 10 May& 14–17 June 1965,
EMI Studios, London
Genre Rock
Length 34:20
Label Parlophone
Producer George Martin

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Beatles, Music Calendar

July 19: The Beatles released the single “Help!” in 1965

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help single

“The whole Beatles thing was just beyond comprehension. I was subconsciously crying out for help”.
– John Lennon (1980)

Help! is a song by the Beatles that served as the title song for both the 1965 film and its soundtrack album. It was also released as a single, and was number one for three weeks in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Help! was mainly written by John Lennon, but credited to Lennon–McCartney.

“I seem to remember Dick Lester, Brian Epstein, Walter Shenson and ourselves sitting around, maybe Victor Spinetti was there, and thinking, What are we going to call this one? Somehow Help! came out. I didn’t suggest it; John might have suggested it or Dick Lester. It was one of them. John went home and thought about it and got the basis of it, then we had a writing session on it. We sat at his house and wrote it, so he obviously didn’t have that much of it. I would have to credit it to John for original inspiration 70-30. My main contribution is the countermelody to John.”
– Paul McCartney (Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now)

The Beatles – Help! (live):

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Beatles, Music Calendar, The Best Songs

Feb 15: The Beatles recorded “Ticket To Ride” in 1965

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ticket to ride beatles picture sleeve

The Beatles were such a prolific album act that it’s sometimes hard to abstract their later singles; here, they ride their roots as a bar band in Liverpool and Hamburg to a new kind of glory.
~Dave Marsh (The Heart of Rock & Soul)

The opening circular riff, played on 12-string guitar by George Harrison, was a signpost for the folk-rock wave that would ride through rock music itself in 1965.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

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Beatles, List

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 18 Ticket To Ride

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ticket to ride beatles picture sleeve

The Beatles were such a prolific album act that it’s sometimes hard to abstract their later singles; here, they ride their roots as a bar band in Liverpool and Hamburg to a new kind of glory.
~Dave Marsh (The Heart of Rock & Soul)

The opening circular riff, played on 12-string guitar by George Harrison, was a signpost for the folk-rock wave that would ride through rock music itself in 1965.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

Wikipedia:

Released 9 April 1965
Recorded 15 February 1965,
EMI Studios, London
Genre Rock
Length 3:10
Label Parlophone
Writer Lennon–McCartney
Producer George Martin

John Lennon: double-tracked lead vocals and rhythm guitar
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass and lead guitar
George Harrison: rhythm guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine and handclaps

“Ticket to Ride” is a song by the Beatles from their 1965 album, Help!. It was recorded 15 February 1965 and released two months later. In 2004, this song was ranked number 394 on Rolling Stone‘s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

beatles ticket to ride

They say this was one of John’s personal favorites, probably because it has his most soulful vocal ever. But “Ticket to Ride” is intricate and interesting all the way through, with Paul playing mean lead guitar and Ringo dispelling all doubt about his prowess as a drummer: The groove comes straight out of his pure backbeat.
~Dave Marsh (The Heart of Rock & Soul)

Ticket To Ride was slightly a new sound at the time. It was pretty fucking heavy for then, if you go and look in the charts for what other music people were making. You hear it now and it doesn’t sound too bad; but it’d make me cringe. If you give me the A track and I remix it, I’ll show you what it is really, but you can hear it there. It’s a heavy record and the drums are heavy too. That’s why I like it.
– John Lennon (Anthology)

Ticket To Ride (Video-Mix 1965) HD 0815007:

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Music Calendar

August 6 in music history

August 6: The Beatles released “Help!” in 1965 (read more)

.. a big step forward, exploring doubt, loneliness, alienation, adult sexual longing, acoustic guitars, electric piano, bongos, castanets, and the finest George songs known to man. … Help! was utterly ruined in its U.S. version, which cut half the songs and added worthless orchestral soundtrack filler, so it’s always been underrated. But Help! is the first chapter in the astounding creative takeoff the Beatles were just beginning: the soulful bereavement of “Ticket to Ride,” the impossibly erotic gentleness of “Tell Me What You See,” the desperate falsetto and electric punch of “You’re Going to Lose That Girl.”
~rollingstone.com

 

  The_Beatles-Help_-Frontal
 Memphis Minnie (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973) was an American blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.  Memphis_Minnie_Portrait_Walls_MS
Willie Lee Brown (August 6, 1900 – December 30, 1952) was an influential blues guitar player and vocalist. He partnered with other notable blues musicians such as Son House and Charlie Patton, and had a great influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Brown is considered one of the main pioneering musicians of the Delta blues genre.Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he learned the guitar as a teenager. During his music career he was best known as a side player performing mostly with bluesmen Son House, Charlie Patton, and Robert Johnson. He had recorded four sides for Paramount Records in Grafton, Wisconsin in the 1930s, which were subsequently released on78rpm discs. The second time he recorded was with Son House accompanying him in three 1941 Library of Congress recordings. Brown briefly joined House in 1952 in Rochester, New York, but soon returned to Tunica, Mississippi where he died the same year.He was mostly known as an accompanist rather than a soloist, although he did record three high rated solo performances. His recorder songs were “M & O Blues,” “Make Me a Pallet on the Floor,” and “Future Blues”. He disappeared from the music scene during the 1940s together with Son House, and died before the first blues revival started. Willie_Brown_-_grave
 Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States of America dedicated to a single artist.  andy_warhol
 Willie Nix (August 6, 1922 — July 8, 1991) was an American Chicago blues singer and drummer, active in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, in the 1940s and 1950s.  willie nix

Spotify Playlist – August 06