Side 1 is "Help!" Side 2 needs help.
Side 1 is the movie music and Side 2 is the you-name-it. The movie music has a purpose. But what can you say about Side 2 when it begins with Ringo's cover of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos rockabilly hit, "Act Naturally", then eventually gets to "Yesterday", the absolute ultimate schmaltz adult-pop classic for crooning Paul and soothing string quartet, then suddenly collides into John's disembodied larynx screaming "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"?
Side 2 simply doesn't work. But at least the UK version safely consolidates all the movie songs onto Side 1, unlike the USA version where the actual songs are messily scattered and diluted among a bunch of vacuous soundtrack instrumentals, such as for the nineteenth century Wagner opera "Lohengrin", of all things.
The only good thing about the UK version's Side 2 collection of songs is that they formed a reservoir for the two next US releases, "Rubber Soul" and "Yesterday and Today". They're all good songs. They just need to find good homes. Some of these songs point the ways to various future directions for the Beatles, when what they should do is capture the present. More about that later when we address those two albums.
But here's how to turn Side 2 into something that makes some sense. The key is to link the songs into compatible pairs. There's the great single "I Feel Fine" / "She's A Woman" which was released concurrently with their previous album, "Beatles for Sale". Then there is the B-Side of "Ticket to Ride", "Yes It Is". None of these songs were put on the album, but if not here, then where?
Then there are two songs which were included in the album and form a pair by virtue of their innocuousness, "You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See". If any two Beatles songs could be considered the last representatives of the innocent early era, it would be those two.
Finally, there are John's two great Larry Williams covers, "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy". Both were recorded in the same session and included in the American "Beatles VI" album, but they were probably considered too similar to both be included here. But why not? They're both great and represent the boy and girl sides of rock-crazed adolescence. Most importantly, what Side 2 of "Help!" needs more than anything is some consistency. These two, plus Paul's "I'm Down", are the final pages of the Beatles' crazy screaming phase.
In the conventional UK discography, "Help!" is the fifth Beatles album and a somewhat fuzzy transition between their early and middle periods, but as reorganized here, it is the sixth album and serves as a very clear and resounding closure to the early period.
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 Gonna Lose That Girl
7 - Ticket to Ride
8 - Yes It Is - replacing "Act Naturally"
9 - She's a Woman - replacing "It's Only Love"
10 - I Feel Fine - replacing "I've Just Seen a Face"
11 - You Like Me Too Much (George Harrison)
12 - Tell Me What You See
13 - Bad Boy (Larry Williams)
14 - Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Larry Williams) - from "Beatles VI"
(all songs Lennon / McCartney except as indicated)
I had a second thought about including "I'm Down" on my re-boot of the "Help!" album. It fits in musically with "Bad Boy" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", but it was recorded somewhat later, right at the point where the Beatles were going through their great transition to musical maturity. That helps explain why it never made it onto any UK or US album during the Beatles lifetime. Astonishingly, it was recorded on the same day as "Yesterday" - right afterwards. So it fits in better chronologically with the "Yesterday and Today" album. Moreover, this album already has 14 songs, which is considered the maximum.
ReplyDelete