Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Monday Music "Help" by The Beatles


It was one of those kind of days...from the no sleep the day before to a really loooong day Monday, I didn't get anything posted.....

I decided to post a "Beatles" song for my Monday Music.  The influence that the "Fab Four" had on the music scene in incalculable.  Many music greats since that time say that one of their main influences was the Beatles and even 50 years later they are still a factor in the music world.  That alone is noteworthy since the bands that make it to the level that they did and still remain viable is telling.
     Now I decided to use this song from the Beatles for my belated "Monday Music" and I am fixing to speak some heresy.  With the exception of this song, I never really cared for the music for the Beatles, I viewed them as the perfect nexus of marketing, TV and talent.  I don't knock the Beatles, it is a personal taste thing.  Now after they broke up, the former members did a lot of their own projects and overall did quite well, I believe that the talent that they had as individuals couldn't be contained in the framework of "The Beatles".    Paul and his superband "Wings", John with his solo projects and albums...Ringo and George did well, his album in the late 80's is still one of my favorites  Although that song by John Lennon..."Imagine"...People play it whenever they are trying to play for some sop for "World Peace",  There are a few songs that I despise, and that is one of them...perhaps it is a good song but how it is associated.   Whenever it comes on the radio, the announcers get all sappy and gooey and I remembered screaming out at the radio one time "Jeez...Just shoot me...this shit sucks.......oh wait! somebody did!!".  Yeah I know...tacky and lacking in taste....but I am like that sometimes.





Help! is the fifth studio album by English rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack from their film Help!. It was released on 6 August 1965. Produced by George Martin, it was the fifth UK album release by the band, and contains fourteen songs in its original British form. Seven of these, including the singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride", appeared in the film and took up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side contained seven other releases including the most-covered song ever written, "Yesterday".
The American release was a true soundtrack album, mixing the first seven songs with instrumental material from the film. Of the other seven songs that were on the British release, two were released on the US version of the next Beatles album, Rubber Soul, two were back-to-back on the next US single and then appeared on Yesterday and Today, and three had already been on Beatles VI.
Help! was nominated in the category of Album of the Year at the 1966 Grammys Awards, marking the first time that a rock band had been recognized in this category. In 2012, it was ranked 331st on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In September 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry changed its sales award rules, the album was certified platinum for recorded sales since 1994.

"Help!" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that served as the title song for the 1965 film and its soundtrack album. It was released as a single in July 1965, and was number one for three weeks in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Credited to Lennon–McCartney, "Help!" was written by John Lennon with some assistance from Paul McCartney. During an interview with Playboy in 1980, Lennon recounted: "The whole Beatles thing was just beyond comprehension. I was subconsciously crying out for help".
It was ranked at number 29 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The documentary series The Beatles Anthology revealed that Lennon wrote the lyrics of the song to express his stress after the Beatles' quick rise to success. "I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for 'Help'", Lennon told Playboy. Writer Ian MacDonald describes the song as the first crack in the protective shell Lennon had built around his emotions during the Beatles' rise to fame, and an important milestone in his songwriting style.
In the 1970 Rolling Stone "Lennon Remembers" interviews, Lennon said that the song was one of his favourites among the Beatles songs he wrote. In these interviews, Lennon said he felt that "Help!" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were his most honest, genuine Beatles songs and not just songs "written to order". According to Lennon's cousin and boyhood friend Stanley Parkes, "Help!" was written after Lennon "came in from the studio one night. 'God,' he said, 'they've changed the title of the film: it's going to be called 'Help!' now. So I've had to write a new song with the title called 'Help!'."
According to McCartney, he was called in "to complete it", providing the "countermelody" arrangement, on 4 April 1965 at Lennon's house in Weybridge.


"Help!" went to number 1 on both the UK and US singles charts in late summer 1965. It was the fourth of six number 1 singles in a row on the American charts: "I Feel Fine", "Eight Days a Week", "Ticket to Ride", "Help!", "Yesterday" and "We Can Work It Out".  At the following year's [[Ivor 0amed as the second best-selling single of 1965, behind "We Can Work It Out". "Help!" was nominated in four categories at the 1966 Grammy Awards but failed to win in any of them.
The song appears on the Help! LP, the US Help! soundtrack, 1962–1966, the Imagine: John Lennon soundtrack, 1, Love, and The Capitol Albums, Volume 2. The mono version (with different vocals and no tambourine) was included on the Beatles' Rarities LP and in The Beatles in Mono collection. The American soundtrack album included a James Bond-type introduction to the song, followed by a caesura just before the opening lyric. No such introduction appeared on the British soundtrack album, nor was it included in the released single in either country.


 Check out Ringo with the Umbrella
Although Lennon was proud of "Help!" and the honesty it conveyed, he expressed regret that the Beatles had recorded it at such a fast tempo in the interests of giving the track more commercial appeal.  Music critic Dave Marsh refuted this idea, saying: "'Help!' isn't a compromise; it's bursting with vitality … [Lennon] sounds triumphant, because he's found a group of kindred spirits who are offering the very spiritual assistance and emotional support for which he's begging. Paul's echoing harmonies, Ringo's jaunty drums, the boom of George's guitar speak to the heart of Lennon's passion, and though they cannot cure the wound, at least they add a note of reassurance that he's not alone with his pain

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