Help! was the second Beatles movie, after A Hard Day’s Night, but the first one I saw. When I watched it in a movie theater, back in 1965, I loved it! Viewing it again in 2009 on TV, with the Daughter, it really didn’t hold up, but it was nevertheless enjoyable for the music, if nothing else. Here is the trailer to the 2007 video release. And here or here or here is the 90 minute film, in its entirety, or it was there, as of this posting.
But what I really wanted to talk about is the album. Or to be more precise, the albums. In Great Britain, and other civilised places in the world, when the LP came out in 1965, the playlist was based on the wishes of the group, and looked like this:
Side one
1. Help!
2. The Night Before
3. You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
4. I Need You
5. Another Girl
6. You’re Going to Lose That Girl
7. Ticket to Ride
Side two
1. Act Naturally
2. It’s Only Love
3. You Like Me Too Much
4. Tell Me What You See
5. I’ve Just Seen a Face
6. Yesterday
7. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
You can find the individual songs, I’m sure, on YouTube. Here is the whole album.
But in the United States, Help! really was a SOUNDTRACK album. So the songs on the first side of the UK LP were spread onto the two sides, augmented by movie instruments written or arranged by Ken Thorne.
Side one
1. Help! (preceded by a James Bondian instrumental intro)
2. The Night Before
3. From Me to You Fantasy (Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne)
4. You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
5. I Need You
6. In the Tyrol
Side two
1. Another Girl
2. Another Hard Day’s Night (Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne)
3. Ticket to Ride
4. Medley: The Bitter End/You Can’t Do That (Thorne/Lennon–McCartney; arranged by Thorne)
5. You’re Going to Lose That Girl
6. The Chase
American ears, at least those of a certain age, had gotten used to a particular order of their songs, and while, for most albums, one could take the CDs (based on the British order) and rearrange the songs to suit our aural needs, there were those five instrumentals on the US Help! album that for a long time weren’t digitally available elsewhere. It was ALMOST reason enough to buy the The Capitol Albums, Volume 2, which contains The Early Beatles, Beatles VI, the US version of Help! (with the instrumentals) and the US version of Rubber Soul.
What happened to the seven songs on the Side 2 of the UK album? You Like Me Too Much and Tell Me What You See, rejected for the movie, ended up on Beatles VI, as did Dizzy Miss Lizzie. I’ve Just Seen a Face and It’s Only Love start Sides 1 and 2, respectively of the US Rubber Soul album; the US and UK Rubber Soul album have 10 common songs, with the other four UK songs ending up on the US Yesterday and Today. Yesterday and Act Naturally from UK Help also ended up on Y&T, which didn’t exist in the UK.
From the Wikipedia: A few songs that were intended for the film were not used… because of The Beatles’ suggestions. Lennon and McCartney wrote If You’ve Got Trouble for Ringo Starr to sing, but the song was rejected…That Means a Lot was written for the film, but The Beatles were not satisfied with their performance of the song and they gave it to P.J. Proby, who released it as a single [The linked versions are from Beatles Anthology 2.]…Yes It Is ended up being released as the B-side of Ticket to Ride and was also on Beatles VI.
My Blog 
The cover of Help! was meant to be vexillogical, of course, with the Fab Four spelling out ‘Help’ in semaphore, but ended up spelling ‘Nujd’ (or something like it) for aesthetic purposes!
LikeLike
A perfect subject for ‘H’. A great band.
LikeLike
Lucky you got to see the movie in 1965…I was not allowed to see it nor any of Elvis’s movies. My Dad was extremely strict and one of those who believed that Elvis’s pelvis was pornographic. Of course you know what I did as soon as I left home – went and saw as many of those movies as possible! I do remember there was a concert at my high school and 4 guys got together to “be” The Beatles. They were fantastic – almost the real thing! lol
Leslie
abcw team
LikeLike
Hmmmm. So marketers were really the boss and not the Beatles.
LikeLike
EG Wow -In the US, yes. That’s why, in their touring days in the US, they’d make reference to the song “from the album before last”, because it was too complicated to keep track of!
LikeLike
This post was very nostalgic for me. As a matter of fact I’m singing the songs as I type this comment. Carver, ABC Wednesday Team
LikeLike
Great links – I can’t wait to sit and view/listen. I never knew the albums were different.
LikeLike
Well, I didn’t know that!
Jane x
LikeLike
Where do you find these tidbits of trivia! Interesting stuff.
LikeLike
When it comes to the Beatles, I know a LOT.
LikeLike
Roger, you are never heedless of the details!
HelenMac
ABCWednesdayTeam
LikeLike
This is all news to me Roger, – not the right generation for the Beatles, but I love their music now.
LikeLike
This sure is a collectors item.
LikeLike
Roger, I know all the Beatles albums so well, I still play the vinyl. A new Beatles album was an event calling for: A slumber party, comparing all our Beatle cards, reading the liner notes, and writing on the paper liner, if there was room in the margins!
Used to be, I could nail the first vocal note of the next CUT on the album before the song started, that’s how well-versed I was. Also, it was years before I became acquainted with not only the extra instrumental cuts, but songs that didn’t make the US versions, like “Dr. Robert,” which was probably thought too “druggy” for tender US ears!
