The Beatles
Help!

THE REVIEW

One morning Paul wakes up. He fumbles his way to the piano and lays his hands on the keys. He has this thing in mind… “Scrambled eggs… all my troubles seem so far away…” Paul closes the piano: scrambled eggs… what nonsense… But the melody doesn't go away… (he would later say that some things are born perfect like an egg: without a crack, without an imperfection…)

Well, we like to think that what is perhaps the most famous song in the world, “Yesterday”, was born just like that. A bit by chance. Sure, it was morning, sure, scrambled eggs were involved, but everything else was magic. Many legends have also flourished around this song, one of the most credited ones, even attributed to George Martin, claims that Paul composed the song in January 1964. If true, this absolute masterpiece would have been discarded from two albums to end up only at the last moment in a third one (this “Help!”). It is nonetheless true that McCartney couldn't convince himself that he was the real “father” of the song: he was playing it to everyone, incredulous that such a… perfect melody hadn't already been composed by someone else: he feared having copied it unknowingly.
In any case, the song was recorded on the evening of June 14, 1964, after Paul had spent the entire day straining his voice (another curious fact) on “I’m Down” (B-side of the “Help!” single). Among the many recorded versions, the one performed with a string quartet was finally chosen, not without great resistance from Paul. George Martin had in mind this string quartet thing from the very start, but Paul wasn’t interested: he didn’t want anything “like Mantovani”. In the end, he was convinced. Thank God.
But it must be said that Martin’s intuition wasn't the only one: in Beatles’ musical history, songs were certainly written by John, Paul, George, and (a few) by Ringo, but almost all the genius moves during arrangement are owed to the “Fifth Beatle”. It’s entirely his credit if often what was simply a “good song” became something immortal.

Returning to the album, “Help!” doesn’t only feature “Yesterday” (though for many that alone would be more than enough to justify its price): the album was the soundtrack of the Beatles' second film, but it had little to do with the film itself (to which the Beatles, incidentally, gave no creative contribution, lending practically only their presence), instead it was a collection of really good tracks. Some were excellent: obviously the mentioned “Yesterday” (not included in the film), “Help!” (which in John’s intentions, who wrote it, was supposed to be a ballad, but was rearranged in a fast pop style and worked out great), “Ticket to Ride” one of the best tracks from this period of the group. And then “You’ve got to hide away”, “The Night Before”, “I Need You”, “Act Naturally” and even the cover of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”… these were more than good tracks, but, compared to “Yesterday”....