(Personal
reflections inspired by Beatles songs)
Song: “Help!”
Album: Help!
Release Date: August 1965
The
Beatles 2nd movie Help!, released in 1965, was a dramatic
departure from their first film, A Hard Day’s Night (see Fab
Foundations # 7), which came out a year earlier. Gone are the screaming girls chasing the band
all over kingdom come, replaced by a real plot and evildoers out to get Ringo! Gone
are commuter trains, replaced by planes and exotic locales. Gone the black and
white footage, replaced by color. The one constant is the music, which for both
movies is interspersed throughout; the band taking breaks from the breakneck
action to perform on the spot at any given locale. Usually when this happened,
the Beatles would find themselves in the eye of a metaphorical hurricane - as
if picking up their instruments would suddenly insulate them from the madness
all around, if only for a spell.
I
had not watched Help! until this week. Not a minute of it. I’d seen plenty of still shots; the band
skiing in the Alps…. George with his Artful Dodger hat on. Beach scenes in the Bahamas. John, Paul,
George and Ringo around a piano in a pile of snow. I’d also read from a variety of sources that
the movie was ok, but not as spontaneous as A Hard Day’s Night (true)
and that the Beatles were too stoned during the making of Help! to chalk this film up as another notch on the
proverbial pole of their ongoing success story (I didn’t pick up on them being
stoned all that much, although I am surely not denying it).
All
in all, I enjoyed Help! and found myself chuckling quite often as I
watched. One constant I found pretty darn funny was how the four of them never
seem suspicious of the bad apples all around, even as the audience can see it
plain as day. They are always jovial and good natured, right up to the moment
when all hell breaks loose. This obliviousness is endearing in its trustfulness.
My take-home summary: If you want to see the origins of what would become The
Monkees TV series, or even the always-entertaining action scenes in the
60’s sitcom Batman, watch Help!
There
are 2 highlight songs on the Help! soundtrack/album, and they are both
John Lennon penned tunes: The title track ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q_ZzBGPdqE
) and “You’ve Got to Hide
Your Love Away”. These songs would find
Lennon - and in turn the band - in transition. There’s some real
honest-to-goodness depth here. Beatle John is announcing for the first time through
song that he’s done with the all-is-good all-the-time ruse and that he is ready
to show us his true colors. From a historical perspective, these two songs are
big-time musical declarations in the context of both the world of Pop and the
then fledgling counterculture (the latter of which Bob Dylan was already knee
deep in spawning, albeit with a relatively niche audience).
How
can I explain this another way? Ok, so imagine if you will, listening to the
song “Help!” for the first time in your formative years. This was the case for
me and many others who came of age in the mid-70s. Up until then I’d experienced what the
Beatles music could do to stimulate the notion of falling in love, having
listened primarily to their pre-Help! love songs to that point (on “The
Red Album”). This was certainly a big deal in and of itself. But suddenly, here
were lyrics like:
“When I was younger so
much younger than today
I never needed anybody’s
help in any way
But now these days are
gone and I’m not so self-assured
Now I find I’ve changed my mind; I’ve opened up the doors”
Combine
these with lyrics from “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” like:
“Everywhere people stare
Each and every day
I can hear them laugh at
me
And I hear them say
Hey, you’ve got to hide your love away”
….and
you’ve got a recipe for self-reflection, which is a quantum leap toward having
the potential for being more a part of the solution than part of the problem.
The
fact of the matter is that by most accounts, John Lennon was really crying out
for help in 1965. By that time, he was already feeling trapped by the Beatles.
Go figure! The band’s leader had it all, didn’t he? Fame, fortune, tapped-talent,
adulation. This is where that self-analysis kicks in. Lennon was realizing that
he was turning into someone he was not, and he hated it. In his song “Help!” he
reveals the willingness and courage to share this sentiment with his fans.