Blast from the past. I’ve got a ticket to ride, and I DON’T CARE because he loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah… Have you heard the weird Martin remix of the Beatles tunes called Love? It mixes songs together in a kind of Jello mold of strangeness, yet rather intriguing… Amy
LikeLike
Well, have I HEARD LOVE? Heck I OWN LOVE! But Dr. Robert WAS cut from Revolver only so it could be placed on Yesterday and Today. The Americans never let a song go to waste. Which means, I know what my R post will be (yeah, yeah, yeah).
LikeLike
It took me a while to begin to pay attention to the Beatles. I was finished high school and into listening to folk music by the time they came to North America. I might have been the right generation for their music, but they were the wrong genre for me for quite a while. I wasn’t a hippie, and was too young to be a Beatnik, but I loved folk groups in the 60s.
Of course I like most Beatles music now, and appreciate their talent, but I never really made a study of them. My favorite album of theirs is the White Album, but my favorite song written by one of the Beatles is “Mull of Kintyre” written by Paul during his Wings era.
K
LikeLike
A great band and such fun music. Makes me feel young again.
LikeLike
i saw help when it first came out. i was so young that it scared me. i liked the beatles, and they were in so much trouble!! 😦
henderson hill
LikeLike
My mother was very fond of this group. I only knew few songs of them.
Rose, ABC Wednesday Team
LikeLike
Ahhh one of my favorite to rock to in the car with my 16 year old granddaughter! Have a great week. Blessings, Debbie
LikeLike
Thank you for this post. It is so nice to think of this iconic group the way they once were in their prime. Strange what the future held for the Beatles. Two had sad endings while two seem set to enjoy life to a great old age.
LikeLike
Nice to read an album list and know all the songs (doesn’t happen often nowadays). That was one of the album covers they used on the commemorative stamps a few years back, for some reason they did not use the white album, LOL.
LikeLike
Great music, a silly movie!
LikeLike
Another blast from the past! It was a silly movie, wasn’t it? But fun and different at the time it was made.
LikeLike
I like your use of H….cool post
LikeLike
Hi Roger, great post. So many great songs were written and performed by the Beatles. I don’t remember watching this movie so will have to check out your links. Thanks so much for sharing.
LikeLike
My hubby was a big fan of them, and I think he had collected their LPs for years till the player gone dead and it’s difficult to find the ‘needle’ to play. So he sold them off to another collector and slowly began to collect the CDs.
LikeLike
Fascinating – I had no idea about the different albums (and I still call them that even though albums haven’t been around for quite some time). I’m a big Beatles fan and never get tired of the songs. Fave on this album is probably “Ticket to Ride.”
Great post!
LikeLike
Great post on the four of them – thanks.
LikeLike
Roger, I bow to the scholarly level of your research. All one would want to know about Help! and more. How do you do it? I’m a huge Beatles fan and all the group’s albums are the soundtrack of my adolescence. Wow, time has flown along with this bird. Peace.
LikeLike
I didn’t know all of that, but, when they were famous, I was raising my little family, however, I did catch them on the Ed Sullivan Show when they arrived in US. Does that count? ; ))
LikeLike
I’m a fan of The Beetles band but never heard of that album. They rock! 🙂
LikeLike
Great band! great post 🙂
LikeLike
Hello Roger.
Not really my kind of music, but I am familiar with a few of the songs.
Thanks for sharing & visiting.
Your Heart
LikeLike
How is it possible that we (me and MOTH)slid over the Beatles era without being affected more?
We were so not ‘with it’. We must have been overwhelmed adjusting to a new country and yes, even a different culture. In addition we were up to our ears studying, and earning enough to keep food on the table. They were hectic days. We didn’t have a radio not even a car radio (no car for a long while)and certainly not a TV. We did learn to love their music later. For me, the King’s Singers CD of the Beatles music was masterful — only I did miss the Liverpool accents!
LikeLike
Hi Roger,
I will scream help if I get into trouble when I become an unwelcomed paparazzi. My girls friends say,” Ann, some day you will get into big trouble, taking photos of men.”
I can’t help it, I like men, men in uniform, men with their big machines. Most of my photos are day to day things, Men. Not tourists hehehhe.
LikeLike
LOVE the Beatles…thanks for the link to the album, am listening to You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away as I type! I haven’t seen the movie (was only one when it came out!) but my super cool aunt Phyllis had all the Beatles’ albums so I rocked along with her when I was growing up.
LikeLike
Awesome, awesome, awesome. My favourite band and my favourite album.
LikeLike
Great post- fantastic band!
LikeLike
Act Naturally is a cover, written and originally performed by Buck Owens, who deserves immortality for creating that song. Ringo does a great vocal with a sad whine. Buck Owens does it in straight country style, a matter of fact delivery sort of like a guy standing around bee essing with other guys. That original version, if you get into it, is mighty strong.
LikeLike
Can anyone tell me who it was that shot the photograph of The Beatles seen on this page with Ringo holding sunglasses and John in hat? It appears directly below the list of the album’s songs.
LikeLike
Brad – it’s from the US album, but without looking at the physical album, which I have at home, don’t know if it’s Robert Freeman, who did the cover, or someone else.
LikeLike
I realize I’m a year late in finding this page, so I hope someone still sees this post. I’m still trying to figure out where in the movie the instrumental “The Chase” is heard. Can anyone help? Thankx.
LikeLike