Follow along in the book HERE. Today's song is at #26 and is featured on pages 175-179.
"Help!"
Help!
1965
One of the ideas I keep turning over throughout this column is the conflict between what the artist intended with a song versus what the artist later claims was his intention. There are scenarios in which we, the audience, should call into question those later claims. "Help!" is a situation where we should just take the artist at his word. It's better for all involved.
It's better because it's scarier, to think that this was John Lennon literally calling out for help. He says as much in 1970, post-breakup: "I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n' roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help." What he's admitting to here is that 1965 John Lennon would have denied that "Help!" was a cry for help, and that only after some self-reflection was the truth revealed. That tracks. It's totally normal to not even realize how deep you are in the shit until years later. Humans are flawed in that most of us don't know ourselves nearly as well as we think.
All of this gives an otherwise fantastic pop song some real heft, some fucking darkness curling around the edges, which I personally think elevates the song. It's one thing for four mop tops to be singing an infectious hook as they get dolled up for a movie and shoot a scene in which they are running away from adoring female fans. It's another thing for such a pop song to act as the equivalent of one of those dreams where you're so afraid and you're screaming but no one can hear you no matter how loud you yell and shout about the monster that you can feel just off frame.
They say that asking for help is the first step on the road to recovery, and so it's important that John Lennon draws the distinction between his younger self—who did not feel like he needed help—and his then-current, older self—who felt like he needed help so badly that he subconsciously included the primal screen in a two-minute pop song for a movie. Regardless of whether he was at a place to acknowledge what he was doing, I'll go ahead and say that it was brave of Lennon to ask for help at that juncture of his fame.
It's been said that there are only four people on earth who could ever truly understand the madness that was involved in being a Beatle. What an utterly depressing statement, incredibly sad in the raw truth that that entails. John Lennon had only three people to whom he could relate to on that intimate level. What's sadder is that Lennon seems to have spent the better part of the late '60s pushing those three people away. He needed help and yet on some level he was afraid of asking that limited pool of friends for the help he needed. I mean, on a human level, I get it. It's not easy to be vulnerable, because it's not easy to realize that other people are just as vulnerable as you.
Ringo is the one who the "only four people on earth" quote is attributed to, but at the same time, it's pretty easy to imagine Ringo becoming really uncomfortable around John if John approaches him to tell him how depressed and utterly fucking alone he feels in being one the most famous people on the globe. Very complicated. It's easy to see why John Lennon comes off as so bitter and detached in all those Playboy interviews—ironic detachment is easier, and more often than not, way more comfortable a fit. It's a self-defense mechanism.
I guess if you step back, it's interesting to observe how easy the Beatles made it to think such dark thoughts about such a buoyant pop song. That's the brilliance of this band, and that's the engine that's going to keep a 100-part blog column humming. It's easy to say that this song is really fun. It's harder to say that this really fun song has some really depressing undertones. And it's hardest to examine the human condition, and to understand that there are those among us who are in tremendous pain, and that maybe we aren't staying still long enough to hear them.
BEATLES TRIVIA: Learning the inane factoid that "Help!" is the only Beatles song to feature the words "confidence," "insecure," and "self-assured" is itself pretty boring, but it did lead me down one minor rabbit hole. The book quotes John Lennon in saying that he used these lyrics to try to prove to a journalist named Maureen Cleave that not all Beatles songs consisted of just one-syllable words. Then I looked up Maureen Cleave, and it appears that she is the interviewer who quoted Lennon in saying that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus." Furthermore, Lennon was, at the time, claiming that Cleave was the subject of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (coming up at #42), i.e. Lennon was claiming that he was boning her. Lennon's friend, Pete Shotton, backed him up. Cleave denied it, and so did Lennon too, later, saying "I can't remember who it was about." Okay. Shotton's name comes up in the "Help!" write-up, saying that he felt that the line "I do appreciate you bein' 'round" was about him. After he was so willing to lie for his boy about laying pipe with the "bigger than Jesus" journalist, I'm not sure we can take his word for it.
BETTER BEATLE: Lennon claimed that "Help!" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were the only personal songs he ever wrote with the Beatles. I think "Help!" is better. It is said that "Help!" and "Nowhere Man" act as bookends to a depressing and dispiriting time in Lennon's life. I think "Help!" is better. Author Michael Lewis makes the really icky decision to put words in another dead man's mouth to say that "Kurt Cobain could have done John proud with a droning grunge rendition" of "Help!" I think "Serve the Servants" is better.