This
is the type of honesty that gave my generation a significant boost in taking
the Western world back toward reality. Much had been swept under the rug in
prior generations, which was somewhat understandable given what they had been
through with World Wars and the Great Depression. But there’s a time for
everything, and the 60s movement was a time to bring back the notion of facing
stark truths about who you really are, however challenging, daunting or
humbling those truths may be. Yes, it was a time for liberation.
From
1965 onward, the Beatles brought the Pop world into the liberation fold (“Pop”
here meaning mainstream youth music; a catchy wing of rock and roll). Beforehand
these ideals were strictly heard in the Beatnik/Folk music scene. Bob Dylan almost
singlehandedly pulled those cultural Folk norms into Rock and Roll by “going
electric” (starting with his big 1965 hit “Like A Rolling Stone”). With “Help!”
and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, it could be argued that John Lennon began
the process of exponentially expanding youth interest in those norms. Soon
enough the western world would be witness to a full-blown counterculture movement.
That’s a big deal.
This
transition in John Lennon’s music may be even more important than that,
however. Lennon’s liberation ‘buy in’, through those two solid new songs in
1965, could even be at the root of where the USA and much of the free world
stands today in terms of our two-sided polar political differences. Whatever
his intentions may have been, Lennon helped spur the ‘left’ side of the
spectrum to gain traction in our society (the counterculture was overwhelmingly
a left-leaning movement). Beforehand, left-ideals of liberation were closer to
a fringe element of society than a viable political choice, most tangible in
the aforementioned folk scene. Afterwards, the floodgates would open up. Kids
were tuning in. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Pete Townshend,
Jerry Garcia, Joni Mitchell, and many other musicians would all find a platform
they could build on.
Later
we would see it play out in film as well, with movies like The Graduate
(if there is ever a scene that spookily showcases a conservative’s expectations
of a young lad trying to find his way, it’s that “Plastics!” poolside
advice given by Mr. McGuire to young Benjamin, which accomplishes this with one
word). One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is another one. So too, Easy Rider,
among many others (I’m not much of a film buff but I’m sure others reading this
could tease more movies from that period). These were movies where young people were trying
to be themselves in the face of strong cultural forces of conformity.
Real-life
downer events, like Vietnam and the 3 big assassinations in the 60s (JFK, RFK
and MLK), did not dampen this counterculture movement. On the contrary, they
added fuel to the firestorm (by the way, Bob Dylan’s new release “Murder Most
Foul” is an uncanny encapsulation of all this, up to and including our current
COVID crisis).
I’m
of the belief that the pendulum has swung so much in the intervening 55 years, that
it’s the left that is of the majority today. Because of this, the right has to
be louder and more power-hungry than ever to maintain the status quo (more
recently you can add fake news and propaganda to the list).
“Help!”
and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” are in the upper echelon of all Beatles
songs. The latter was a tune inspired by Bob Dylan’s songwriting (John Lennon’s
own words). It captures the cultural shifts of those times in 2 short minutes.
When I first listened all those years ago, I did not do so as intently as I
should have and so I’d assumed for the longest time that the title is a
self-declaration. But that’s not what’s happening. The title is in reference to
others poking fun and ridiculing the song’s protagonist; others uttering those
words in the title. With this mental correction of mine, the song’s meaning would
finally fit right in with the changing winds of those times; the transition
from smothering your true emotions to setting them free.
For
the longest time, I’d thought that the Beatles ‘enlightenment’ transition
started with their album Rubber Soul, followed by Revolver. But I
had never really based that conclusion on the lyrics of songs on those albums. My
thinking was based more on the evolution of their sound. Now, having listened
closely to “Help!” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” I can see that the
transition really started on the album before Rubber Soul…. which again,
is Help!. At that stage (1965), it may have only been John Lennon
though. If so, the other Beatles would be along for the ride soon enough. With
this in mind, I will have to listen to those 2 follow-up albums with a more
finely-tuned ear now.
I’ve
got some homework to do.
- Pete
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