Beatles Album - “Help!” (1965)
“Help!” is The Beatles fifth official UK album and their second soundtrack album (see previous post on the Beatles movie “Help!”) Released on 6 August 1965, it was a mammoth hit, becoming the first album ever to debut at #1 in the UK. It spent 11 weeks at #1 in the US and even did well with music critics, who generally considered the earlier Beatles work to be rubbish.
The cover art was intended to show John, Paul, George and Ringo spelling out “HELP” in semaphores, but they ended up spelling “NUJV” on the UK album, and “NVUJ” on the US release.
“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.”
- photographer Robert Freeman
The UK album comprised 14 songs, half of which appeared in the film. Both the title track and “Ticket to Ride” were #1 hit singles in both the US and UK. The album contained two cover songs, two by George Harrison (after a “dry spell” of two albums), four by Paul McCartney, and six by John Lennon.
Track listing:
All tracks credited “Lennon/McCartney” except where indicated.
Side one
- “Help!” - 2:18
- “The Night Before” - 2:33
- “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” - 2:08
- “I Need You” (George Harrison) - 2:28
- “Another Girl” - 2:05
- “You’re Going to Lose That Girl” - 2:17
- “Ticket to Ride” - 3:10
Side two
- “Act Naturally” (Johnny Russell, Vonnie Morrison) - 2:29
- “It’s Only Love” - 1:54
- “You Like Me Too Much” (George Harrison) - 2:35
- “Tell Me What You See” - 2:36
- “I’ve Just Seen a Face” - 2:04
- “Yesterday” - 2:03
- “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” (Larry Williams) - 2:53
The US version contains only those songs which were in the film, plus instrumental pieces from the orchestral score, composed by Ken Thorne.
Tags: Beatles, blog, album, Help!, Ticket to Ride, Yesterday, semaphore, George Harrison
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