It's better because it's scarier, to think that this was John Lennon literally calling out for help. He says as much in 1970, post-breakup: "I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n' roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help." What he's admitting to here is that 1965 John Lennon would have denied that "Help!" was a cry for help, and that only after some self-reflection was the truth revealed. That tracks. It's totally normal to not even realize how deep you are in the shit until years later. Humans are flawed in that most of us don't know ourselves nearly as well as we think.
All of this gives an otherwise fantastic pop song some real heft, some fucking darkness curling around the edges, which I personally think elevates the song. It's one thing for four mop tops to be singing an infectious hook as they get dolled up for a movie and shoot a scene in which they are running away from adoring female fans. It's another thing for such a pop song to act as the equivalent of one of those dreams where you're so afraid and you're screaming but no one can hear you no matter how loud you yell and shout about the monster that you can feel just off frame.
They say that asking for help is the first step on the road to recovery, and so it's important that John Lennon draws the distinction between his younger self—who did not feel like he needed help—and his then-current, older self—who felt like he needed help so badly that he subconsciously included the primal screen in a two-minute pop song for a movie. Regardless of whether he was at a place to acknowledge what he was doing, I'll go ahead and say that it was brave of Lennon to ask for help at that juncture of his fame.
It's been said that there are only four people on earth who could ever truly understand the madness that was involved in being a Beatle. What an utterly depressing statement, incredibly sad in the raw truth that that entails. John Lennon had only three people to whom he could relate to on that intimate level. What's sadder is that Lennon seems to have spent the better part of the late '60s pushing those three people away. He needed help and yet on some level he was afraid of asking that limited pool of friends for the help he needed. I mean, on a human level, I get it. It's not easy to be vulnerable, because it's not easy to realize that other people are just as vulnerable as you.
Ringo is the one who the "only four people on earth" quote is attributed to, but at the same time, it's pretty easy to imagine Ringo becoming really uncomfortable around John if John approaches him to tell him how depressed and utterly fucking alone he feels in being one the most famous people on the globe. Very complicated. It's easy to see why John Lennon comes off as so bitter and detached in all those Playboy interviews—ironic detachment is easier, and more often than not, way more comfortable a fit. It's a self-defense mechanism.
I guess if you step back, it's interesting to observe how easy the Beatles made it to think such dark thoughts about such a buoyant pop song. That's the brilliance of this band, and that's the engine that's going to keep a 100-part blog column humming. It's easy to say that this song is really fun. It's harder to say that this really fun song has some really depressing undertones. And it's hardest to examine the human condition, and to understand that there are those among us who are in tremendous pain, and that maybe we aren't staying still long enough to hear them.
BEATLES TRIVIA: Learning the inane factoid that "Help!" is the only Beatles song to feature the words "confidence," "insecure," and "self-assured" is itself pretty boring, but it did lead me down one minor rabbit hole. The book quotes John Lennon in saying that he used these lyrics to try to prove to a journalist named Maureen Cleave that not all Beatles songs consisted of just one-syllable words. Then I looked up Maureen Cleave, and it appears that she is the interviewer who quoted Lennon in saying that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus." Furthermore, Lennon was, at the time, claiming that Cleave was the subject of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (coming up at #42), i.e. Lennon was claiming that he was boning her. Lennon's friend, Pete Shotton, backed him up. Cleave denied it, and so did Lennon too, later, saying "I can't remember who it was about." Okay. Shotton's name comes up in the "Help!" write-up, saying that he felt that the line "I do appreciate you bein' 'round" was about him. After he was so willing to lie for his boy about laying pipe with the "bigger than Jesus" journalist, I'm not sure we can take his word for it.
BETTER BEATLE: Lennon claimed that "Help!" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" were the only personal songs he ever wrote with the Beatles. I think "Help!" is better. It is said that "Help!" and "Nowhere Man" act as bookends to a depressing and dispiriting time in Lennon's life. I think "Help!" is better. Author Michael Lewis makes the really icky decision to put words in another dead man's mouth to say that "Kurt Cobain could have done John proud with a droning grunge rendition" of "Help!" I think "Serve the Servants" is better.
NEXT TIME: "Eleanor Rigby" at #27
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