With a Little Help from My Friends
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "With a Little Help from My Friends" | ||
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| Song by The Beatles | ||
| Songwriter(s): John Lennon/Paul McCartney | ||
| From the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | ||
| Album released | 1967 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Song Length | 2:44 | |
| Record label | Parlophone | |
| Producer | George Martin | |
| Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Track Listing | ||
| Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Track 1) | With a Little Help from My Friends (Track 2) | Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Track 3) |
"With a Little Help from My Friends" (originally titled, A Little Help from My Friends) is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, released on the The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. The song was written for and sung by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
Lennon and McCartney insisted that Starr sing the song, including the high note at the end. Ringo Starr agreed on one condition: they must change the introduction to something other than "What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw ripe tomatoes at me?" His reason for the change was so that fans would not actually throw tomatoes at him should he perform it live. What raised his concerns was likely that in the early days, after George made a passing comment that he liked jelly babies, the group was pelted with them at all of their live performances.
The song reads like a conversation between the singer and a group of people. For example, "Would you believe in a love at first sight/Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time". In the preceding quotation from the lyrics, the other three Beatles sing the first line, with Starr answering in the following one.
The band finished recording the song the same day that they posed for the Sgt. Pepper album cover.
An early working title for the song was "Badfinger Boogie", which later became the inspiration for the name of the band Badfinger.
The song has been number one on the British singles charts three times; once when it was recorded by Joe Cocker in 1968, a second time when it was covered by Wet Wet Wet in 1988 and finally when it was sung by Sam and Mark in 2004. A second recording of Cocker singing the song was made at Woodstock in 1969 and can be seen in the documentary film about the concert, "3 Days of Peace and Music". The drummer on the 1968 Joe Cocker hit single version of the song was Procol Harum's B.J. Wilson. In 1976, Jeff Lynne of ELO recorded the song for the evanescent musical documentary All This and World War II.
It became well-known in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Cocker's cover version was the theme song for the television series, The Wonder Years. See also the album, With a Little Help from My Friends by Joe Cocker.
Billy Shears was Ringo Starr's alias on the Beatles 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This is amusing since Billy Shears is called "the singer", Ringo not being a major singer in the group. Billy Shears is mentioned in the title song and, implicitly, as the singer of the segued-into "With a Little Help from My Friends." The cheering between the songs was taken from a recording of The Beatles in concert. They had stopped touring by then.
The song is ranked #304 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
[edit] External links
- Page about B.J. Wilson and Joe Cocker's recording of the song [1]
| The Beatles |
|---|
| John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe |
| Management |
| Brian Epstein | Allen Klein | Apple Records |
| Production |
| George Martin | Geoff Emerick | Norman Smith | Phil Spector | Abbey Road Studios | Jeff Lynne |
| Official studio albums |
| Please Please Me (1963) | With the Beatles (1963) | A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Beatles for Sale (1964) | Help! (1965) | Rubber Soul (1965) | Revolver (1966) | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | The Beatles (The White Album) (1968) | Yellow Submarine (1969) | Abbey Road (1969) | Let It Be (1970) |
| Filmography |
| A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Help! (1965) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | Yellow Submarine (1968) | Let It Be (1970) |
| Related articles |
| Line-ups | Bootlegs | Lennon/McCartney | Anthology | Influence | The Quarrymen | London | Beatlemania | Fifth Beatle | Paul is dead | British Invasion | Apple Corps | Northern Songs | Yoko Ono |
| Preceded by: "Those Were The Days" by Mary Hopkin |
UK number one single November 6, 1968 (Joe Cocker version) |
Succeeded by: "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" by Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra |
| Preceded by: "Perfect" by Fairground Attraction |
UK number one single May 15, 1988 (Wet Wet Wet version) |
Succeeded by: "Doctorin' the Tardis" by The Timelords |
| Preceded by: "Take Me To The Clouds Above" by LMC vs U2 |
UK number one single February 15, 2004 (Sam and Mark version) |
Succeeded by: "Who's David?" by Busted |
