5 Best Songs From The Beatles’ ‘Help!’
The Beatles‘ Help! is one incredible soundtrack. It contains some of The Beatles’ greatest hits. In addition, it includes some obscure songs that deserve more attention.
5. ‘I Need You’
George Harrison didn’t write nearly as many songs for The Beatles as the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership did. However, the songs were often treasures. For example, “I Need You” is a beautiful song of loss and longing.
When he asks his former lover to remember how he feels about her, it’s quietly devastating. The beat is off-kilter in a way that expresses the sadness of the song. When George pursued his solo career, he focused more on existential, hippie themes. It would be interesting to know what he would have become if he went in the more pop direction of “I Need You.”
4. ‘Help!’
According to the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John discussed the mindset he was in when he wrote “Help!” “The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension,” he said. “I was eating and drinking like a pig and I was fat as a pig, dissatisfied with myself, and subconsciously I was crying for help.
“I think everything comes out in the songs, even Paul’s songs now, which are apparently about nothing,” he said. “The same way as handwriting analysis shows everything about yourself. Or Dylan, trying to hide in the subterfuge of clever hippie words, but it was always apparent—if you looked below the surface — what was being said. Resentfulness, or love, or hate — it’s apparent in all work. It’s just harder to see when it’s written in gobbledygook.”
3. ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discusses “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” “I think of this as totally by me,’ he said. “It was slightly country and western from my point of view.
“It was faster, though, it was a strange uptempo thing. I was quite pleased with it,” he added. “The lyric works: it keeps dragging you forward, it keeps pulling you to the next line, there’s an insistent quality to it that I liked.”
2. ‘Ticket to Ride’
The folky quality of “Ticket to Ride,” combined with its lovesick lyrics, makes it a bridge between The Beatles’ bubblegum era and their Rubber Soul era. The vocal harmonies are up there with The Beach Boys’ best work. On top of that, it’s a song about a train — and trains were a surprisingly good subject matter for classic rock songs. Songs like Elvis Presley’s “Mystery Train,” Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” and The Beatles’ own “One After 909” all gave locomotives a special place in music history.
1. ‘Yesterday’
The ballad to end all ballads, “Yesterday” is by far the most beloved song on The Beatles’ Help! It might be The Beatles’ most popular song or even the most popular classic rock song ever. That combination of guitar, strings, or plaintive vocals gels like nothing else.
It’s shocking to think Paul was so young when he wrote it because the song feels like it was written by someone with a lot of wisdom and experience. Perhaps that mix of youthfulness and world-weariness is part of the song’s appeal.
The Beatles’ Help! could have been a disposable soundtrack. Instead, it transcended the film.
